Cantonese as a tool of employment -the happiness and pressure that associated with the learning process

Sitting together on the plastic tarpaulin with Yuni, Sutiyem and their friends, we found that they are friendly and eager to share their stories. They love playing jokes on each other, filling up the gathering with laughers and happy mood.

On the halfway of our visit, we asked them to express some phrases in Cantonese. As Yuni and Sutiyem have been working in Hong Kong for quite a while, they have no problem in developing simple conversation in Cantonese. They admitted that it is still hard for them to express themselves thoroughly in Cantonese sometimes. However, they don’t wish to advance their Cantonese standard because it is just used for daily communication with some of their host members basically. Sutiyem claimed, “Cantonese is not useful. It can be used in Hong Kong only. If I work in other countries in the future, Cantonese is no use.” All the other friends behind them nodded their heads. They also agreed that if they had the chance to learn, they would choose to improve their English standard as it is an important world language nowadays.

Sutiyem also shared her Cantonese learning experience. She had very little knowledge of Cantonese when she first came to Hong Kong. “My madam usually wrote me what I have to buy from the market on papers and let me bring along. I couldn’t remember any words not till the forth month I have stayed.” At home, Sutiyem will speak Cantonese with the grandmother. After days and days of practicing, she knows how to bargain the price in market now. From her proud facial expression, we are sure that she was learning happily. However, not all the domestic helpers are as lucky as Sutiyem.

In some host families, the domestic helpers are not only required to learn Cantonese, some of them even asked to learn Putonghua. Yuni is one of the examples, as her Sir can only speak Mandarin. When being asked if her learning experience was similar as Sutiyem, Yuni shook her head with a simper, “I was forced to remember a lot of Cantonese words every day by my Madam.” She recalled at the time she just arrived in Hong Kong, she knew limited Cantonese only. She remembered she needs to learn Cantonese and Mandarin simultaneously when she just came to the host. “It’s so hard to remember the words in such a short period of time. I used to scold by my madam every day. She was so demanding and just got mad with my bad memory.” When she was reminiscing the story, Yuni hid her grins which she always shows. We are sure that learning new languages must have given her so much pressure in the past.