Nothing speaks of home quite like language

Living in Beijing, I don't usually come into contact with the Cantonese language, except when a Hong Kong magazine is thrown in my lap at the nail salon or Canto-pop drifts into my open window from a karaoke-equipped restaurant downstairs. But recently, Cantonese has been all over the mainstream headlines.

In response to a proposal by the local committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference to reduce Cantonese television broadcasts in favor of Mandarin content, dialect speakers have organized protests in Guangdong and in Hong Kong. The CPPCC members' rationale is to make Guangdong more tourist-friendly to Mandarin savvy visitors who will descend on the city for the Asian Games in November.

As a native Mandarin speaker, I dare say the popularization of my language across the Chinese mainland, and in Hong Kong after 1997, has been a good thing for me.