Putonghua push puts local dialect in spotlight

The government's decision to raise the number of people who speak the country's official, standardized language has drawn attention to a small county in North China, as Zhang Yu reports from Chengde, Hebei province.

About 1 billion people in China speak Putonghua, the national, standardized form of Mandarin, as their mother tongue. Although those people account for more than 70 percent of the population, the government has decided that the number will be raised to 80 percent by 2020.

A blueprint released last month detailed the changes, including the requirement that some professionals, such as teachers, will have to pass oral tests in Putonghua before they can be appointed to a post.