上海方言(ShangHai Dialect)

　　　I give a presentation in a new class or when I meet some new friends in the university. However, I never think I am a qualified Shanghainese because I can‘t speak Shanghai dialect well though I have lived here for more than ten years. Certainly you will be curious of how this happened.

　　I am not a Shanghai native. I was born in Chengdu, Sichuan, where my parents went to decades ago because of the great revolution in the 1970s. I spent my first five years there.Then I moved to Hangzhou as my parents thought I should receive formal school education .The first day I spent in the primary school in Hangzhou didn‘t bring me any joy. On the contrary, I felt quite sad because many pupils laughed at my Sichuan dialect which was rarely heard there. I cried sadly at home that evening. How could a six-year-old child bear being laughed at by so many people? I only wished that I would never go to school again but of course my parents wouldn‘t approve. You can imagine how I felt when my parents held my hands and led me all the way to school. I felt lonely in the totally strange classroom with the totally strange people who, I thought ,were looking at me with ironic smiles on their faces. At that time the only thing I could do to avoid being laughed at was to learn Putonghua, which is used all over China and which could help save my dignity. Every child has got a talent for learning language, as it is known to all. So in approxi mately three months I could speak Putonghua as fluently as any other pupil in the class. Since then l never spoke a single word in Sichuan dialect. The experience taught me that speaking dialect

　　hardly had any good on me.Before I could find out whether abandoning a dialect so quickly was beneficial for me or not, my parents moved to Shanghai to work here. Undoubtedly, they brought me here,which meant I should again study in a new place. I was eight years old then. My parents brought me to school the next day we moved to Shanghai. Before I approached the door of the teacher‘s office I heard people in the office were talking with a dialect that I could not understand. Though the teachers talked to me kindly in Putonghua when they saw me tiptoeing into the office I was worried what I could do if I couldn‘t understand Shanghai dialect. Hardly had I made up my mind to study Shanghai dialect when I stepped into a small shop to buy a bottle of orange juice to relieve my thirsty caused by the anxiety of golng to the new school. I talked to the shop assistanct that I wanted a bottle of orange juice in Putonghua, but she didn‘t even lift her eyelids. She coldly squeezed two words between her tightly closed lips. Unfortunately, I couldn‘t catch what she said. So I asked again. Then maybe my words annoyed her because she suddenly shouted at me in Shanghai dialect. The only word I could understand was "Xiangwuning" which means the people from rural places. The despise word hurt me so deeply that I thought there was no good in speaking Shanghai dialect. I didn‘t like the Shanghai natives who were so impolite towards people from other cities. In the following years, when my father, who is a Shanghai native and can speak fluent Shanghai dialect, wanted to teach me Shanghai dialect, I always shook my head.

　　上海方言(ShangHai Dialect)

　　　I give a presentation in a new class or when I meet some new friends in the university. However, I never think I am a qualified Shanghainese because I can‘t speak Shanghai dialect well though I have lived here for more than ten years. Certainly you will be curious of how this happened.

　　I am not a Shanghai native. I was born in Chengdu, Sichuan, where my parents went to decades ago because of the great revolution in the 1970s. I spent my first five years there.Then I moved to Hangzhou as my parents thought I should receive formal school education .The first day I spent in the primary school in Hangzhou didn‘t bring me any joy. On the contrary, I felt quite sad because many pupils laughed at my Sichuan dialect which was rarely heard there. I cried sadly at home that evening. How could a six-year-old child bear being laughed at by so many people? I only wished that I would never go to school again but of course my parents wouldn‘t approve. You can imagine how I felt when my parents held my hands and led me all the way to school. I felt lonely in the totally strange classroom with the totally strange people who, I thought ,were looking at me with ironic smiles on their faces. At that time the only thing I could do to avoid being laughed at was to learn Putonghua, which is used all over China and which could help save my dignity. Every child has got a talent for learning language, as it is known to all. So in approxi mately three months I could speak Putonghua as fluently as any other pupil in the class. Since then l never spoke a single word in Sichuan dialect. The experience taught me that speaking dialect

　　hardly had any good on me.Before I could find out whether abandoning a dialect so quickly was beneficial for me or not, my parents moved to Shanghai to work here. Undoubtedly, they brought me here,which meant I should again study in a new place. I was eight years old then. My parents brought me to school the next day we moved to Shanghai. Before I approached the door of the teacher‘s office I heard people in the office were talking with a dialect that I could not understand. Though the teachers talked to me kindly in Putonghua when they saw me tiptoeing into the office I was worried what I could do if I couldn‘t understand Shanghai dialect. Hardly had I made up my mind to study Shanghai dialect when I stepped into a small shop to buy a bottle of orange juice to relieve my thirsty caused by the anxiety of golng to the new school. I talked to the shop assistanct that I wanted a bottle of orange juice in Putonghua, but she didn‘t even lift her eyelids. She coldly squeezed two words between her tightly closed lips. Unfortunately, I couldn‘t catch what she said. So I asked again. Then maybe my words annoyed her because she suddenly shouted at me in Shanghai dialect. The only word I could understand was "Xiangwuning" which means the people from rural places. The despise word hurt me so deeply that I thought there was no good in speaking Shanghai dialect. I didn‘t like the Shanghai natives who were so impolite towards people from other cities. In the following years, when my father, who is a Shanghai native and can speak fluent Shanghai dialect, wanted to teach me Shanghai dialect, I always shook my head.