A: You run a podcast at MandMX.com that teaches listeners to speak and understand Shanghainese. Ming Xing, your co-host, covers the Shanghainese. What part of Shanghai is she from?
M: MX is from the Baoshan district in the Yuepu area. Pretty much at the end of Line 3 and Line 1. There is a Yuepu kind of dialect too. Heard that many times as we ate dinner and stuff. I remember at one point I tried to use some Yuepuhua I learned at a dinner in Shanghai with other Shanghainese. I always got a laugh in Yuepu so I tried it with these friends… not a sound… crickets… MX told me… that’s yuepuhua… nobody understands!

A:　What motivated you (Magnus) to taking on Shanghainese?
M:　Motivation is MX, my wife, MingXing. Every dinner party, every time we were out with her friends, my years and years of studying Chinese didn’t come in handy at all. Reminding me of when I went to Spain, years ago, having studied Spanish for years and landing in Barcelona finding out that they speak the Catalan dialect or something. Essentially I coudn’t understand a thing. Annoying! So from time to time I would repeat words here and there when I heard them and MX would teach me.

A: What about the podcast? Why did you decide to set that up?
M: I had been working at KAI EN English Language School in downtown Shanghai in the Podcasting studio so I had experience in what podcasting was, what it took to create one and what worked well. People asked me why did we do a Shanghainese podcast…why not a Chinese one? Our reply is, because there’s already too many Mandarin podcasts out there. So since MX is Shanghainese and I’m ever curious, we took the plunge. We’ve been learning so much together. MX learns how patient I am… not much, and I’m learning tons of great Shanghainese phrases. We got a couple books that we picked up at Shanghai Book city but we pretty much stick close to our own ideas.

A: What has been your (Magnus) greatest difficulty with Shanghainese?
M: Remembering it all has been the most difficult part. The way I look at is: Shanghainese is a dialect that people pick up from hearing it and speaking it. So, writing it down or doing homework or something just doesn’t work. I have to speak it, I have to hear it. It takes years and years. Another frustrating part is that I have to understand that I’ll probably never be fluent. But at least I have a bunch of phrases when used at the right time can bring down the house… you know?

A: What kind of feedback from listeners have you had regarding your Shanghainese podcasts?
MX: We’ve had a little bit of both kinds of feedback. Magnus tells me all the good ones but one interesting bit of feedback we had a while back was about my accent. Now originally, I am from a Northern suburb of Shanghai called Baoshan (宝山). In the area of Baoshan, which is quite large, my family has lived in the area of Yuepu (月浦) for almost 200 years. That area, like all areas of Shanghai has a kind of different sound, a different dialect, a different feel. Different to Shanghainese, but the same to ousiders. Magnus can’t tell the difference but we all can. At one time Magnus learned the word in Yuepuhua 月浦话 for “delicious” and when we were in downtown Shanghai with my non-Baoshan friends at dinner he said the word really loud thinking that everybody would break down in laughter. Nobody made a sound. I heard and understood perfectly but assured him that these people are not from Baoshan, they are Shanghainese. To this Magnus just looked at me completely confused. It was cute.

M: : I don’t remember that. But the thing that boggles my mind is that in different places in Shanghai, there is a different sound to their Shanghainese. So if you are from Baoshan or Xujiahui or Chuansha, all those people have a different sound. Even downtown Shanghai!!!

And then some more philosophical questions:

A: Ming Xin, what do you see as the role of Shanghainese in a city so heavily saturated with outsiders, both 外地人 and 外国人?
MX: I think Shanghainese is essential in Shanghai. It’s the language of my friends, colleagues, strangers, taxi drivers etc. Sometimes Magnus says it’s amazing how fast I go from Mandarin to Shanghainese to English and back again. I look at it as an identification of who I am. When you look at a Chinese person, sometimes you can’t really tell where they are from but when they speak… it’s obvious. That is one way Chinese identify ourselves. Similar I’m sure to most other English speaking countries like England and America.

A: What do you both see as the future of the language?
M: The Shanghainese will keep Shanghainese alive. There’s no question about that. I heard a while back they even came out with a Shanghainese dictionary. Crazy. Learning from MX, she’s taught me that there are phrases in Shanghainese that are different or non-existent in Mandarin. So to erase Shanghainese would be to erase that history and culture. Shanghainese will never die in my life time or my son’s life time! Does speaking Shanghainese hurt other Chinese who are from outside Shanghai? Sure, but don’t be angry at Shanghainese! That’s like getting angry at a turtle for having a house on his back. Be angry at your mom and dad for not originally living in Shanghai. We’re doing a Shanghainese podcast but we would love to see more of China’s dialect podcasts! How about a Xinjiang podcast or a Northern Dialect podcast or a Sichuan dialect podcast or a Fujianese podcast. How cool would that be?

MX: Yes, the Shanghainese dialect will never die. I love Shanghainese!