this one kills me. i was having a discussion the other day the 56 official ‘nationalities’. the involved myself and about half a dozen locals. cautiously as always (and as always needlessly so considering it’s on their ID cards) i asked the question of nationality.

me: so, uh, are you all han (汉)?
them: (in unison) of course!
me: why ‘of course’?
them: because we are changzhou natives (常州人)!
me: um, ok, but there are plenty of people who are hui (回) who are also changzhou natives.
them: no they are not from here. (after i press the issue:) well their grandparents or great-grandparents are probably from somewhere else so they’re not really changzhou natives.

much later…
me: how long have you lived in changzhou?
one of them: only since i was 5. my father is from wuxi and my mother is from nanjing.
me: mm…

so, just to clarify, being han but from elsewhere makes you from here in a very short amount of time since you’re born here or close or because you came young. being something other than han but a third generation native whose parents have lived nowhere else, you’re not a local. meanwhile i know a guy who was born and raised in xinjiang, but whose folks are from southern jiangsu, and who has since come this way for school. surprise surprise, despite the xinjiang registry, socially he’s considered a local. hell i’ve almost been here as long as he has.

i remember another conversation i had nearly a couple years ago in jordan. asked where i was from i said america. i was then asked how long i’d been in jordan, to which i answered a couple months. “no no,” he said, “then you’re from jordan. we say if you’ve been anywhere for more than 40 days, that’s where your’re from”. odd in itself, but certainly more friendly. he then, by the way, offered me his coffee, lacking a second cup.

aside from the ubiquitous and overt racism that is the bread and butter of so many here, it got me thinking of something. can uyghurs speak wu? the khutba (friday sermon) is done in mandarin, but with an obvious changzhou/wu accent. as i doubt very much the imam is a convert, i’d guess he’s therefore hui. meanwhile the head waiter at the best xinjiang restaurant in town speaks mandarin with a heavy uighur accent. i’d guess he’s a more recent transplant.

here’s the question i’m hoping you can answer. for those who are teachers, do you have students who are not han? if so, can they speak the local fangyan? i had a handful of hui students last year at the uni but it never occurred to me to ask if they could speak raw nanjing hua. for those of you who are not teachers but know more than a couple non-han living in east china (e.g. xuzhou), has it ever come up? i was told by a cabbie recently that i was the only foreigner he’s ever heard of, let alone met, who can struggle through changzhou dialect*. emphasis on struggle. so what about domestic outsiders?

a side note: it seems to me that if you’re going to be required to use a language that you might see as a result of cultural imperialism not in your favour, the local kazoo-gargling** would seem preferable, if less marketable. no one’s forcing you so speak wu. it’s a small rebellion that i probably only think of given my background and the fact that i didn’t grow up under their circumstances.

===
* for the record i’m totally sure i’m not the only one.
** by which i mean it sounds like the buzz of a moist ageing dremel grinder being applied to the hobby of choice of a 14-year-old HO-scale-savant asthmatic kid. i say this out of love.