The huge success of the hit television series Blossoms Shanghai has rekindled enthusiasm for the city’s dialect and sparked calls for the patois of other regions of China to be used in mainland TV dramas.
Directed by the internationally renowned Hong Kong director, Wong Kar-wai, the series tells the story of a self-made millionaire in 1990s Shanghai as China’s economy went into overdrive.
It was adapted from the award-winning novel of the same title by Shanghai author Jin Yucheng, and stars a group of nationally famous Shanghainese actors, including Hu Ge, Ma Yili, and Tiffany Tang Yan.
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The scale of its popularity has led some people on mainland social media to joke that it was the Shanghai equivalent of the Harry Potter series, which had an all-British cast.
Indeed, it has led many fans to divide Shanghainese actors into two groups, those who appear in the series and those who do not.
The series was made in the Shanghainese dialect, a variety of Wu Chinese, and later dubbed into Mandarin, both have aired online.
Many, including people from other parts of China, prefer the Shanghainese version, saying that the dialect offers an “original and realistic flavour” of the city.
As the series received critical acclaim, it also sparked a Shanghainese-speaking trend, with locals proudly making social media videos using the dialect, and teaching those keen to learn it.
Some of the Shanghainese phrases that went viral include be biang, which means “have fun”, dia, a one-syllable word used when giving people the highest compliment, plus yaso, or “godfather”.
In the series, yaso refers to the business veteran behind the success of lead character Boss Bao, played by 90-year-old You Benchang.
A Chinese linguist specialising in Shanghainese studies, professor of Shanghai University, Qian Nairong, told The Beijing News that language is the most direct way to experience a city’s culture and life.
He added that he hoped Blossoms Shanghai would encourage more people to pick up the dialect and pass it on to the next generation.
China is a multilingual nation with seven dialect groups and more than 80 sub-dialects and ethnic minority languages.
Today, more than 80 per cent of the Chinese population speak Mandarin, up from 70 per cent a decade ago, and 25 of the country’s spoken languages and dialects are “critically endangered”, according to Unesco.
The Chinese government requires Mandarin education at schools nationwide and has been limiting the use of dialects on TV, insisting on the use of standard Mandarin Chinese for all nationally aired shows.
The ban caused a Shanghainese TV programme, Shanghai Dialect Talk, to be cancelled in 2014.
The nostalgia for Shanghainese evoked by Blossoms Shanghai chimes with a growing trend of sharing clips from old TV series made in various dialects on social media.
Many people are calling for the reinvigoration of the use of dialects in TV programmes.
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