The Worst Way to Teach Your Child to Care About Their Culture

Recently, a clip of a father berating his young son for not being able to speak Cantonese has been making rounds on the internet. Based on the video, both are native residents of Canton (Guangzhou), China—the origin of the Cantonese language, where Cantonese used to be the most commonly spoken language. A bit of context: I was born and raised there, and, at the time, it would have been unthinkable that a kid born in Canton couldn’t speak Cantonese. Unfortunately, due to social and political factors (that are too much to get into in this post), Cantonese is no longer commonly spoken there, especially among the younger generations. It’s been a widely discussed topic that Cantonese is dying in Canton. As a result, many Cantonese people, including parents, have started to take action to protect their cultural heritage, and in this case, the father chose to yell at his kid. The video is incredibly hard to watch, and it really shouldn’t have been shared for the world to see to begin with.…