Sunday afternoon saw about 2,000 people packing the up market Olympian City shopping mall in Kowloon, in which Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), the HKSAR's government broadcasting service, officially launched the month by presenting a feast of entertainment, with local Canto pop music and TV stars drawing in large excited crowds of young fans and families, who can help spread the message of the Putonghua month "Brush up your Putonghua and blaze new trails in your career."

The significance of the language can best be summed up by the RTHK's long-time Putonghua channel anchorwoman Wang Ying's remarks there that the Putonghua-speaking population is now bigger than that of the whole of Europe and the United States added together.

In fact, the use of Putonghua is so widespread that even foreigners, like the British, are ready to introduce the language into their secondary education as a second language. Richard Everitt, the Council's school links manager of the British Councilin Beijing recently said he anticipated the language to be offeredin new General Certificate for Secondary Education (GCSE) to be introduced to the UK in 2003.

Now five years after Hong Kong's return to the motherland, the HKSAR government has launched the Putonghua month for the first time here after it found last year's Putonghua Day was proven a success in promoting the language, Head of the Putonghua Channel, C. Yang, said.

One brand-new gimmick of the Putonghua month, with the wide support of the business community in Hong Kong, is the giving of discounts to members of the general public, who shop in the Putonghua language in designated shops in what is known as the month's Putonghua Shopping and Bargain Scheme from Sept. 15 to Oct.13. A total of 62 companies with about 1,000 branches across Hong Kong, including some gold and jewelry shops, Japanese restaurants, Italian restaurants, a Chinese emporium, cosmetics shops, music shops and 2,000 taxis will be giving discounts upon the producing of vouchers that can be obtained from a few newspapers here.

The message that the Hong Kong community should urgently need to master the language was highlighted by a team of renowned local pop stars dressed in a wide variety of occupational uniforms on the shopping mall piazza, to get across the message that Putonghua is important to all walks of life.

One might suppose that a fireman, who mainly distinguishes fires, would not need to know Putonghua. But Wong Hei, a famous TV actor who put on a fireman's gear, which he has probably got too used to when filming the recent TV soap opera about firemen's life,said that he did not share the same view.

"Because when we put out a fire, we could bump into people speaking different languages. Some of the people we meet could speak Putonghua. If we know the language, the rescue operation would be smoother," he said.

If that is the case for the firemen, how much more will this be for retailing and banking staff who meet and communicate with people on a daily basis, many of whom speak only Putonghua these days?

Raymond Or Ching Fai, the general manager of the HSBC, said in order for the bank to lend support to the 2002 Putonghua Month, the bank is requiring its frontline staff at all its branches in the Hong Kong SAR to greet its customers and bid them farewell in Putonghua during the Putonghua month. So customers should not be too surprised to hear the frontline staff repeating "Nin hao!" or "Xiexie! Zaijian!" starting from Monday.

"Also, we will be placing and giving out for free the Putonghua Handbook for the Service Industry at 31 designated branches in Hong Kong. And we hope our customers can also participate actively in speaking Putonghua during the Putonghua month," Or said.

Putonghua is becoming so increasingly popular here that the British Council in Hong Kong, which is supposed to just promote UK culture, has maintained steady resources for running Putonghua courses, while substantially cutting resources for the services offered by its cultural and arts unit and educational exchanges unit by the year's end.

Council sources told Xinhua Sunday that its library in Central is expected to be either wiped out completely or reduced to a tiny room by the Dec. 31 this year due to the lack of funding, while Putonghua lessons at various levels will continue to be run five days every week.

(People's Daily September 16, 2002)