Change brings culinary
revolution to Cuba
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2016
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An Indian woman sorts strands of drying seviiyan - thin vermicelli - which is used for the preparation of ‘sheerkhorma’, a traditional sweet dish prepared by Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan, at a food factory in Chennai
yesterday. Muslims around the world celebrate the month of Ramadan by abstaining from eating, drinking, and smoking as well as sexual activities from dawn to dusk. — AFP
Last words: Language of
China’s emperors in peril
I
School teacher Shi Junguang in a classroom showing a blackboard
that reads ‘Welcome to the Sanjiazi Manchu school’ and above the
blackboard, Chinese letters that reads ‘Study hard and every day you
will improve’ at the Sanjiazi Manchu school. — AFP photos
Students playing at the Sanjiazi Manchu school.
School teacher Shi Junguang (left) and his students during a class at
the Sanjiazi Manchu school.
School teacher Shi Junguang during a class at the Sanjiazi
Manchu school.
t was the language of China’s last imperial dynasty
which ruled a vast kingdom for nearly three centuries.
But 71-year-old Ji Jinlu is among only a handful of
native Manchu speakers left. Traders and farmers from
what are now the borders of China and Korea, the
Manchus took advantage of a crumbling Ming state and
swept south in the 1600s to establish their own Qing
Dynasty. Manchu became the court language, its angular, alphabetic script used in millions of documents produced by one of the world’s preeminent powers. Now
after centuries of decline followed by decades of repression, septuagenarian Ji is the youngest of some nine
mother-tongue speakers left in Sanjiazi village, one of
only two places in China where they can be found.
“We mostly speak Chinese these days-otherwise
young people don’t understand,” he said, in his sparselyfurnished hut beside cornfields, before launching into a
self-composed Manchu lullaby. Manchu is classed as
“critically endangered” by the United Nations’ cultural
organization UNESCO, which says that half of the more
than 6,000 languages spoken worldwide are threatened
with extinction, a major loss of knowledge and diversity
for humanity. But schemes to save Manchu are spreading as ethnic consciousness grows among the 10-million-strong minority.
The sign for the village primary school in Sanjiazi, in
the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, is in
Manchu’s vertical script, with posters in the language
written by pupils lining its corridors. Staring intently at
an electronic display, a class shouted the Manchu alphabet, followed by words for “umbrella” and “cow”. But
instruction was in Chinese, the everyday language of
school life, as were the bellowed lyrics of a song titled:
“We are the good Manchu children”. Teacher Shi
Junguang, who painstakingly learnt Manchu from older
residents and records native speakers before they pass
away, wore a red and turquoise robe with gold sleeves
reminiscent of the group’s traditional apparel. But, now,
he said, the Manchu “don’t really have any special ethnic
characteristics in food or dress.” “The main thing we have
here is the language.”
Barbarian Manchus
Under the Qing-or “pure” - dynasty, China saw massive territorial expansion before it weakened in the
19th century, assailed by corruption and pressure
from European and other foreign powers.
Discrimination against non-Manchu Chinese remained
rife and helped fuel a series of rebellions which finally
saw the dynasty overthrown in 1911. Republican
Ji Jinlu inside his house in Sanjiazi village.
leader Sun Yat-sen declared: “To restore the Chinese
nation, we must drive the barbarian Manchus back to
the Changbai Mountains,” their ancestral homeland.
Many remaining Manchus hid their language, a trend
which intensified under Communist leader Mao
Zedong, who launched campaigns to eradicate foreign and traditional culture.
At the height of Maoism, “No one spoke the language,” recalled Ji. “It was a time of destroying old culture. Who would dare?” Political controls relaxed in the
1980s following Mao’s death, and Yang Yuan, an ethnic
Manchu historian in Beijing, said: “Manchu consciousness has started re-emerging, and now it’s getting
stronger and stronger.” Several universities currently
offer Manchu courses, and enthusiasts in major cities
have formed clubs to study it. China has launched a
massive project to translate Qing documents into mod-
‘Our English is better’
Sanjiazi is “more of symbolic value as the last bastion
of Manchu speakers,” Elliot said. “If the effort is to revive
Manchu in a way that it would be used in everyday life, I
don’t see much chance of success.” Teacher Shi admitted
that his charges only have “some understanding” of the
language. Internet savvy young people have little use for
it and dream of leaving the remote settlement. Outside
school, a group of blue-uniformed children struggled to
remember the Manchu word for “goodbye”, one adding
in Chinese: “To be honest, our English is better.”
One of the few mother-tongue speakers, Meng
Xianren, 85, recalled a poverty-stricken youth punctuated by traditional Manchu pursuits, such as rabbit hunting using trained eagles. He repeated a Manchu phrase
meaning “where are you from?” to 14-year-old Li Kechao,
who hovered in his doorway. She did her best to parrot
Students of the Sanjiazi Manchu school during a
class in Sanjiazi village.
A student of the Sanjiazi Manchu school writting
Manchu during a class in Sanjiazi village.
ern Chinese, an effort aimed at promoting a view of the
dynasty as essentially Chinese. But the language is also
studied by academics abroad, including many in Japan
and the US.
Last year overseas historians were branded “splittists”
whose work “endangers Chinese unity” in the official
journal of the state-run Chinese Academy for Social
Sciences, in a sign of official fears over Qing history. But
Harvard University professor Mark Elliott said that teaching Manchu was considered less of a threat by the ruling
party than Tibetan or the language of the mainly Muslim
Uighur minority, as China’s northeastern provinces were
now “so firmly welded” into the country that accusations
of separatism were implausible. “That makes Manchu a
little bit safer,” he added.
the question back to the village elder, before admitting:
“I don’t understand.” Spitting on a stone floor, Meng
declared: “Manchus once ruled over the Han people. But
that time is over”. “We’ve become like them,” he added
with resignation. “There’s no difference.”—AFP
Meng Xianren, 84, inside the house of his friend Ji Jinlu
(not seen) in Sanjiazi village, Heilongjiang province.
A plate with the inscription that reads ‘The manchu language is a living Fossil’ in Chinese (down) and Manchu (up).