Back in college, I fell in love with Chinese entertainment thanks to F4. What I didn't know was that, like the Filipino language, there are several Chinese dialects. F4 had its famous song "Can't Lose You" which was the opening song of Meteor Garden II. Then there was the F4 concert in Hong Kong to which I couldn't different Cantonese from Mandarin. It was until I started listening closely to music of the late Anita Mui (and I only appreciated her existence after she left us so soon), I could say Andy Lau played an impact (and I first saw him in Magic Kitchen with Jerry Yan), Jacky Cheung (who had a duet with Regine Velasquez-Alcasid), and Faye Wong. Interestingly, some Cantonese singers did a Mandarin cover for songs originally in their native language.
I remembered my habit of changing Cantonese audio to Mandarin. My aim back then was to well, learn, Mandarin, so that's what I did. Ironically, I still enjoyed Cantonese music after knowing that it was well, Cantonese. Speaking of Cantonese, I guess the Kamen Rider BLACK RX dub that I saw was in Cantonese and not in Mandarin. The same went for that Tokosou Exceedraft dub. If it was Star TV Hong Kong then it'd be in Cantonese. Soon, Hong Kong was turned over to China which might not be a good move. I feel the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might be committing acts of linguicide. I even feel that Chairman Mao Zedong tried to eliminate all other languages during the Cultural Revolution. It's a good thing he never got Taiwan or it might become his personal hacienda. It's unlike Taiwan where their shows mix both Taiwanese Mandarin and Taiwanese Hokkien in many of their shows. I did even enjoy watching La Grande Chaumierre Violette which was mostly spoken in Taiwanese Hokkien.
Netflix finally came. I wanted to watch more of Andy's films after Magic Kitchen. My "horror" was that there are hardly any Mandarin dubs. This reminds me that I could watch other films in other languages. I was able to appreciate mixing Hokkien and Mandarin in Taiwanese shows. What makes it so different if I'd watch a Cantonese language film? I was able to appreciate Anita's style of music (which was usually in Cantonese) better than Jolin Tsai's music (which I don't find that enjoyable). Watching more Hong Kong films in the original Cantonese would be better. It's the original art! A Filipino would probably say, "Jacky Cheung did a cover of Ariel Rivera's hit song!" By now, I think Filipinos who saw Future Cops would've known it was in Cantonese and not in Mandarin. Maybe, some Filipinos just don't care about the original voice if there are good subtitles. The same can go for other people who have very little language about the Chinese language.
What I can say is let's respect all dialects. Any form of language supremacist or snobbery is bad. True, there will be more Mandarin speakers than Hokkien speakers or Cantonese speakers. Still, hearing the films in their native Cantonese language can be a very rewarding experience. It's pretty much exposure to more of the Chinese language. It's no different than one hearing a Filipino song in Tagalog or Visayan. It's more than time to fight to preserve all kinds of dialect even if there's still a national language of unity.
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