Hohhot

Hohhot is where I grew up. It is an interesting city, with multiple cultures, complicated linguistic situation, and social conflicts between different speech communities. Here, I would like to present Hohhot with some anecdotal stories.

1.

- "Where do you come from?"

- "Hohhot"

- "Hohhot! So... Mongolia, right? Are you Mongol? Do you speak Mongolian? Do you live in

yurts? Do you ride horses to school? ..."

- "No, no, no, no and no..."

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This is a typical conversation you would hear when I mention Hohhot to people from other parts of China. This stereotype thing comes from the fact that Hohhot is the capital city of Inner Mongolia (a province at the border area of China and Mongolia). The truth is that only about 11% of the population in Hohhot are Mongols, and only about 8% of these 11% Mongols can speak Mongolian. Hohhot looks exactly like other common Chinese cities you can think of.

Despite this, Hohhot is indeed a multi-cultural city with different ethnic groups. Apart from Mongols, more than 80% of the population are Han Chinese, and other minorities include Hui (Muslim), Manchu, Dauer, Korean, etc.

2.

- A man from Hohhot went to Beijing. He got into a taxi and said to the driver, "Take me to 'gang chang'(the square)." The driver took him to the steel factory.

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You might find this story weird. But this would be a joke if you speak Jin dialect. In Jin, the Mandarin vowel /aŋ/ and /uaŋ/ are merged, so the word for 'the steel factory' (gang chang) and the word for 'the square' (guang chang) sound exactly the same. That's why the Beijing taxi driver misunderstood this Hohhot Jin speaker.

So in Hohhot, the local dialect is a sub-branch of Jin dialect. Mandarin speakers would find it a bit difficult when they first hear this dialect, but they would be able to understand it after several months' exposure.

Before the 1950s, almost all people in Hohhot spoke Jin, even the Mongols had gradually shifted to use Jin. But this linguistic situation changed after 1950s when a large amount of migrants arrived and the Putonghua (standard Mandarin) campaign started.

3.

- "I'd like you to be nice, gentle, good-looking. BUT, if you speak Jin dialect, don't contact me!"

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This is an advertisement posted by a young man looking for a girlfriend in Hohhot local forum. Jin dialect and Jin dialect speakers are strongly stigmatised by many people in Hohhot. Why?

In the 1950s and 1960s, about 1.4 million migrants moved to urban Hohhot because of government policy. Most of the new migrants were from more developed areas, and they were either well-educated university graduates or skilful technicians. They came to work in the government, universities, or big state-owned factories. On the contrary, the local Jin speakers usually ran small businesses, working as street vendors, handicraft workers, or in collective-owned factories. Thus, the migrant community is usually related to modern good life, while the local people are more perceived to be backward, feudal.

4.

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This is one of a series of cartoon pictures designed by a fine art university student as his graduation project at a university in Hohhot. He uses these hilarious cartoon images to illustrate some unique vocabulary in Jin dialect. This picture presents the word 'bo lang' (a stick), and he also gives the explanation and example of this word as in a dictionary.

In Hohhot, these dialect words are not only used by the Jin speakers, but also by the migrants. That is to say, with long-term contact between Jin speakers and Mandarin speakers, the migrant community began to adopt many linguistic features from the local Jin dialect. Younger residents in Hohhot call this new variety "Hu Pu", which means Hohhot Mandarin.

5.

Here's more about Hohhot if you are interested.

**My friend Sarala Puthuval is doing research on language shift in the Mongolian community in

Hohhot.

Sarala Puthuval, PhD student at University of Washington

**The best anthropological work introducing Hohhot to western audience. (Thanks to Sarala's

recommendation)

Jankowiak, W. (1993). Sex, death, and hierarchy in a Chinese city: An anthropological account. Columbia University Press.

**A blog for foreigners in Hohhot, looking at Hohhot from an outsider's eyes.

http://hohhotinfo.com/

#Hohhot #Jindialect