Groups meet to preserve the rich heritage of Shanghai dialect

Ti Gong

Minhang District resident Shen Jian enjoys communicating in Shanghai dialect, his mother tongue.

“I was born in Shanghai. But I also spent my childhood in Sichuan Province, Nanjing and Beijing as my parents had a transferable job before moving back to Shanghai for my college degree,” said Shen.

“I picked up my mother tongue only after my return to the city in 1983.”

Shen, who is in his late 50s now, loves Shanghai for its styles and stylish male citizens, laokela (“老克勒”), who organize their businesses meticulously, comb their hair brightly, wipe their leather shoes daily, and iron every piece of their clothes neatly.

“My husband is one of those laokela, and my son is a xiaokela (“小克勒”), a young stylish Shanghai male citizen,” said Shen’s wife, Zhang Lujie, with a laugh.

“Every time my husband called to say that he was safe on a train, his sister and I would know almost instinctively that he was wiping clean his leather shoes.”

Shen and Zhang are now volunteers for a Shanghai dialect learning group in Minhang District. They meet at the corner of the Xiang Family Residence, which is the former home of Shanghai’s “Match King,” Xiang Zhenfang.

“The language speaking corner came up before the COVID-19 pandemic when Hu Weili, a cultural researcher and writer, narrated stories about Shanghai in local dialect,” said Wei Yuxuan, the chief organizer of the Shanghai dialect speaking corner.

In the old mansion, the group would sit in a circle, drink tea and “轧三胡,” or talk in a leisurely manner. Later, a committee in Jiangchuan Road Subdistrict, where the mansion is located, suggested that the language event be organized in an organized and effective manner.

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Accordingly, they recruited 20 “Shanghai dialect coaches” from a pool of applicants.

“The coaches spoke Shanghai dialect fluently and are more than willing to engage in some chatting,” Wei said.

They organized a reading club at the Grand NeoBay library in Jiangchuan Road Subdistrict and language talk with white-collar workers, scientists, overseas returned doctors and entrepreneurs from the Grand NeoBay sci-tech park, who have all shown a willingness to become more involved in the group’s activities.

“I’ve lived in Shanghai for almost two decades. I come from the northeast Chinese province of Jilin,” said Wei, who now speaks decent Shanghai dialect. “My knack for speaking Shanghai dialect loudly bore me well.”

“For example, a local resident might inquire ‘nong fan qiele fa?’ (‘侬饭吃了伐?’or ‘Did you have your lunch?’) To improve my speaking skills, I would question her back, ‘qiegule, nong fan qiele fa?’ (‘吃过了，侬饭吃了伐?’or ‘I did; how about you?’)” Wei explained.

Cultural medium

Shanghai dialect, according to Professor Hu, a keen observer of Shanghai society and culture, is a cultural medium through which we can acquire insight into its customs, social norms and regional philosophy.

Citing “Blossoms” (《繁花》), a novel written by Shanghai-native writer Jin Yucheng, Hu said there are more than 1,000 instances where the writer used the Shanghai phrase foxiang (“不响”), meaning “a person suddenly stopped talking.”

“Foxiang does not imply that a Shanghainese is in total agreement with you. They may have reservations about your assertion, but they do not oppose you right in front of you,” the researcher and writer said.

“Also, we almost never have a phrase in Shanghai dialect that is equivalent to the Mandarin phrase meinu (‘美女’), or a stunning beauty or a belle. We simply say, ‘That woman is very seyi (‘适宜’), which means ‘I feel at ease with that woman,’ — the highest form of compliment to an opposite sex.”

Some terms are derived from foreign languages.

According to Hu, laohuchuang (“老虎窗”), literally meaning “tiger window” in Shanghai dialect, has nothing to do with a tiger but means “rooftop window,” derived from its English pronunciation.

“Shanghai was dubbed the ‘Oriental Paris’ by Westerners in the early 1930s. A film that premiered in the United States might be shown in Shanghai the next day. It has never been cut off from the rest of the world,” Hu explained. “The dialect absorbs elements from the rest of the country and the world.”

Meanwhile, the Shanghai dialect’s pronunciations are heavily impacted by the neighboring Suzhou and Ningbo dialects, as well as influenced by batches of immigrants coming into the city over time, Hu added.

Zhang, who relocated from downtown Shanghai to Minhang with her parents when she was only 6 months old, always speaks in the Shanghai dialect.

She recalled how she and her classmates, as well as her parents and the parents of her classmates, lived in the same block together near the Xiang Family Residence. They conversed in Shanghai dialect as the girls did their homework and played skipping after school.

She was excited to know there’s a Shanghai dialect corner at the Xiang Family Residence and signed up to become a volunteer. She was gratitude for Wei’s initiation of the corner where she is happy to promote the native dialect in her hometown in Minhang.

Wei, who hails from northeast China but speaks Shanghai dialect fluently, has also found her niche in Minhang.

Besides a promoter of the local dialect, she is an intangible cultural inheritor of Shanghai-style ikebana and hosts the flower arrangement classes at the Xiang Family Residence.

“My hometown, Jilin, is known for its fertile agriculture. I miss its orchards and nature the most, because I grew up pruning branches in my family’s orchard.

“In Shanghai, I found a way to be closer to nature by becoming a florist with a pair of scissors,” she said while arranging branches of hoary willow and glory lily in winter.

Ti Gong