There is a common myth perpetrated about China — that everyone speaks “Chinese”.

There is in fact no single “Chinese” language.

There is an official language, Mandarin, taught at schools and used on the airwaves, yet even the government admits that only about half the country’s 1.3 billion population speak it fluently.

But there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other Chinese languages spoken in the country. The government calls them dialects, but linguistically the likes of Cantonese, Hokkien and Shanghainese are as distinct and mutually unintelligable as French, Spanish, German and English.

Linguists consider them separate languages, though many others are genuinely dialects. Mandarin has been promoted as a single unifying tongue by the Communists, and the Nationalists before them, as otherwise somebody from Guangzhou would find it impossible to speak to somebody from Beijing or Shanghai.

That makes total sense. But Chinese “dialects” today are increasingly marginalised, which is, I think, a great loss for Chinese people and their centuries-old culture, both in China and abroad.

I love going to Singapore and hearing people chatting away in Hokkien, Teochiu, Hakka, Hainanese and Cantonese, even if my knowledge of these languages is limited to being able to say “pai sei” (”I’m sorry”) and “ti a bo” (”I don’t understand”) in Hokkien — phrases I picked up from my time in Taiwan, where the language is normally known as Taiwanese.

I’m sad to hear more and more young Singaporeans speaking to each other in Mandarin, and more than one Singaporean friend has told me that they think they’ll be the last generation who can speak so-called dialects.

In China, there is now a recognition that dialects form an integral part of the nation’s fabric, though there are no moves, as far as I know, to introduce teaching in dialects at school, as happens to a limited degree now in Taiwan.

Tang dynasty poetry, taught to every Chinese schoolchild and extremely beautiful, sounds a lot better read out in Cantonese or Hokkien than Mandarin.

At the time they were written, the court language more closely resembled these southern Chinese tongues. Today there is only very limited official support in China for dialects: a few radio shows in Shanghainese or Cantonese, and the odd academic trying to protect dialects in danger of dying out.

Yet two places in the Chinese world buck this trend — Hong Kong and Taiwan. In Hong Kong, Cantonese is still very much alive and kicking. The more racy newspapers fill their columns with stories written in colloquial Cantonese, using Chinese characters which only exist in Cantonese, and make no sense to a Mandarin speaker like myself. I now have a Cantonese dictionary to try and make sense of some of these words.

And in Taiwan, where the Nationalist government once ruthlessly supressed Taiwanese and Hakka in a bid to get everyone to speak Mandarin, Taiwanese is once more very much back in the limelight, thanks to the Democratic Progressive Party of President Chen Shui-bian, which has tried to promote the island’s native culture. Taiwanese words are liberally peppered into everyday speech, almost as a fashion statement, and appear in newspapers. I learnt a new expression in March when in Taipei to cover the presidential election. “Ao bo”, meaning “dirty tricks”.

Now that I have mastered Mandarin (I would never dare call myself fluent as I’m not a native speaker), I’d like to learn another Chinese language. It would either be Cantonese or Hokkien — both have some great swear words. Yet the one thing that rather daunts me is the number of tones in these two languages.

Mandarin has just four, and it took me rather a long time just to master even them. Hokkien has 5, 6, 7 or 8, depending on how you classify them and in what part of the Hokkien-speaking world you are in. Cantonese has around 9. Again, there is debate on that. I think I’ll be sticking with Mandarin in the short term.

Picture of a sign promoting the use of Mandarin by Alfred Cheng Jin

I love to shop – I’m not afraid to admit it. And I passionately believe you can never have too many T-shirts, shoes or bags (and that you should never underestimate the power of a good moisturiser either).

One of the great joys of living in China, and especially in Beijing, is the shopping.

Sure, it’s not as sophisticated as Hong Kong or as off-beat as Taipei, and very few places in Asia can trump Bangkok, but China’s smokey capital has its charms when it comes to a bit of retail therapy.

So here is a personal list of my favourite top 5 shopping destinations in Beijing, in reverse order to keep everyone in suspense.  

5) Spin. Pottery’s not sexy, right? Wrong. The master craftmen (and women) behind this store sure know how to whip up a storm with the clay. Simple, clean and understated is the order of the day. And it’s not too expensive. Word on the street is a certain well-kown European fashion designer liked the shop so much he snapped up 20,000 sets of plates during a winter swirl through the city. 

4) The cashmere sweater place. Nobody really seems to know what it’s called, but it’s quite well located near the new Dengshikou subway stop. Simply take in a jumper, hat or other top you want copied, pick a colour, and they will produce a copy for you in softest cashmere. It’s very adictive. “I can’t wear anything that’s not cashmere these days,” another cashmere junkie remarked to me recently. And it’s quite understandable. Not cheap, but then luxury never is.

3) This recommendation isn’t one shop, but the part of Beijing’s famous Panjiayuan, or antique market, where they sell old books. I can spend hours here, picking out hidden little gems printed in China’s Communist heyday. This includes glossy hardback coffee table books, sometimes with English text, on China’s provinces. The two books I’m most proud of finding, and have given me the most pleasure, are a book on the remote and rather mysterious province of Qinghai, and another entitled “New China Builds”, full of the brutalist and minimalist architecture that marked the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.  

2) I don’t know what this store is called either. All I know is that it is at the Nali mall in Sanlitun, next to Alameda restaurant. But what I do know is they sell the most gorgeous belts covered with traditional Chinese floral and animal designs. My mother disapproves, so obviously I wear the belts all the time. But you can also get funky scarves, socks and bags.

1) Plastered. As the owner of a fine collection of T-shirts (I think I have close to 200 now) I’m somewhat obsessed by this place. Retro-Communist-cool designs from the 1970s and 1980s reinterpreted for the new millenium, and printed on T-shirts. My own little piece of heaven. According to the owner, I am one of only two people who bought the most unpopular design ever — the word “Sharon” printed in black felt onto a pink T-shirt. And now I can’t find it, it having been swallowed into my closet.

Pictures by Claro Cortes IV