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Q: Anyone else find Beijing accent obnoxious?
It's easy to recognize - the "er" accent on the words - but on top of that almost every Beijinger I have come across in person comes across as obnoxious and arrogant. You can hear this in the volume of the speech, the content of the speech, the way it is pronounced. I would rather hear fingernails against a chalkboard.
So have you noticed this too? Part of the reason may be because I've only been in the south of China so the only Beijingers I've met are travelling or on business, maybe this gives them the arrogant mentality while working-class Beijingers are more normal. It is not confidence, it is flat-out arrogance. Know what I am referring to?
Then you haven't been to the northeast, where the accent is far worse. Actually the Beijing accent is how Mandarin is supposed to be spoken. Just ask any southerner to say "40 is not 44, and 44 is not 14".
You cannot judge the arrogance of people by their accent.
sam239:
You can hear their attitudes in how they talk. This applies to basically every BJer I've come across in southern provinces Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangzhou. Maybe it is different with actual locals in the North.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is arrogant. Then again, before saying this, I've always thought that the British accent sounded extremely arrogant. It's all about what you're used to hearing I guess. So just watch more tv shows and get used to it?
sam239:
No it is very consistent across the places I've been in southern China. People with Beijing accents are loud-mouthed and you can hear the arrogance in the voice. Not confidence, arrogance.
In fact the only time I have heard the Beijing accent where it did not have the arrogant ring is on Pimsleur Mandarin, they have Beijing speakers on there who sound alright. I'm a pretty good judge of character and have found something similar with people from LA and NYC. They tend to think the world is centered around them, moreso with BJers due to nationalistic brainwashing.
Englteachted:
The British accent thing comes from American TV and films.
^^^agreed if by British accent you mean Londoners. Usually they are stuck up as well and you can here in the pronunciation. Midlanders and some other ones strike me as down-to-earth. I guess it is the same in every country, people in "global" cities tend to become stuck-up. Just got annoyed with some loud-mouthed Beijingers in the cafe I was working in so thought I'd mention it.
icnif77:
Pay for your own broadband! What's the matter with you?
You can't use cafes free wi-fi (like me
) all the time!
estern:
Well if your talking about global cities creating stuck up people, look no further than Honk Kong. Awesome city, but not awesome people. Especially when they travel to the mainland.
Shining_brow:
I suspect you haven't heard too many Londoners... certainly not from those who aren't in the top 5% of the wealth bracket there. Those on the poor end of the scale sound vastly different to what most people think of as 'English' (RP), ie, BBC English.
Beijinghua is NOT Putonghua - although similar.
HK'ers would look down on mainlanders.... HK is what a civilisation should be!!! So, to come to the mainland, and seeing how people act (rudely) and what they do (disgustingly), and yet still be considered the same people/nation - yeah, II' do the same thing!
No it's fine with me. North people are more friendly to strangers and men are more manly.
sam239:
Maybe it is just the travelling ones, I guess they tend to be the bosses and what-not. I find day-to-day locals by-and-large quite friendly but have never been to the North.
I agree with you, I have lived in the South for 6 years and I find the Beijing accent bizarre. Whenever I go there, I cant understand them and they cant understand me. However I think its just a matter of what you are used to and I don't think you can call someone arrogant just from their accent.
"Well if your talking about global cities creating stuck up people, look no further than Honk Kong. Awesome city, but not awesome people."
I usually find them friendly.
"However I think its just a matter of what you are used to and I don't think you can call someone arrogant just from their accent."
It's not the accent, it's the way they're talking. I guess you could say: the accent reveals where they're from, the arrogance sort of oozes out. I first noticed this well over a year ago and it's a clear pattern. Maybe day-to-day locals in BJ are friendly though, I haven't been.
xinyuren:
First you should qualify yourself by telling us how long you've lived in China and how proficient are you at mandarin. You say you can tell arrogance on a Chinese speaker by "way" they talk? Without even having been to Beijing? That's rather presumptuous to think you can judge a foreign speaker only by how they say words. Arrogance comes off in facial expressions, body language and sarcasm. Funny you didn't mention any of these things. To think you can judge someone (no less a someone speaking a language you are not at home with) based on how they speak is ignorant. You have a picture of arrogance in your head. Beijing and British accents match that picture. But you are not a mind reader and it is not good indication of that person's character. As mentioned by someone before, Bejing hua is proper Mandarin. The English speak proper English. You may not like it, but it is what it is and you need to find the real definition for arrogant. Hilarious.
Shining_brow:
As I just wrote in a comment above, Beijinghua is NOT Putonghua. There are differences (although, BJH is probably the closest to a 'native' putonghua).
Have you spoken to English people? Like in most places, many different accents and dialects. And, like in China, each of them developed in some ways fairly independently, and around the same time (unlike in China). So, which is the 'real' English?? Lancashire? Yorkshire? London? Sussex? Wessex? etc etc....
Obnoxious is not the same as arrogant. You need to pick up a dictionary and stop overusing the word arrogant. While the accent may sound obnoxious to you, it has no bearing on their character. This is so ridiculous. Like saying people with an American southern accent are stupid because of the way they say their y's. If a Chinese said this, you would quickly point out how ignorant that was.
"Like saying people with an American southern accent are stupid because of the way they say their y's."
No, the reason I point out the arrogance is not because of the "er's", the "er's" just say where they come from, and the comparison would be more apt to say that, say, NYCers or Toronto people are overly stuck-up based on observing the way they talk and walk (which I also happen to think!). The underlying tone and pronunciation reveals the arrogance. Difficult to put down on paper but the thought has occurred to me over the past year numerous times over the past year, hence the post. Have encountered it a bit with Shanghai people but they don't have a clear accent to differentiate them. You're welcome to call it "ignorant" to point out that the tone etc. someone uses reveals some underlying arrogance Xinyuren, but I ask you to fully examine what I am saying, evidently something got under your skin. Local friends have also confirmed that BJers seem to have a deep-seated arrogance - not healthy confidence, but arrogance. Haven't encountered the same with Wuhan people, Jiangxi people, or Guangdong people, 3 places whose people generally seem down-to-earth.
xinyuren:
and which of the 4 tones would that be? Chinese is a tonal language. Your understanding of proper Mandarin is hardly proficient enough to judge. I am fully examining what you are saying. You have limited knowledge and experience. The fact that you think Shanghai people have no accent is proof. If you judge whole city's people by the tone they use, You are the one who has some kind of arrogance. Jiangxi people seem to shout all the time. Should I assume that Jiangxi people are a bunch of hotheads?
sam239:
I was using tone in the sense of how someone projects their voice, not the sing-a-song sense.
OK it pisses you off to hear me describe Beijingers in the south - either tourists or on business - as being arrogant. How about I lie and say they are quiet, polite, open-minded, interested in learning from you, and curious about the world. None of those are true so I think concluding something closer to "arrogance" is a safe assumption to make.
Again this is not about locals in BJ as I have never been there. This is about BJers I have come across over the past year in the south.
Shining_brow:
"How about I lie and say they are quiet, polite, open-minded, interested in learning from you, and curious about the world."
That's obviously not their 'tone'...
It probably depends on who have seen or heard. If it was some tour groups from Beijing then yeah, they will be horrible, rude, arrogant and obnoxious. That's a tour group for you.
sam239:
No, it's individuals. Seems no one has any clue what I am talking about. Either I have gone schizoid or am highly perceptive and picking up on what others miss. Actually I came across a question asking similar, "who is more arrogant, Shanghai people or Beijing people". A google search reveals some interesting articles and forum threads as well!
Sam - I think we get what you're saying, but how you're expressing it isn't as clear as you'd like.
I would probably agree, but I haven't met enough BJ'ers to know for sure. There is a certain air about them.. the "I"m from BeiJing - the capital of the world - so I'm better than you" air.
The 'er' you're referring to, and I guess why you're annoyed by it, is that it's NOT part of Putonghua... BJ'ers put it at the end of every word/sentence... and yet, in writing, it's not there... I'd love to point out to them that they're not speaking properly 
However, I do also think it comes down to who you've been meeting... those with a bit of money. That trait usually comes out in many people - it must be massively magnified in those from BJ and SH!
Thanks Shining_Brow, I don't think the "er" makes it obnoxious, in fact when I first came I thought it sounds kinda cool, like pirates speaking Chinese. It's a bit difficult to enunciate these things...a Taiwanese friend put it perfectly, the arrogance eminating out of the nouveaux riche is palpable, though that's certainly not limited to newly rich here - though they do have a nasty hypocritical nationalism to go along with it, one I haven't noticed with other snotty like Toronto NYC and LA (where people tend to be ultra-liberal, the opposite of nationalist).
The snobbishness kinda makes me cringe, kind of like Judge Judy examines a hipster's notebook. Dude...
