By Vancouver Sun | Link to Article
Signs appearing exclusively in the Chinese language in public places around Richmond lately have been causing anxiety. Unnecessarily so.
By Vancouver Sun | Link to Article
Signs appearing exclusively in the Chinese language in public places around Richmond lately have been causing anxiety. Unnecessarily so.
No one need fear that Mandarin or Cantonese is about to overtake English in British Columbia. Indeed neither has any official status anywhere in Canada.
Many Chinese who immigrate to Canada eventually learn English. Or they have offspring who wind up speaking the language and become as Canadian as anyone else.
Nevertheless, some Richmond residents have been complaining about unilingual Chinese-language signs that have been sponsored by retailers and advertisers.
In particular, an advertisement for Procter and Gamble oral hygiene products appearing on the side of bus shelters and a separate bus shelter ad placed by the immigrant settlement group SUCCESS about a gambling-addictions program, have rankled. SUCCESS CEO Queenie Choo said she regretted her organization’s sign did not include some English.
A recent poll in the Richmond Review newspaper, reported 77 per cent of respondents said they believe Chinese-only advertisements in public places widens the cultural divide in the community.
Whatever reservations people may have about signage or advertising they are unable to decipher, it needs to be recognized that the decision-making that goes into such initiatives is made by private organizations, albeit SUCCESS does receive some government funding.
And private organizations are entirely free to target their ads according to their own private-sector interests.
It is not outlandish in a community like Richmond — where half the residents are ethnic Chinese — to do some advertising in the Chinese language.