#28 Guest Episode: Gina Anne Tam, Part 2 (English/粵語)
This episode features the second half of our discussion with Dr. Gina Anne Tam, Associate Professor of History at Trinity University, and author of Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860 – 1960 from Cambridge University Press. In this episode, we talk about the relationship between Mandarin and Cantonese in teaching and academia, as well as English’s immense power in the global linguistic landscape.
Works mentioned in this episode:
Silencing Shanghai, by Fang Xu
Gerald Roche (various articles)
Cantonese as Written Language, by Don Snow
Not Like a Native Speaker, by Rey Chow
The Fall of Language in the Age of English, by Minae Mizumura
Borderlands/La Frontera, by Gloria Anzaldúa
Speak Not: Empire, Identity and the Politics of Language, by James Griffiths
Sound, Meaning, Shape: The Phonologist Wei Jiangong (1901-1980) between Language Study and Language Planning, by Mariana Münning
Vocabulary
1. 平等 ping4 dang2 (ADJ) equal
2. 貢獻 gung3 hin3 (N/V) contribution; to contribute
3. 作用 zok3 jung6 (N) effect, use
4. 鞏固 gung2 gu3 (V) to strengthen
5. 強勢 koeng4 sai3 (ADJ) dominant
6. 地位 dei6 wai6 (N) status
7. 反思 faan2 si1 (V/N) to reflect; reflection
8. 不僅 bat1 gan2 (CONJ) not only
9. 權力 kyun4 lik6 (N) authority, power
10. 關聯 gwaan1 lyun4 (N) to connect, to relate
11. 承接 sing4 zip3 (V) to carry on, to continue
12. 同業 tung1 jip6 (N) peer
13. 氣勢 hei3 sai3 (N) momentum
14. 駐 zyu3 (ADJ/V) stationed; to station
15. 掙扎 zang1 zaak3 (V/N) to struggle; struggle
16. 經歷 ging1 lik6 (V/N) to go through; experience
17. 事實 si6 sat6 (N) fact
18. 感動 gam2 dung6 (ADJ) moved, touched
19. 因素 jan1 sou3 (N) factor
20. 介意 gaai3 ji3 (V) to mind
ADJ - Adjective
ADV - Adverb
CONJ - Conjuction
N - Noun
V - Verb
Raymond: 今集有我哋同三一大學歷史助理教授、劍橋大學出版社發行《中國方言與民族主義，1860 - 1960》嘅作者，譚吉娜博士討論嘅第二部分。呢一集我哋討論喺教學同埋學術界裏面，普通話同粵語之間嘅關係，以及全球語言景觀下英語嘅強大勢力。
Cameron: This episode features the second half of our discussion with Dr. Gina Anne Tam, Associate Professor of History at Trinity University, and author of Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860 – 1960 from Cambridge University Press. In this episode, we talk about the relationship between Mandarin and Cantonese in teaching and academia, as well as English’s immense power in the global linguistic landscape.
Cameron: There's a larger discussion, I'd say, within Chinese studies about the role that Mandarin plays—and I should preface this, Anglophone Chinese Studies, so people writing in English about Chinese culture. The vast majority of people, their sort of “research language” is Mandarin, and I know, you know, scholars like Rey Chow have pointed out that there is this tendency, whenever we write, we romanize in Mandarin pinyin, you know, you're lucky if you have a publisher also lets you use both, not only Chinese characters, but also alternative forms of romanization—I know it depends on who you're working with. So I'm just curious if you can share a little bit about your own perspective on this language dynamic in the field in terms of Mandarin versus everything else, and whether you see any change or sort of shifts in terms of how scholars are thinking about this.
Dr. Tam: So I want to answer this in the aggregate, but I want to start with talking about my own struggle with this, and it involved an enormous amount of like 2 a.m. editing before my book was due, and then editing back. And I came to this realization before my book manuscript, the final one, was due, that there was something very wrong about the fact that I had romanized everything in my book as 普通話, right, as Mandarin, when I am talking about people who are deeply invested in a multilingual China. And so then I went back, and I was like, “No, I need to change it all”. So I started with the epilogue, right, where I talk about contemporary examples, and I focused—I had a pretty substantial section on Cantonese—and I changed everything to Jyutping. And then, I'm like, “Now I need to go back in time.” And then, all of a sudden, looking at this person, I'm like, “Wait, this person spoke four, five different 方言 [dialects]. How do I know how he would have pronounced his name?” Right? And he probably would have pronounced his name in a number of different ways. And there's one character who shows up in a lot of my book—his name in Mandarin is 趙元任 (Zhao Yuanrun)—and he actually, delightfully, romanizes his name in a bunch of different ways. And I, whenever he decides to do it in a particular way, I do with the way he does. But most of my, the people I'm talking about in my book, don't do that, right? And I'm like, how do I even know if I'm like, if this guy is from Ningbo, and I, you know, sort of transliterate his name in English, how do I even know if that’s what it sounded like a hundred and fifty years ago? And so I tied myself in knots, and finally I'm just like, this is, this is unsustainable. And so I ended up going with Mandarin, with a few examples of Hong Kong newspapers, right? Where I don’t… But it was something I really struggled with because I didn't want to put Mandarin as the sole language here, but I also didn't want to project onto anybody what I thought they would be speaking or how they might romanize their name. And so I don't feel great about my decision, but I didn't feel great about any other decisions, and also I had to have some consistency, and I didn't know how to explain to Cambridge University Press.
So I'll start there, sort of with a smaller struggle that I had, but thinking about this question in a bigger sense, I do think that this emphasis on Mandarin has shaped the field, in that, it places more emphasis and value, on not just like the PRC, or Taiwan, over spaces like Hong Kong, or diasporic communities where the main language isn’t Mandarin, [but] it also places more value on a very status perspective of both the PRC and Taiwan. It sort of presumes, in other words, that the people we want to include are the voices we want to elevate their research or people who have the power and privilege to speak this language, right? It privileges the center.
I do see that changing, I think, I think y'all are really at the forefront of this, which I think it’s really exciting. Raymond, your program in Cantonese at UBC, and others that are really, I think, getting a lift right now, show that people understand that the other Chinese languages are not peripheral—they're spoken by tens of millions of people. I think there is a new sort of renewed interest in Hong Kong Studies, and I think that has placed, I think it has made a lot of scholars realize that Hong Kong is not a peripheral space—it's a space where studying in its own right, but also its central to the China story, and that has pushed a new emphasis on learning Cantonese. I think there's also an emphasis, and this has been happening for a while now, but I think it's starting to bleed into language learning, is that we can't tell good history and good scholarship by only looking at people who, again, have the power and privilege to speak Mandarin, right? That we have to be speaking to these other communities on their own terms, and that I think is, it's a recognition that speaking a language of the people where they are, is a good way to, for us, to better tell the stories of these communities. I'm not entirely sure that the infrastructure that we have in Anglophone Chinese Studies has caught up with this, right? We are still talking about languages that have power and privilege while, on the one hand, the sort of the power of Mandarin dwarfs languages like Cantonese and Shanghainese, but on the other hand, the power of Cantonese and Shanghainese and Taiwanese dwarfs very much the power of other Chinese languages as spoken, right? And so there is still an unevenness. Academia has been a really unfortunate and frustrating way of reinforcing power dynamics—I think a lot of pre-existing power dynamics,—but I do at least see a recognition, or feel that only learning Mandarin is going to limit the kinds of stories we can tell and the voices we can elevate.
Raymond: 係呀，我非常之認同阿 Gina 你講呀。即係我哋而家好難一下子做到所有，即係你叫方言又好，或者唔同嘅語種呢，做到完全平等1，一下子要改變歷史呀。其實我覺得無論咩嘢方面都係啦，即使歷史唔係一下子改變，但係我哋所做嘅每一樣嘢呢，都係去，係對貢獻2歷史會有，即係有一個作用3嘅。即係話，我哋而家去推廣粵語或者係其他嘅，我哋所謂嘅方言呢，同時呢，我哋亦都應該諗下，我哋係咪喺度鞏固4緊嗰個嘅，嗰啲強勢5嘅語言嗰個地位6呀。即係你頭先舉咗個例子啦，即係做研究，我哋係咪一定淨係要從普通話嘅角度去做呢？教學都係嘅，即係都有好多老師啦，或者好多嘅學習外語嘅人士都話：“你學中文呀？你學咗普通話先啦，然之後再學其它嘅方言啦”噉樣。噉呢個我覺得係，即係需要我哋反思7去諗嘅，因爲我哋都有好多學生，佢哋堅持話：“我唔需要學普通話，我淨係要學粵語。但係呢，粵語都係中文，我點解要學咗普通話先呢？”噉樣。即係我覺得係大家嗰個思想都需要改變。係， Cameron。
Cameron: Raymond, your reaction makes a lot of sense. So the idea that, with… there's an immense help that studying 方言 brings to sort of literary research and other forms of research, but in the process of sort of teaching people these 方言, whether it’s Cantonese or others, there's often a requirement that “oh you have to learn Mandarin first and then you can go study Cantonese,” or I've seen here in Taiwan, “Then you can go study Taiwanese.” And there is this question, is it actually just reinforcing the power of Mandarin or sort of that main language and the other languages or 方言, sort of branching off from it? So it's almost like there's sort of larger systemic questions or issues that also have to be addressed simply in the process of language education, right?
Dr. Tam: I know, when I learned Cantonese, there were two versions of Cantonese. You could learn Cantonese as with no background in any Chinese language, and then there was, there was Cantonese for Mandarin speakers, and so those two tracks exist. So I think you're right. I think there's a structural issue here, but the philosophy here, I think is one that we should question. I don't want to be anti-Mandarin, you know, it is a language that an enormous number of people speak, and it is an important language to learn, but saying that we have to learn Mandarin before learning Cantonese, seems like saying we have to learn Spanish before we can learn Portuguese, right? These are languages spoken by different communities, and both have value, and learning from, and connecting with those communities. And so they're sort of, there's a philosophical question which I think we should really question. And then there's the structural question which I think emerges in part from pre-existing power dynamics, but also sort of the questions of like who are the students who are learning these languages, right? And so I think once we start questioning the philosophy then we can start reaching new audiences and reaching new students to try and push back against that a little bit.
Cameron: Well, I'm actually curious sort of hearing you talk about that because you are right, most of the sort of curricula here in Taiwan are aimed at people who already speak Mandarin because most of the educational materials are written for people who can read Mandarin or read formal written Chinese. I think that writing actually has a big part to play in this in that 方言 [dialects] are sort of, there's this orality that people project onto them, and people want to teach things that you can read or that you can have a written translation of, and so even if you literalize a 方言 [dialect], next to it there's going to be a translation in either English or in sort of standard written Chinese that sort of creates this thing, and Cantonese, I think, at least there's a tendency now more people are coming aroundJyutping as sort of, as a romanization that people are embracing. Then you also have a fairly developed colloquial writing system, whereas one of the things that I have noticed that's really interesting with Taiwanese, is that there‘s still an ongoing debate among intellectuals about whether it should be written as a romanized form that existed for a number of decades, [or] whether it should be written with Chinese characters and there's still a lot of discussion on this. So what's fascinating is, like this process is still ongoing, and so we could talk about this as scholars, but it's almost like telling people to go studying these things, you're also jumping in as these questions of standardization are an ongoing question, which I think should also be a reminder to us that that's the same as Mandarin, right? Mandarin is also changing and shifting too. It's not like it's this perfect thing, right? There are things for us to go learn.
Dr. Tam: Well, and… two reactions to that, that I think are so fascinating. The first one is, I think that this is something that extends to language learning generally, I don’t have numbers in front of me, but I would be fascinated to see how much language pedagogical material in the world exists, and how much of it is based in English, right? And my guess is that, disproportionately language learning materials for speakers of second languages presume that there is an English language background, and because of the hegemony of English worldwide, right? And the hegemony of English speakers worldwide. So that right there is a fascinating structural question.
As far as the question of script, so I'm actually writing an article about this right now that will hopefully be out in the next… soon. And it'll be an edited volume. But it's essentially about how, the sort of, the way that scripture form evolved in the PRC had the effect of presuming that there is a correct pronunciation of Chinese characters or Sinographs, and that correct pronunciation is 普通話, is Mandarin, and then everything else are alternative pronunciations of these characters. And I call this the unscripting of 方言 [dialects]. Because it is this sort of deliberate wrenching away an indigenous script that has been tethered to these languages for a very long time and sort of presuming that they are almost exclusively oral. And the reason this matters so much is because we often presume that languages, right, with the power that comes with the language, have scripts, right, that can, that can properly render them into writing; and because that infrastructure has been missin—in part because of, not entirely because of state power, but in part because of state power, right—because the infrastructure is missing, we don't have that clear, like, “How do we write Cantonese, right? How do we write Taiwanese? How do we write Sichuanese?” And the reason, the answer is, well, Sinographs, right? Because that's how we've done it for a really long time, and the reason that it feels off is because we often think that there is this one pronunciation of the Sinograph, and actually, Raymond, you inspired me to include this in the paper because you had mentioned at some point how much it matters that there are so many input systems for keyboards, for writing Sinographs, for writing like synthetic characters that presume you speak, you speak Mandarin because it presumes pinyin, right? And Jyutping, and there are Cantonese input methods, there are Cantonese input systems, but they don't have the breadth and reach of pinyin ones. I know in Taiwan, there are also “bo-po-mo-fo” ones, like there are other ones that exist, but really the pinyin input system really like occupied a pretty hegemonic space here. And when we look at the People's Republic of China in particular, it's really difficult to get other inputs. It’s difficult to find other input systems. And aside from Cantonese and Shanghainese, where I think they really do exist, right? Like I don't know, I don't know if there's a Sichuanese input system. There might be, but I don't think there is, and so it again reinforces this idea that characters are supposed to be pronounced in a particular way.
Cameron: Yeah, no, I… It also makes me think about the fact that we do, as people who are interested in languages, we do have the flexibility to accept multiple readings or ways of using Chinese characters, if you've ever… for people, for instance you study both Mandarin and Japanese, you have to deal with the fact, oh, these Chinese [Sinitic] characters are used differently in two different contexts, and they sound very differently, especially in Japanese. Japanese has so many different readings, that's almost an analogy that I wish people would talk about more: A, that Chinese is not the only language that uses Chinese characters. And B, that it, once you recognize that there's a flexibility of how characters can sound and be used, when you then take that and look at the 方言, I think it then becomes easier to accept their flexibility and variability.
Dr. Tam: Yeah, and it’s really, it’s a, it’s sort of a revolutionary script in that way. And I think sometimes the way that it has been treated as sort of being like, tethered to a nation and national language, and national script have lost sight of its very long history of being a linguistically flexible script.
Cameron: So thank you so much for sharing so much with us today. I feel like this is a really freewheeling interesting discussion, would you like to talk a little bit about suggestions that you have for people who are either interested, not only just in learning Cantonese, but learning more about sort of the scholarship around this topic of 方言, or sort of how language and identity and power are related?
Raymond: 所以我哋非常感謝你今日同我哋分享咗咁多。 你可唔可以為嗰啲不僅8對學習粵語感興趣，而且關心方言語言等主題嘅學術討論，又或者語言、身份同權力9之間係如何關聯10嘅人士提供啲意見呢？
Dr. Tam: Yeah, so I, as somebody who is… still feels like a beginner in Cantonese, I feel like I'm the last person you should ask for language learning except for, “Use it and don't be afraid to make a fool of yourself,” which is an advice that I give and fail at because I'm so afraid to make a fool of myself that I don't speak Cantonese as much as I wish I did. I think being able to travel might change that.
But as far as those who are sort of interested in scholarship or looking at research questions and related to histories of language and identity, I wish if I could go back in time, that I had started learning multiple languages earlier and had not been so daunted by it. I wish my Cantonese was better than it was. But I am glad at the very least, that I before I started writing this book, questioned the, or at least thought about the limits of Mandarin in completing my research, because I think even being able to conversationally listen to some Cantonese and read it, right—we’ve talked a lot about like Cantonese literature—there's a big movement of that in history and being able to grapple with that, and read that, or read transcripts, I think, introduced me to new voices that would have otherwise been unavailable to me, I think.
I guess the only other thing that I hope to see, or like I would encourage scholars of language to do, is that I think it's easy to look at the world right now, and once we start grappling with questions of power, identity, is to feel really hopeless. Or perhaps “hopeless” is the wrong word, perhaps there are scholars of language out there who think that, sort of like hegemony of one language is a good thing, in which case… But those who feel hopeless and those who feel like this is what the world should look like, I think both see linguistic hegemony and power and sort of standardization as inevitable. And regardless of, sort of how you emotionally feel about that, I would encourage scholars of language to question what's inevitable. If we imagine a more diverse array of possible futures, I think that new empirical realities will come to light in a way that won't, if we just sort of presume the inevitable. I don't know if that’s advice or what I hope to see, but these, I really hope that scholars from all different disciplines really begin to sort of grapple with these questions, because I think the field is small at this point in terms of Chinese language scholarship, and it’s very interdisciplinary, and I think that is to our benefit. So I hope that we continue to be that way.
Cameron: Are there any books you read recently that have gotten you excited that you see riding that wave and helping push this field forward?
Raymond: 你最近有冇睇咗啲承接11呢個氣勢12、好睇又有助推動同業13發展嘅書呢？
Dr. Tam: So I’ll mention 2. The first I’ve already mentioned once, Fang Xu’s Silencing Shanghai, I think is a beautiful reflection of how, not just political power, but also things like class and indigeneity affect questions of language and power. The other is, and this is forthcoming, I just know of this person's work, is Gerald Roche, who has actually written extensively about minoritized Tibetan languages, where we see a similar sort of thing, where we presume there's one Tibetan language, but in fact there are many Tibetan languages that are experiencing sort of language loss. But he, I think, he is my model for thinking about possible, multiple, more just futures. And so I know he has a book coming out hopefully sometime soon, but in the meantime he has written a number of articles on this topic and the necropolitics of language, and I highly recommend his work, follow him on Twitter, it’s great.
Cameron: So I just want to tag on two books that I think would be really helpful that are specific to Cantonese, and also they're technically a little older, but I still think would be really helpful, especially for people listening, for those who might not be academics, but one sort of endured of thinking about some of these questions. One is a book called Cantonese as Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular and that's by Don Snow.
Dr. Tam: Great.
Cameron: I love it because I think it's really approachable as an academic text, he does a great job of finding really interesting examples of sort of texts, and he even has this great appendix where he shows these things of what written Cantonese looks like, what percentage is, you know, overlaps with standard written Chinese or Mandarin, and what percentage is really just Cantones- specific characters, so if you've been listening to our podcast, and you're wondering like, “What do you guys mean by ‘written Cantonese?’” I would point you towards that book because it's also just a fun history, and I think he does a great job of blending history and sort of linguistic research.
The other one that I’ll recommend is, it’s still academic, but it's more essayistic, it’s Rey Chow’s Not Like a Native Speaker. I think it's just really, really interesting, thought-provoking work, and Rey Chow draws on her own experiences with Cantonese, instead of her own childhood in Hong Kong as well as a lot of big theoretical names who—but I think she still makes them approachable by bringing in visual examples from her own life. That form is really great dialogue with these bigger philosophical questions about language and power and sort of the idea that every language sort of has this possibility or this potential to sort of predominate another language. And it's really, I think, gets back to that question that you brought up about historical contingency, but there's just some really great examples specific to Cantonese that are in there that I really think people who listen would enjoy.
Dr. Tam: Can I push two more books? I'm sorry.
Cameron: Oh, go ahead.
Dr. Tam: (Books) that are actually neither of which are about Cantonese or Chinese languages at all, but I think are hugely, really stick with my head. The first is The Fall of Language in the Age of English, which is just really… it's Minae Mizumura’s book. There's an English translation of it now, it was written in Japanese. That question looks at sort of global linguistic hegemony in a way that I think is powerful and brilliant.
And the other is, and it's only because I just recently read this and it really sticks in my head, it’s Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands La Frontera. There she has an essay in there called… I'm trying to remember the name of it, but there's… I think it’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” is the name of it. But it’s entirely about how language grafts onto identity in a way that is… that book is very… whereas The Fall of Language in the Age of English is, sort of, it's a wake-up call, Gloria Anzaldua’s work is empowering, like it's really exciting. So I would recommend those two as well.
Raymond: 好，非常好。噉我就承接你哋。既然講開書呢，噉其實我都有書想介紹嘅。頭先阿 Cameron 講到 Don Snow 嗰本書啦，噉好有趣，我都睇過，都睇過好多次。噉同埋嗰本書其實都好多人睇嘅。噉我喺圖書館借咗呢，冇幾耐呢，跟住圖書館呢，又話：“我要返嗰本書呀，又有人要借呀。”噉樣我啱啱又再借嚟借去，借咗好多次。噉所以我都睇過唔止一次呀。噉另外呢，我都有兩本書想介紹嘅。一本呢，就係，其實 Gina 呢, 佢本來都有寫咗係度嘅，同我哋都有關嘅，就係呢， James Griffiths 嘅 Speak Not。噉呀我哋最近呢都有合作嘅機會啦。
(Great, really great. I’ll take it from you two. Speaking of books, there are actually books that I would like to introduce. First, Cameron mentioned Don Snow’s book, it’s very interesting, and I have also read it a number of times. Many people have. When I took it out of the library, it wasn’t long before the library reached out to say, “Please return the book, someone else wants to borrow it.” So I just took it out and then returned it, and I’ve taken it out many times and have read it more than once. There are also two other books that I would like to introduce. The first is one is actually one that Gina wrote down here [in the show notes], and it’s related to both of us. It’s James Griffiths’ Speak Not. We recently had a chance to collaborate. [The three appeared on a panel together])
噉阿 James 呢，噉其實佢係加拿大嘅環球郵報嘅駐14香港嘅記者嚟嘅。噉但係佢呢，亦都係喺好多方面，特別喺歷史呀，或者同語言嗰啲呢，佢都有所研究。噉佢寫本書呢就基本上就係講呢，三個喺過去被認爲係方言嘅歷史嘅故事嘅。包括威爾斯語啦，粵語啦，同埋夏威夷話。即係呢，佢哋嗰個語言地位呢，都係喺度掙扎15緊嘅，或者係過去呢，亦都經歷16咗好多。噉所以呢，呢啲故事你其實當一本小說睇，但係一個歷史嘅事實17。其實我睇嘅時候好感動18嘅，即係睇到嗰個語言個變化啦，即係受到好多嘅因素19影響。
(James is a foreign correspondent in Hong Kong for Canada’s The Globe and Mail. He has also researched many things related to history and language. The book he wrote is basically the historical narrative behind three languages that have been viewed as “dialects”--in this case, Welse, Cantonese, and Hawaiian. The language status of all three has been conflicted, or in the past has been through a lot. So this story is presented almost like a novel, but with historical facts. When I was reading it I was quite moved seeing how the languages changed and how they were influenced by different factors.)
噉另外一個呢，就係我啱啱呢，喺 Twitter 度發現嘅。呢個呢，我可能都要大家可能幫我去睇下呢本書其實係咪佢嗰個內容啦。噉但係我睇佢個介紹覺得幾有趣嘅。如果大家唔介意20呢，我會用英文講咗佢嗰個嘅，嗰個嘅序要呀，介紹佢嘅內容。噉大家睇下係咪同我哋今日講嘅有關係啦。呢本書啦，個作者呢係 Mariana Münning，噉佢係德國嘅作者。佢嗰本書呢就叫 Sound, Meaning, Shape: The Phonologist Wei Jiangong between Language Study and Language Planning。噉中文呢，就係“音、意、形：語言研究同埋語言規劃之間嘅音韻學家魏建功”。噉佢嘅書嘅內容啦，我好快講一講啦：
(Another [book] is one that I just found on Twitter. For this one, I might need everyone to help me check if this book has this content. I thought it looked very interesting. If people don’t mind, I’ll use English to introduce its content. Everyone can see whether or not it is related to what we are talking about today. The book is by Mariana Münning, a German author. The book’s name is Sound, Meaning, Shape: The Phonologist Wei Jiangong between Language Study and Language Planning. [Followed by Chinese name.] As for the content, I’ll quickly read it the intro:)
“One of the leading proponents of the radical linguistic reforms in 20th century China, Wei Jiangong remains hardly known in the West. This book describes how Wei, who was rooted in traditional philology and conceptualizing language as a tool, helped to promulgate a standard language, led the compilation of the world’s most popular dictionary, and helped to drive script reform. While these measures were characterized as violent intervention in the Chinese language sphere, Wei Jiangong’s careful negotiating of linguistic description and political prescription illustrates how they also may have been steps that helped to achieve linguistic self-determination.”
噉我就係睇呢個介紹，我覺得幾有趣啦。噉呢本係新書嚟嘅，噉我都會擺喺呢個我哋個節目嘅介紹嗰度，大家可以睇返。
(When I read this blurb, I’m quite interested. It’s a new book, and I’ll introduce it here in our program, so everyone can go take a look.)
Cameron: Wow, there are just so many good books right now. I feel like it's an embarrassment of riches, which is very exciting.
Dr. Tam: Yes, absolutely.
Cameron: Well, I think that perhaps wraps things up. So thank you so much for joining us on Chatty Cantonese this week. We are so excited to have the opportunity to speak with you, and we can't wait to see, not only your forthcoming article, but also sort of future research.
Dr. Tam: This conversation was so much fun. It was so delightful to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Raymond: 多謝晒你阿 Gina。 It’s great seeing you again and talk, just talk.
Dr. Tam: 多謝多謝。
Raymond: 唔使客氣。