Bilingualism In Hong Kong
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Bilingualism In Hong Kong
Hong Kong is an officially bilingual territory. Under article 9 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, and the Official Languages Ordinance, Both Chinese and English are equally official languages of the territory. However, no particular variety of "Chinese" referred to in laws is specified. While Mandarin written in simplified Chinese characters is used as the standard language in mainland China, Cantonese (Hong Kong Cantonese) in traditional Chinese characters is the ''de facto'' standard in Hong Kong. Chinese as an official language In 1974 Chinese was declared as another official language of Hong Kong through the Official Languages Ordinance. The ordinance does not specify any particular variety of Chinese although majority of Hong Kong residents have Cantonese, the language of Canton (now called Guangzhou), as their mother tongue and this is considered the de facto official variety used by the government. Annex I of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration provided that in addition to ...
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Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta in South China. With 7.5 million residents of various nationalities in a territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world. Hong Kong is also a major global financial centre and one of the most developed cities in the world. Hong Kong was established as a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island from Xin'an County at the end of the First Opium War in 1841 then again in 1842.. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898... British Hong Kong was occupied by Imperial Japan from 1941 to 1945 during World War II; British administration resume ...
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Zhonghua Minzu
''Zhonghua minzu'' (, ) is a political term in modern Chinese nationalism related to the concepts of nation-building, ethnicity, and race in the Chinese nationality. ''Zhonghua minzu'' was established during the early Beiyang (1912–1927) and Nationalist (1928–1949) periods to include Han people and four major non-Han ethnic groups: the Man (Manchus), the Meng (Mongols), the Hui (ethnic groups of Islamic faith in Northwest China), and the Zang (Tibetans), under the notion of a republic of five races ( or ''Wǔzú gònghé'') advocated by Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Nationalist Party. It is slightly different from the word Hanzu, a word is only used to refer to the Han Chinese. ''Zhonghua minzu'' was initially rejected in the People's Republic of China (PRC) but resurrected after Mao Zedong's death to include the mainstream Han Chinese and 55 other ethnic groups as a huge Chinese family. Since the late 1980s, the most fundamental change of the PRC's nationalities an ...
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British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered , of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its constitutional, legal, linguistic, and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was described as "the empire on which the sun never sets", as the Sun was always shining on at least one of its territories. During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overse ...
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Entrepôt
An ''entrepôt'' (; ) or transshipment port is a port, city, or trading post where merchandise may be imported, stored, or traded, usually to be exported again. Such cities often sprang up and such ports and trading posts often developed into commercial cities due to the growth and expansion of long-distance trade. These places played a critical role in trade during the days of wind-powered shipping. In modern times customs areas have largely made entrepôts obsolete, but the term is still used to refer to duty-free ports with a high volume of re-export trade. ''Entrepôt'' also means 'warehouse' in modern French, and is derived from the Latin roots 'between' + 'position', literally 'that which is placed between.' Entrepôts had an important role in the early modern period, when mercantile shipping flourished between Europe and its colonial empires in the Americas and Asia. For example, the spice trade to Europe, which necessitated long trade routes, led to a much higher m ...
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Free Port
Free economic zones (FEZ), free economic territories (FETs) or free zones (FZ) are a class of special economic zone (SEZ) designated by the trade and commerce administrations of various countries. The term is used to designate areas in which companies are taxed very lightly or not at all to encourage economic activity. The taxation rules and duties are determined by each country. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) has content on the conditions and benefits of free zones. Some special economic zones are called free ports. Sometimes they have historically been endowed with favorable customs regulations, such as the free port of Trieste. As the United Kingdom was proposing the creation of ten free ports after leaving the European Union in early 2020, the EU was clamping down on 82 free zones after finding that their special status had aided the financing of terrorism, money laundering and organised crime. Definition The def ...
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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 170 ...
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Crown Colony
A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony administered by The Crown within the British Empire. There was usually a Governor, appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the UK Government, with or without the assistance of a local Council. In some cases, this Council was split into two: an Executive Council and a Legislative Council, and was similar to the Privy Council that advises the Monarch. Members of Executive Councils were appointed by the Governors, and British citizens resident in Crown colonies either had no representation in local government, or limited representation. In several Crown colonies, this limited representation grew over time. As the House of Commons of the British Parliament has never included seats for any of the colonies, there was no direct representation in the sovereign government for British subjects or citizens residing in Crown colonies. The administration of Crown colonies changed over time and in the 1800s some became, with a loosening ...
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Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set
The Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set (; commonly abbreviated to HKSCS) is a set of Chinese characters – 4,702 in total in the initial release—used in Cantonese, as well as when writing the names of some places in Hong Kong (whether in written Cantonese or standard written Chinese sentences). It evolved from the preceding Government Chinese Character Set () or GCCS. GCCS is a set of supplementary Chinese characters coded in the user-defined areas of the Big5 character set. It was originally used within the Hong Kong Government and later used by the public. It later evolved into Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set when the characters in the set were submitted to ISO-10646 for coding. Development history Due to the inherent differences between standard written Chinese and written Cantonese, the Government of Hong Kong recognised the need for a standardised set of ''proprietary'' characters that would allow for the streamlining of electronic communication; at the time ...
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Government Of Hong Kong
The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, commonly known as the Hong Kong Government or HKSAR Government, refers to the executive authorities of Hong Kong SAR. It was formed on 1 July 1997 in accordance with the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1983, an international treaty lodged at the United Nations. This government replaced the former British Hong Kong Government (1842–1997). The Chief Executive and the principal officials, nominated by the chief executive, are appointed by the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The Government Secretariat is headed by the Chief Secretary of Hong Kong, who is the most senior principal official of the Government. The Chief Secretary and the other secretaries jointly oversee the administration of Hong Kong, give advice to the Chief Executive as members of the Executive Council, and are accountable for their actions and policies to the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council. Under the " one co ...
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Written Cantonese
Written Cantonese is the most complete written form of Chinese after that for Mandarin Chinese and Classical Chinese. Written Chinese was originally developed for Classical Chinese, and was the main literary language of China until the 19th century. Written vernacular Chinese first appeared in the 17th century, and a written form of Mandarin became standard throughout China in the early 20th century. While the Mandarin form can in principle be read and spoken word for word in other Chinese varieties, its intelligibility to non-Mandarin speakers is poor to incomprehensible because of differences in idioms, grammar and usage. Modern Cantonese speakers have therefore developed new characters for words that do not exist and have retained others that have been lost in standard Chinese. With the advent of the computer and standardization of character sets specifically for Cantonese, many printed materials in predominantly Cantonese-speaking areas of the world are written to cater t ...
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Media Of Hong Kong
Hong Kong's media consists of several different types of communications of mass media: television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, websites and other online platforms. Overview Hong Kong is home to many of Asia's biggest media entities and remains one of the world's largest film industries. The loose regulation over the establishment of a newspaper makes Hong Kong home to many international media such as the ''Asian Wall Street Journal'' and ''Far Eastern Economic Review'', and publications with anti-Communist backgrounds such as ''The Epoch Times'' (which is funded by Falun Gong). It also once had numerous newspapers funded by Kuomintang of Taiwan but all of them were terminated due to poor financial performance. The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong publishes ''Kung Kao Po'', a weekly newspaper. ''Apple Daily'' and ''Oriental Daily News'' are the two best selling newspapers, according to AC Nielsen, accounting for more than 60% of readership. Both are known for their anti- ...
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Teochew People
The Teochew people or Chaoshan people (rendered Têo-Swa in romanized Teoswa and Chaoshan in Standard Chinese also known as Teo-Swa in mainland China due to a change in place names) is anyone native to the historical Chaoshan region in south China who speak the Teo-Swa Min (Chaoshan) language (typified by the Chaozhou dialect). Today, most Chaoshan people live throughout Chaoshan, Hong Kong, and also outside China in Southeast Asia, including in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, and Indonesia. The community can also be found in diasporas around the world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and France. Terms Chaoshan can be romanized in a variety of schemes, and are known in Mandarin as ''Cháoshan rén'' and in Cantonese as ''Chiushan yan''. In referring to themselves as ethnic Chinese, Chaoshan people generally use ''Deung nang'' (), as opposed to ''Hang nang'' (). Chaoshan people of the diaspora would generally use ''ti ...
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