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[Harold Schiffman]

Bilingualism in Hong Kong

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Art Development Council’s language policy attacked after English
entries excluded

August 25, 2012 by blinhk

South China Morning Post
25 August 2012
by Vivienne Chow

Aspiring arts critics are being given the chance to get their hands on
a HK$50,000 prize funded by taxpayers – but only if they can write in
Chinese. The first ADC Critics Prize, organised by the Arts
Development Council to promote arts criticism and discover new talent,
has come under fire for its language policy, while the council hasbeen
accused of lacking a long-term plan to cultivate arts criticism.
Entrants, who must be aged between 18 and 40, are asked to submit a
critique in 3,500 words or less on works of visual art, theatre,
dance, film or any other art form.

The top prize-winner will receive the gold award – HK$50,000 in cash.
A silver and a bronze award, offering cash prizes of HK$20,000 and
HK$10,000 respectively, will also be presented – sums considered very
generous, as established writers make just HK$1 per word writing for
Chinese-language publications.

The council said it would accept entries only in Chinese because it
wanted to encourage Chinese-language writing on local art and
activities in the hope that it would reach a mass audience.

“Although English is commonly used in the government and by the legal,
professional and business sectors, Chinese is the language used by
most people in Hong Kong,” the council said in reply to a question
about the policy.

John Batten, president of the International Association of Art Critics
Hong Kong, the local branch of a critics association affiliated to the
UN cultural body Unesco, argued that writing in English was just as
important as Chinese-language criticism.

He said the English language was widely used both locally and
internationally in everything from critical discussions of fine arts
and arts education to museums and the art market.

“Excluding English actually reinforces the divide between educated
people, who probably understand English, and those who are less
educated but love the arts [and may have less understanding of
English],” Batten said.

“By officially denying the importance of English, the council makes
Hong Kong’s art appear parochial. The council should be initiating
ideas that reach out to an inclusive, not to an exclusive ‘local’,
audience.”

Oscar Ho Hing-kay,founder of the critics’ association, calledthe
awards”pretentiously hypocritical” and said the decline of arts
criticism in the city was down to the lack of a dedicated platform for
such work.

In 2009, the council axed funding for culture magazine C for Culture
after two years of support, saying it had “showed its concern over C
for Culture’s inability to meetthe operational goals stipulated in the
[funding] agreement”. The council said it wanted to give other parties
the chance to apply for funding for an arts criticism magazine, but it
has not funded another culture magazine since.

Ernest Chan Chi-wa, president of the Hong Kong Film Critics Society, a
member of the international film critics organisation Fipresci,said he
welcomed the award but was concerned whether the council had any other
long-term initiatives to cultivate arts criticism.

Both critics’ organisations said they were not told that the award was
being planned. The council said that the award-winning entries would
be published on the project’s website and that it would arrange media
interviews, workshops and sharing sessions for the winners.


http://blinhk.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/art-development-councils-language-policy-attacked-after-english-entries-excluded/



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