Yes Wilkie … Even English names, usually novel ones created or adopted by Hong Kong Chinese, baffle native speakers ...
Here is Wilkie Wong's letter published in the SCMP
Accents can cause confusion
I dare say the student at Peking University who commented on Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's Putonghua was either being parochial or simply cocky ("Could do better, Donald - that goes for all of us", March 8).
Anyone who has travelled around China knows that not too many Chinese speak the "Beijing tongue".
Tell the student to go to Chongqing or Wuhan. I bet he will meet a lot of people there who speak Putonghua with such a heavy accent that he would hope to be able to communicate in English.
Putonghua has become Putonghua from a Beijing dialect because of a decision of the central government.
If Cantonese had been chosen as the national tongue (for argument's sake), I am sure equally many people would find it difficult to manage.
Even English, another widely spoken language, is spoken with many tonal inflections that baffle native speakers.
Wilkie Wong, Pok Fu Lam
About Novel HKSAR Names
Name Category: Rare
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