The Art of Communication: - Derry City Council

Table 2:Number of Chinese catering premises (restaurants andtakeaways) and number of associated Chinese employersby district council area and western region.Information supplied by each of the five councils (March 2009).Premises andAssociated EmployerNumbersRegionNumber ofChinese cateringpremisesNumber ofassociatedChineseemployersDerry City Council 33 27Fermanagh District Council 21 15Omagh District Council 18 16Strabane District Council 10 10Limavady Borough Council 9 8Western Region 91 761.6 The Chinese Community and the Language BarrierMandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken native language in the world today. Three mainforms of the Chinese language exist: Cantonese, Mandarin and Hakka (Chinese WelfareAssociation, 2005). The majority of Chinese from mainland Hong-Kong, Singapore andMalysia speak Cantonese (Chinese Welfare Association, 2005). Cantonese is also spokenby approximately 80 – 90% of the Chinese community in Northern Ireland. Two forms ofChinese writing exist: Traditional Chinese (used in Hong Kong and Taiwan) and simplifiedChinese (used in mainland China subsequent to the cultural revolution) (Chinese WelfareAssociation, 2005).The Chinese Welfare Association report that Chinese individuals who have arrived in NI inrecent years, particularly those who are employed within catering businesses, have had littleopportunity or, indeed, incentive to learn English, with Chinese being spoken at all timesin the family home (Chinese Welfare Association, 2005). The Chinese Welfare Associationrecognise that this creates a language barrier and that the existence of this language barrier,is one of the major factors that inhibits the Chinese community from integrating with widersociety in NI (Chinese Welfare Association, 2005).The Art of Communication: A landscape shared between regulator and ethnic employer 9