Flora Gu came back to Shanghai after four years of study in America. Unlike most people returning from abroad who frequently mix English into accented Mandarin, Gu insists on speaking Shanghai dialect whenever possible.

"For me, that is the real sound of home," explains Gu, who says she had no chance to speak the dialect while she was in America although she used both English and Mandarin frequently.

"Only when I phoned my family and friends in Shanghai did I have the chance to speak the dialect. I missed the air in Shanghai, flooded with sound of the dialect. And whenever I'm homesick, I'll speak the tongue to myself, I even tried to read the Chinese news online using Shanghainese."

On the other hand, many Shanghai-native kids like third-grader Lin Guochong do not speak a word of Shanghainese. The younger the kids are, the worse their dialect skills are. Teachers and kids are required to speak Mandarin in schools in Shanghai which cuts into the time for them to speak Shanghainese.

"And my parents speak Mandarin to me at home, too. Only grandparents speak a Ningbo-accented Shanghai dialect, of which I usually understand only about 40 percent," Lin says.

Kids like Lin make people worry about the continued existence and development of the Shanghai dialect. Some, especially among the youngsters, consider it useless because "Shanghai is an international city. Shanghai dialect won't last forever and will surely become history."

Others, including well-known linguist Qian Nairong, see the dialect as a significant part of Shanghai's culture and ask: "What makes it Shanghai if you don't have any feature of it left?"

"If we can not even protect and promote our mother tongue (Shanghai dialect), how dare we talk about developing an advanced world culture?" asks Qian.

Gu is definitely a follower of Qian's ideas. She still remembers "when you had to speak the Shanghai dialect, otherwise you would be either discriminated against or cheated in the 1990s. I am not saying that was correct."

But now, it is considered abrupt and inappropriate to speak Shanghainese in many office buildings, especially in Pudong, when the common languages are usually English and Mandarin.

Philippe Hu works in one of those buildings and says there is only one other Shanghai native among his 70 colleagues.

"I have to speak Mandarin and English during work. Day by day, I actually feel awkward speaking the dialect," says Hu whose only solution is to use the dialect on instant messengers and SMS. "I'm really worried about losing the tongue because it would be ridiculous to be a Shanghai native without knowing how to speak the language. I mean, even expats in Shanghai can speak a few simple lines."

However, those like Lin's parents hold the opposite opinion. Born in Shanghai and both working for foreign enterprises, Lin's parents are not at all worried about Lin's not speaking the dialect.

"It is just a dialect, it is not a language. He wouldn't really need it anyway. My husband and I don't ever use Shanghainese in our work or social life," says Lin's mother. "Plus, how do you define Shanghai native since Shanghai is an immigrant city? By birth place? Then many kids born in Shanghai have parents from out of town, so they won't even be able to learn the dialect from their parents. How can you force them to learn it?"

Lin's mother also raised a question about the standard Shanghai dialect. Most residents in the city are only second or third generations of the people who moved to the city in the 1950s. So the dialect has been influenced by the other dialects from surrounding areas including Ningbo, Hangzhou and Yangzhou among other.

They are different from the original dialect which is now spoken by only very few natives who live in outlying areas like Songjiang, Minhang, Nanhui and Jiading districts.

Qian's answer is simple and direct. "The standard dialect is the one we are using now. Languages develop with the society. I consider the language used by most youths to be the mother tongue of the Shanghainese. If we have to use something that is the most standard, then it must be the one that is most used."

Putting his words into practice, Qian has even compiled "The Dictionary of Shanghai Dialect," said to be the most complete book about the tongue. The dictionary was published in August and Qian is currently working on building an input system to type the dialect on computers.

And many Shanghainese are also more and more concerned about protecting the language. Many started writing blogs in the dialect and some even became well known for doing that.

Moreover, there are now more Shanghainese rapping in the dialect online, with some of the more successful ones spreading among the city's youth. Maybe in the future, we can expect to find the dialect appearing in other cultural forms.

(Shanghai Daily September 19, 2007)