abjwam

Reminds me of the "I have a black friend" argument.

>"It’s probably truer to note that a significant segment of the population isn’t accustomed to reading, or thinking, at an adult level"

This claim is ridiculous. There is no way you can construe this as anything other than racist.

Don't think that's true. I'm in southeast asia and the largest chinese language groups in the following countries are:

Singapore: Hokkien

Indonesia: Teochew

Philippines: Hokkien

Malaysia: Hokkien (although cantonese popular there)

Thailand: Teochew

Teochew and Hokkien are actually part of the min-nan dialect group which also includes Taiwanese.

I don't know what is the obsession of westerners with Cantonese. There are several chinese languages spoken in Singapore. The most widely spoken is Hokkien (~50% in singapore) followed by the Teochew language (~25% of chinese in singapore). Cantonese is spoken by much fewer people in Singapore as well as in mainland China.