Thank you. Not sure if the primary schools taught you standard Chinese or Cantonese. Are Chinese and Cantonese considered distinct languages in Hong Kong and Macau? Their writing systems are similar but their grammars and glossaries are different, aren't they? A Hongkongese name is romanized based on Cantonese, isn't it? Using Cantonese is no longer encouraged in Singapore because its government prefers Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin is not 'standard' Chinese. Traditional Chinese characters, which both Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan use, are the traditional Chinese characters whilst simplified Chinese characters, which the mainland uses, is a mixture of newly created characters and other calligraphy with only
selected high frequency words.
Spoken Mandarin, which both the mainland and Taiwan use, is not 'standard' Chinese either. Cantonese has always been the language largely spoken in the south whilst Mandarin has always been the language largely spoken in the north, but Cantonese is a lot closer to ancient spoken Chinese than Mandarin is as the territory of China's was never that north before the Manchus got in starting the Qing Dynasty. Dr Sun Yat-sen, the 'father' of modern China, spoke Cantonese. During the Qing Dynasty, the official language spoken by the royals was Manchurian not Mandarin. The north has always had political power but money talks and the south has been richer since a few dynasties ago, and Mandarin was never that dominant in the north so it was never made the norm before the Republic of China and afterwards the People's Republic of China. Taiwan actually used to largely speak Taiwanese, which is a variant of Hokkien but is now mostly obsolete á la Welsh in Wales.
Mandarin and Cantonese are two different languages though they share many similarities, and are the most similar Chinese languages compared to other Chinese languages such as Shanghainese or Hokkien.
Hongkongers' names are romanised based on Cantonese but that is not necessary, people can choose to call themselves whatever and however they want.
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Cantonese is not 'taught' as it is the most-spoken language in the city, and in Chinese lessons they teach with traditional Chinese characters. As for the grammar, lexis, pronunciation, etc when teaching literature, teachers tend to use Cantonese and traditional Chinese characters, for the simple fact that they are a lot closer to Cantonese than Mandarin. My kindergarten and two primary schools use Cantonese as the medium of instruction (except in English and Mandarin classes), whilst my secondary school, sixth form college, and university all use English as the official language of instruction, except for Chinese and Chinese history classes which were all taught in Cantonese.
But nowadays there is the movement to teach with Mandarin and English only, for parents feel that these are the only languages that make money for their children in the future. Though from a Chinese education standpoint, it makes little sense because you just cannot do literature that way (the poems won't rhyme, for example), and the perception that Mandarin Chinese is standard written Chinese just isn't true. Mandarin, like Cantonese and English, is different spoken from written. Obviously less so with English, but there are obvious differences between spoken English and using English to write a serious article (eg academic papers, news articles,etc).
