Cantonese or Mandarin
Re: Cantonese or Mandarin/Tang or Han
As a native white New Yorker, in my childhood I only heard Cantonese spoken. The Tang Tongue was therefore the sound of Chinese Language to me. Later on there was an influx of Mandarin speakers where I lived in Flushing, NY, so I began to learn Han Chinese from my 'Hua Qiao" friends in preparation for entering the Greater China world. Even though I don't know a single word of Guang Dong Hua in the childhood back of my brain Cantonese seems like the normal sound of Chinese, whereas Mandarin seems kind of off key, putting just one more roadblock in the way of my gaining fluency in Han Chinese. Such it goes with the mind set of childhood!?