8/1     Does anyone know if foreign Mandarin accents irritate Mainland Chinese
        as much as Beijing Chinese accent irritates say, the Taiwanese? In
        another word do Mainlander discriminate as much as the non-Mainlanders
        based on non-local Mandarin accents?
        \_ The answer is "No" with almost absolute certainty for several
           reason.  While Beijing is more or less being the capital for
           past 800 years, Chinese government traditionally ran by Mandarins
           selected by sheer examination scores.  This means government
           up to cabinent members can came from anywhere.  As result, there
           is little geographical sense of superority.  The situation changed
           somewhat during Manchu Dynasty, mostly due to ethnic tensions
           between royal desent (Manchus) and Hans who made up majority of
           government body.  The funny things is, those royal family based
           their pride on proper Mandarin (specifically, "inner city" Beijing
           accent, oppose to "outter city" and "outside of city"), instead of
           Manchurian, a native Manchu tongue which almost no one speaks.
           Fastforward to today,like any other metropolitans,bulk of Beijing's
           14 million resident came from outside of the city.  Consider that
           China has several thousands of dialects, most people don't hold
           anything agaist you if you speak with an accent.
        \_ Short answer: No.  While Beijing has been the capital of China for
           more or less 800 years, majority of government officials, e.g.
           Mandarins were selected by examination, thus, no particular
           geographical ties.  Today's Bejing, just like rest of major
           Metropolitians, more people are from outside of Beijing than
           the true native.   While people do praise those who speak
           with proper accent, very few, if any, are being discriminated
           because of his/her accent, as there are at least 1.2 billion people
           speak Mandarin with some sort of accent.  -kngharv
        \_ I don't know about accents, but my wife served as a tour guide
           at the Salt Lake Temple Square, and generally the Taiwanese
           tour guides did not give tours to the mainland Chinese.  She
           wasn't quite sure why, but it seemed to have to do with
           tensions over Taiwanese independence. -jrleek
           \_ jrleek.  The root cause of this tension is because
              pro-independent Taiwanese plays racial politics.  Race, by
              their definition, is based upon where one's parents were born.
              As result, myself, born in Taiwan and currently working in
              Taiwan, is considered as "Chinese Pig" by those Taiwanese.
              (by the way, "Chinese Pig" was the exact term they use.)
              Right now, Taiwan's democracy is completely engulfed by racial
              politics that anything deemd "Native" (i.e. those people who
              came to Taiwan prior to First Sino-Japanese War in 1845) is
              justified.   Politicians are judged based upon his blood line,
              not by how well he/she has been ruled.    kngharv
              not by how well he/she has ruled.         kngharv
           \_ It is true. The Taiwanese people resent the Mainlanders
              and their government. I'm wondering if the reverse is
              also true. Do Mainlanders hate the Taiwanese?  -taiwanese
                   \- there are some pretty crazy shenannigans between
                      china and taiwan. do you know about the crazy panda
                      diplomacy trick? i understand there is some either
                      pro-chinese or pro-taiwanese radio talk show in LA
                      and people get so worked up when calling from cell
                      phones in cars, they get into accidents. china also
                      does some wealsey things like objecting to a USA visa
                      for taiwanese officials truing to come to things like
                      college reunions.
                \_ We should bomb Taiwan.  Why the hell does this
                   tiny country even exist? -proud American
                   \_ To provide us with motherboards, DUH!
                \_ You misunderstand.  The tour guides didn't have the
                   problem, the guests did.  In otherwords, from this one
                   data point it seems like mainlanders might have a
                   problem with the Taiwanese.  One third hand data point
                   ain't much though. -jrleek
                   \_ nope, jrleek, that is not correct.  People from mainland
                      tend to have problem with people from Hong Kong for one
                      reason or another, such resentment toward people from
                      Taiwan virtually non-existent.   Majority of problem
                      lies upon Taiwan side.  -kngharv
        \_ I don't know Chineese, but I do know people, so I can pretty
           confidently say, "Yes." Yankees hate southern accents.
           Swiss hate Austrian accents. Sri Lankans hate Indian Tamil
           accents. Limeys hate Gringo accents. People everywhere are
           convinced that their way of speaking a language is the one true
           way and everyone else is wrong. So it goes.
           \_ That's not always true.  Some accents get classified as "sexy"
              or "sophisticated", along with associated stereotypes(I'm talking
              about English here).
           \_ Southern accents are great.  Northern ones are ugly.  -Yankee
              \_ You guys are right. The corollary is that people
                 everywhere hate their own accent and like other accents.
           \_ I don't know man. I use to dislike Cantonese (and I am a
              Mandarin speaker), but there was this cute sexy girl who
              I swear speaks the most sexy sounding Cantonese I've
              ever heard. After that, I don't find Cantonese so
              offensive sounding. ;)