Most of the Flight Attendants I interacted with were young and older women from Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia – and although NOT all were ethnic Chinese – all were ‘Asian’ and all had to be able to speak ‘English’ and ‘Cantonese’ (the dialect of the Chinese language spoke throughout Guangdong province, Hong Kong and various other areas of Asia outside of geographical China) – regardless of their own ethnic language. What the Cathay-Pacific Staff did NOT have to do was speak fluent ‘Putonghua’ (what the West refers to as ‘Mandarin’) the language spoken throughout Mainland China – as the business model at that time was toward the ‘West’ – and NOT toward ‘China’! Times have changed – and given that China is now an economic powerhouse – it is true that within the modern business climate just as many ethnic Chinese people from Mainland China (and elsewhere) use the Airline as Westerners – and that this change in business demographic toward the Chinese Mainland should be recognised by the British ‘Swire’ (family which still maintains a controlling shareholder stake in the business) – and reflected in the training of its Staff! The Cathay-Pacific Staff members who ‘discriminated’ against ‘Putonghua’ speakers on the flight concerned – hsve been ‘sacked’ – and I suspect this process was carried-out in a language they could ALL fully understand!
