I never thought I would see the day when Russia and China, previously fighting Nazi Germany and Japan would become so like the countries themselves back then, but here we are.
Russia is the modern day Nazi Germany and China is the modern day WW2 Japan. Japan and Germany? Well they're the good guys now, literally swapped places.
When I was there last before the pandemic I had no problems. If it's any consolation what I've noticed is that in the mainland radio I've heard them use words like
Argue (idk the word for it Cantonese because it is an English loanword that originated in HK)
Cut 線 for hang up which is another english loanword
Keep住 for continue etc.
This was unheard of even ten years ago and the younger generation when I was there have softer accents (merging slowly to HK accent). What's more profound is that they use it in broadcasts, which means more people will use these terms.
I'm happy that the vocabulary has changed on the mainland somewhat, these terms are popular in HK. Having English loanwords is good because it makes it vastly different to Mandarin so that people don't get confused between the words.
Mixing in a bit of English sounds normal in Cantonese even on the mainland is becoming more and more normal (people won't bat an eye) whereas if you do it in Mandarin people go wtf.
Having said that the accent vocab change on the mainland only affects the younger generation, the older ones use the traditional or even Mandarin terms as some of them get confused between the two. I have yet to hear anyone on the mainland older than 30 use the English loanwords.
I'm from the mainland originally but I've been overseas for a long time so my English is better than my canto. When I'm in the mainland Cantonese is easier because if I don't know a term I just put the English word in it's place, noone cares but always feel nervous in Mandarin because it's not normal to code switch.
How sad to be working on a Sunday and two days out before Christmas.
Wouldn't lift a finger for less than triple time.