[bookman156]

The written language is spoken, international pinyin represents its pronunciation (Beijing, rather than Peking in the old Wade-Giles system, for example), though Cantonese is spoken differently. But there are plenty who speak Chinese who can't read or write it.

There's a saying in China that if you travel a hundred miles no-one will understand you. That's why people get out their notebooks to draw the characters. Same as me saying 'Spell it' when I can't understand someone's dialect.