What "standardized" really means and can a language be "standardized"?

As we talked about language standardization and globalization in class, I would like to continue discussing on this topic. I expressed myself as a language standardizer in a previous discussion. Of course standardization is super duper necessary, but can any kind of language be truly standardized? My initiate answer was: “No.”  

From: http://www.uniglobecarefreetravel.com

Like what I said in class, China is a huge country which has thirty-two provinces and almost every province own a different dialect. Although we all live in the same country and speak so-called “Chinese”, it still gives us a headache to talk with others who come from different area, especially the difference in language between the north and south. 

Pick myself as a example, I come from Beijing city, which is in the north part of China. I was born in Beijing and grew up there, my dad, however, was born in Hunan province in south. So I had no idea what Hunan dialect is when the first time I visited there, that makes me felt like I was in a different country, honestly. I almost couldn’t understand every words they’ve spoken and they failed to figure out what I said too. It surprised me a lot that how same we write and how different we speak. Orally, I totally couldn’t communicate with Chinese people who speak different dialects. I don’t think the differences in speaking are that huge in different part of the US though. And I promised you those kind of inconvenience are existing everyday in every corner of China due to the migrations.

Did the government realize the problem? Of course they did. It is one of Chinese government's basic policies to extend the using of what they called standardized Chinese characters. In Beijing city, as the capital of China, we began learning and using standardized Chinese at very young age, but not every province has the same story. If people didn’t start in a young age, they may find it’s super hard to change their tongue to standardized Chinese. Although Chinese standardization was a long, imperceptible process, it still couldn’t satisfy everyone. The simple question is this : “Do we standardized Chinese?” Hell yes. Chinese finally has a common standard that everyone should follow. “Does everyone study and use standardized Chinese?” Hell no. Having a standard doesn’t mean everyone want to follow it. Today, under the “standardized Chinese policy”, problems still exist everywhere. The road of Chinese standardization is still long and rough, but will we finally reach our goal? I really don’t know. The word “standardized” does not simply mean someone powerful put a standard on something and told others to follow, but to gradually create a standard everyone is willing to adopt by themselves. So if that was extremely hard inside a single country—China, how are we supposed to do it for the whole world which is made up by hundreds of different countries? 

The same with English, nothing different as a global language. Did we realize the problem? Of course we did. Are we in the process? Yes, we are. But will we finally reach our goal—standardized English or even Globish? I really don’t know.