Chinese Taking Over

In some schools in the USA, when all the little school kids are saying "I pledge allegiance to the flag", there is a Chinese flag hanging there. And right now as I type this, Chinese astronauts are orbiting the earth overhead. Indeed, the Chinese are taking over.

It's not surprised that there's a surge of interest in studying Mandarin. In my class, there are 6 students and half of them (including me) studied Japanese in the 90's. I guess its a certain type who is brave enough to study a language like that, so not surprising that they would now turn their interest towards Chinese. But the fact that Chinese is entering the public school curriculum is awesome.

"Chinese is our new baby," said David J. Domovic, the principal of one of the 20 New York City school schools offering instruction in Mandarin. "Everybody just wants in."

It's also fascinating to think back to just a few years ago when news coverage about China was generally about "negative" issues like Tibet and human rights. Now, the mainstream press is filled with positives like China's booming economy, recent Chinese tech company IPOs and progress towards the Beijing Olympics. The mental image for China has changed from the lone protester blocking a line of tanks to that of a booming downtown city scene, men rushing to meetings, fashionable women on cell phones, bicycles riding along side of BMWs, old men pulling carts of coal...