It's Been a Great Year

Today we had a very brief review session to close out the first book of the third grade. This also concludes our first (calendar) year of Chinese school at home. It's been a great year. We finished the 2nd grade book and a third of the 3rd grade. My daughter has been making great strides in learning characters and reading comprehensions.

Happy Holidays!

The Smart Afanti

One of the reading materials in this week's lesson is about the smart Afanti, a legend figure in Xingjiang folklore who is smart and cunning. We had grown up with a lot of such stories of his adventures.

Anyway, my daughter decided to translate it into English. Here is what she comes up with:

Nobody Can Fool Me

On the road, it is very busy. Zhang San yelled to everybody:
“I am the smartest person, nobody can fool me! If you don’t
believe, you can all try!”

Not long after Zhang San yelled, Afanti happened to pass
by. Afanti stopped and told Zhang San: “Mister, I trust that
you are the smartest person in the world, nobody could fool
you. But my friend says, he is even smarter, he has a method
to fool you! Please wait here, I will find my friend, and we
can see who is smarter?”

Zhang San quickly agreed: “Okay, okay, if you go quickly, I
will wait here.”

Afanti went, Zhang San stood and waited, and waited until
nighttime. The road didn’t have many cars, not many people,
and Afanti and his “smart” friend still hadn’t shown up. Of
course, Zhang San was fooled into waiting for them.

The original Chinese is:

谁也骗不了我

马路上，车来人往的真热闹。张三对着来来往往的人们高
声喊着： “我是天下第一聪明的人，谁也骗不了我！不信，
你们谁都可以来试试！”

张三喊了不久，阿凡提正好从这里走过。阿凡提就站下来
对张三说：“先生，我相信你是世界上最聪明的人，谁也骗
不了你。可是我的朋友说，他比你更聪明，他有办法能骗
得了你！请你在这儿等一等，我去把我的朋友找来，看看
你们俩到底谁聪明？”

张三满口答应：“可以可以，你快去吧，我就在这里等着。”

阿凡提走了，张三站在那里左等右等，一直等到了天黑。
马路上车少了，人也少了，阿凡提和他那“聪明”的朋友还
是没有来。当然，受了骗的张三是怎么也等不到他们的了。

Is Panama A First?

Thanks to James who alerted me the news that Panama is moving towards requiring all schools to teach Chinese. I am not aware of any other countries which are not China's close neighbors to make such a bold move. Is Panama a first in this aspect?

For Practical Reasons, Is it Important to Learn Chinese?

There are many reasons for a non-native Chinese person to learn the Chinese language. Many of them are based on non-practical rationals: the love for the country, the people, the culture, and so on.

In more recent years however, a practical rational is gaining a huge momentum. This is based on the tremendous development of China's economy and influence. There is a wide-spread belief that China may overtake the west, namely the United States, as the world's leading power within this century. As such, learning the Chinese language would enhance one's future career opportunities.

I am very suspicious about such claims. Just about 20 years ago, when Japan was on the rise and threatening to take over the US in economical power, there had been a lot of talk about the importance of learning Japanese. We don't hear about that any more. For one thing, Japan has been in a bad slump for more than a decade. But more importantly, most, if not all, of the business conduct involving Japan are done with English language. Knowing Japanese is not a prerequisite to a career there.

A recent article in the Economists magazine touched on the same issue.

According to that article, there are 30 million foreigners studying Chinese language today. But it did not say how many of them are doing it for the practical reason.