There has been a big rise in the number of foreigners learning Chinese, but still too few are studying the language, officials said on Thursday, worried this may affect efforts to soften China’s global image…

“At present, the basis for the studying or teaching of Chinese is very weak, unlike for English, French or Spanish, which have been popularized for hundreds of years,” said Xu Lin, director of the Confucius Institute Headquarters.

Xu, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of China’s annual meeting of parliament, said that in the United States more students studied Latin at middle school than Chinese.

“Though the desire to learn Chinese is very high, there is a lack of teachers and teaching materials,” she added, referring specifically to the Confucius Institute.

I guess I have a bit of background in this —- my mother runs her own Chinese school and I have been a veteran of several Chinese programs both domestically and abroad. From my view, the majority of people who learn Chinese are mostly interested in doing business in China or perceive the political and economic importance of China. In the minority are those actually fascinated enough by the culture to seek out classes. Chinese is the only major language left that does not rely on an alphabet system. This, coupled with its reputation as a difficult language, greatly deter many interested in studying it.

Cultural differences greatly enhance the problem; because there is still a dearth of Chinese teachers in America, many American schools and organizations have had to import teachers and professors from China. My old high school’s Chinese program had a visiting teacher from China who had no experience teaching Chinese at all; he taught English in his native country. Just because you speak the language doesn’t mean you can teach it.

With these imports also come Chinese teaching techniques that often don’t fly over well with American students. The teaching style in China is more lecture-based, fast-paced, and strict — it can be very dry and dull for the unaccustomed. Chinese is still a new foreign language to English-speakers and teaching techniques have not caught up to demand yet.

This problem is prevalent in China as well, where many English programs have minimal qualifications for English teachers and give little, if any, training. From what I’ve seen, to become an English teacher in China you have to be white and have a college degree. When I applied for a teaching post in China, they rejected me because my Chinese was too good. They did however, take the French guy. He was white.

China’s problem with not being able to attract as many foreign Chinese learners as they would like brings up China’s lack of soft power and global political image. But that’s for another time.

(Flickr photo credit: peiqianlong)

One of the hotties in the running is 25-year old bachelor Eugene Kang, special assistant to Obama and political activist. Kang is also noted as one of Obama’s golfing buddy, even vacationing with him in Hawaii. A graduate of the University of Michigan, he ran for a second Ward seat on the Ann Arbor City Council in 2005 at the age of 21. Good thing he lost; he snagged an even better job.

With so much attention going to the three Asian American cabinet members (Gary Locke, Steve Chu, and Eric Shinseki) in the United Colors of Benetton advertisement that is the Obama administration, it’s nice that someone’s paying attention to the guy with a more behind-the-scenes job.

Link

As the Dartmouth community was in the midst of celebrating the appointment of Jim Yong Kim, an e-mail was sent out to the entire school in “an attempt of satire”:

“Date: March 3, 2009 11:06:39 AM EST
To: GOOD-MORNING@LISTSERV.DARTMOUTH.EDU
Subject: Good Morning

This is the Generic Good Morning Message for March 3, 2009.

Yesterday came the announcement that President of the College James Wright will be replaced by Chinaman Kim Jim Yong. And a little bit of me died inside.

It was a complete supplies.

On July 1, yet another hard-working American’s job will be taken by an immigrant willing to work in substandard conditions at near-subsistent wage, saving half his money and sending the rest home to his village in the form of traveler’s checks. Unless “Jim Yong Kim” means “I love Freedom” in Chinese, I don’t want anything to do with him. Dartmouth is America, not Panda Garden Rice Village Restaurant.

Y’all get ready for an Asianification under the guise of diversity under the actual Malaysian-invasion leadership instituted under the guise of diversity. It’s a slippery slope we are on. I for one want Democracy and apple pie, not Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen. I know I sure as shit won’t ever be eating my Hop dubs bubs with chopsticks. I like to use my own two American hands.”

I was not too surprised by this e-mail. It’s really just Dartmouth being Dartmouth, where insensitivity is the game. Dartmouth is still very much a bastion of white elitism, no matter what they want you to believe. Dartmouth, and much of America, has a habit of cloaking racially offensive material under the guise of satire and comedy — they blame those who are hurt and offended for not being able to take a joke or understand the humor.

While I may not classify this as truly racist, it’s still very offensive. The material here is still used with malicious and serious intent towards Asian Americans in this country today — I guarantee you that the race jokes you find in a comedy club are nowhere near the ‘satire’ you find in this e-mail.

I have been called Chinaman on many occasions. It is the equivalent of the N-word with a history just as abusive, ignorant, and dirty. American history seems to have forgotten about its treatment of Asians in this country -— the building of the railroads, the immigration bans, the internment camps, the inequality, the ignorance. The term Chinaman has been used to describe anyone of Asian descent, regardless of country or culture. It feeds into this idea that all Asians are the same, that all Asian cultures are the same. Chinaman is a manifestation of all the American xenophobia and racism faced by early Asian immigrants.

Furthermore, there is still a perception in America that people of Asian descent are still foreign. The Asian American community as a whole is still far from being fully embraced by America. Trying to joke along these lines is difficult, controversial, and will undoubtedly end badly. It’s too soon right now to make joking references to the foreignness of Asians because this perception is still strong, alive, assumed, and believed.

What irritates me is how mainstream media rarely picks up on racism and insensitivity towards Asian Americans. Racism towards Asians is one of the last socially acceptable forms of racism in America. If Dartmouth’s new president were black, Hispanic, gay, or even female, similar “satirical” comments directed at him/her would probably be deemed newsworthy. There would be collective outrage and little doubt as to exactly how inflammatory or offensive it was.

Dartmouth College announced on Monday that Jim Yong Kim would be the school’s 17^th president and the first Asian American to head an Ivy League institution.

Kim’s qualifications are beyond perfect.

After graduating from Brown University in 1982 with a major in human biology, he went on to earn a medical degree and a doctorate in anthropology from Harvard University. Kim has headed the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department, been chair of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, won a 2003 MacArthur “genius grant”, and was listed as one of the 100 most influential people by Time Magazine in 2006 for his work in saving the world.

As a current Dartmouth student, I applaud the school’s efforts to take a newer, more modern path. Kim’s background in medicine departs heavily from that of presidents past. His appointment has been met with a resounding approval from the community.

It feels comforting to be represented at Dartmouth. While there is a vocal and active Asian American student community, there are only a handful of Asian American professors and administrators. I also think this is a positive step away from a racist comic strip that ran in the campus daily not long ago and the community’s uninspired response. Dartmouth prides itself on its community atmosphere, but there is mild self-segregation that is not uncommon at other schools. While Kim’s appointment will definitely not solve these problems, hopefully in the long run it will serve to mitigate these issues.

Dartmouth is located in the boonies of New Hampshire—two hours north of Boston in a four-block long town called Hanover. All of Dartmouth stereotypes are more or less true. It is the smallest and arguably least well-known Ivy. Kim’s appointment definitely boosts the school’s image up from that of a conservative WASP party school to a progressive and diversity-friendly party institution.

Currently, Asian Americans make up about 5% of the total population in the United States. Of that, about 50% of single-race Asians 25 and older have at least a Bachelor’s degree. It is only 28% for all Americans over 25.

Across the Ivies, the percentages of Asian American students in undergraduate are as follows:

• Brown- 14%
• Columbia – 22%
• Cornell – 18%
• Dartmouth – 12%
• Harvard – 16%
• University of Pennsylvania (”PENN”) – 23.3%
• Princeton – 15%
• Yale – 14%

Our “model minority” stigma has been a blessing and a curse. There has been evidence of discrimination in the college admissions process. It’s a touchy subject.

In 2006, the Wall Street Journal published an article that exposed a bias against Asian Americans in college admissions.

“Asian American students have higher average SAT scores than any other government-monitored ethnic group, and selective colleges routinely reject them in favor of African American, Hispanic and even white applicants with lower scores in order to have more diverse campuses and make up for past discrimination.”

When the University of California system eliminated affirmative action in 1996, Asian American enrollment boomed, at the expense of African and Hispanic Americans populations, whose percentages saw a decline. Admissions preferences in elite institutions was also the subject of a Princeton University study which concluded that there would be a dramatic increase of Asian Americans in elite universities if race were no longer considered in college admissions.

And of course, how can we forget the guy who sued Princeton?

The appointment of an Asian American to such a lofty position is a major step for American academia. Kim, however, is not the first Asian American to be the head of a major American university. That honor belongs to Chang-lin Tien, eighth Chancellor of UC Berkeley. And last year, Rhode Island School of Design chose John Maeda as its newest leader.

Anyhow, this has been great publicity for the school. Maybe it will lead to fewer people confusing us with Darth Vader’s mouth.

Source

Thanks to John, whose links I stole.