I guessed wrong, back when they phased my old language out. I decided to jump ship to either Chinese or Arabic. At the time, I figured, man, Arabic is old news, China is where the action's gonna be.
That was in the late 90's. Who knew? Of course, for the longer term Chinese is a smarter move, but I had all but flipped a coin to make my decision.
I've always wanted to visit China. I took a Chinese history course in college from an inspiring professor and in high school hung out at Joyce Chen's restaurant in Cambridge. China rocks.
But I can't rationalize a visit to a country that still has so many totalitarian, undemocratic cooties.
I feel guardedly optimistic though, that I'll be able to visit China and take my family there while they are still school aged.