Posted on 04/20/2006 12:23:20 PM PDT by PghBaldy
How the ordinary Chinese people see America? Upon the occasion that Chinese President Hu Jintao is in America for a state visit, People's Daily has interviewed some Chinese citizens on their impression on the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at english.peopledaily.com.cn ...
You are abdo-lutely right! I know many Chinese immigrants here in the States.
They've all become citizens, and are all very hard-working people wanting to partake in the American dream. One of them is my wife! Her English is better than mine! She teaches Mandarin at a local University.
All my friends tell me that most things in China have loosened up quite a bit. The government still sucks, but it's rotting from the inside.
"people in China are learning English in mass." You are right! My wife taught English at Fudan University in Shanghai before emmigrating. My best friend does concert tours in China, Taiwan, etc., a couple times a year, and always has people to talk to. And people come up to him on the street, practically begging to practice their English on him.
"You are abdo-lutely right! I know many Chinese immigrants here in the States."
My neighborhood here in California is mostly Chinese and I can vouch for what you say. The hard work is a given, right, but I am most struck by how much these folks WANT to be American and "partake in the American dream", as you say.
Last summer, one of the Chinese grandmothers (from Beijing) at the community pool said it best in a way that sticks with my rather simple mind. She said, "Chinese good, government bad" and went on to tell me that she was a new American citizen (I welcomed her). This in turn reminded me what is truly great about this country.
Your wife is a welcome addition to our nation. From the first Chinese who came to California during the Gold Rush in search of the "Mountan of Gold" to Mandarin teachers at the local university, Chinese-American history is an important (and sometimes overlooked) part of the history of California and the west.
China has it's true many minorities, but the pressures are for integration into the larger whole and a drive to conformity. Within the Chinese population it is conformity that is prized, not independence and eccentrism. The nail that sticks out is hammered down, as it is in Europe and Japan.
The only truly heterogeneous societies are immigrant societies that have assimilated their immigrants. The US, Australia, Canada, Argentina, Uruguay, etc..
You are so right! My wife's elderly mother is in a nursing home in Shanghai. All these little old ladies sit around and speak English all the time! It's a game, and a challenge for them, and they love it! Keeps their old brains cruisin' along too.
To communicate via computer using Chinese characters is a real headache. First you type in the phonetic spellings of the Chinese symbols using the standard Roman alphabet. As you go along, you have to specify how each phonetic spelling is inflected (since inflection determines meaning along with the particular vowel and consonant sounds). Then you run your message through a program that creates the Chinese symbols.
but then again people in China are learning English in mass.
A Chinese grad student recently told me that most educated Chinese do their emails and text messaging in English. Using the Chinese is just too cumbersome.
China and Japan of 20 years ago also have a similar problem that's going to come back to haunt them: bad debt. Much of China's economic growth is fuelled by lending from state owned banks, and that's questionable at best. When the bad loans become too large to ignore, China is going to have a major case of economic indigestion.
Regards, Ivan
Boy, they don't last very long lately, do they?
BWAAAAAAAAAA!
Several months ago, our daughter was "invited" to become a student ambassador to China through "People to People." We attended the information seminar and were told that the Chinese love Americans and the kids are treated like celebrities. They are always happy to see Americans and are eager to talk with them and work on their English.
I'd been uncomfortable with allowing her to go, given the PRC's treatment of Christians. She made her own decision after seeing the report on Fox News showing people being forcibly evicted from their houses only moments before the wrecking ball went through them. All in the name of progress.
Our private-property grabbing USSC judges would feel at home there.
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