If China is our enemy, why are 1st graders learning CHINESE?

[Deja Q]

Because China is our true best friend, we will be working for them at slave labor conditions, and we will need to learn their language.

More proof that my claim that there is no tussle of any real sort going on between the US and China is the real truth. Our corporate executives would not want such a conflict, for it is impossible to happen. Not when their leaders have been conspiring with ours for 30 years.

Discuss.

[tuvor]

How many with Chinese ancestry live in the USA?

If I knew a Chinese dialect, I could've potentially done a lot more in Canada.

Much more than with the French I had to learn.

[Deja Q]

3. For Canada, at least from the last time I took their online exam, they

prefer French over Chinese.

At least so far; but life is full of change. (full of other things too, but I just need a date.)

[CanuckAmok]

14. there are more Mandarin and Cantonese speaking people in...

Western Canada than Francophones.

In Vancouver proper, signs are often in English/Cantonese as opposed to English/French. I noticed te other day that when you call Telus (our phone company), their voice-mail system says "for English press '1'; for Cantonese press '2'..."

[WilliamPitt]

1. Same reason they were offering Russian when I was a kid

[Deja Q]

2. Mine only offered French, Spanish, German... 1986.

And I was more interested IN Russian.

[Canuckistanian]

5. I took Russian in college

HypnoToad, who IS that guy in your sig? I'm guessing he's British.

[Taxloss]

8. That's Kerr Avon, hero of the resistance against the evil Federation.

In the British cult 1970s sci-fi series "Blake's Seven".

(Hypnotoad, you have permission to slap me if I am wrong.)

[Canuckistanian]

22. Thanks!

I've been looking at that face for months and wondering who it was.

[havocmom]

4. There are no nations anymore.

Only corporations and cartels

[gordianot]

6. Communist Corporatism

Has been in the works for a long time. I always wondered how the Soviet Communist disappeared so quickly.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. We learn foreign languages for many reasons

For one thing, learning another language helps you learn more about your own language.

[brokensymmetry]

9. Our elites think China is our best friend...but...

China is nationalistic. They will be our friend so long as it suits their interests. When that changes, they will tighten the noose around our scrawney little necks...

I'll leave to your imagination how that will play out.

[lonestarnot]

10. Slave labor indeed!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. When I was in high school, we were told that we ought to learn Russian

"for national defense."

(My high school didn't offer Russian, although I studied it a little in college, more out of cultural interest--music, folk art, dance, religious studies--than out of any sense of patriotism.)

I've studied Chinese, too, mostly because I'm interested in East Asia in general, and I spent five weeks in China about fifteen years ago. It's a fascinating country irrespective of any political or economic considerations (four thousand years of continuous history and several dozen ethnic groups), and the ordinary people are very friendly and outgoing.

[walldude]

12. So they will all be ready to work at Wal-Mart

when they grow up...

[Tim4319]

13. Why does China hold our mortgage?

[obxhead]

15. Slave labor in America would be more expensive than

our current minimum wage laws.

Slaves need to be fed, clothed, and sheltered.

[Davis_X_Machina]

16. One rarely sees a post...

...so wrong in so many different ways.

Chinese is an ancient language. It's the classical language of the world's oldest continuous civilization. Sanskrit and Latin have similar functions for a billion apiece in the subcontinent and Europe and the West, but no one seems to think teaching them is somehow aberrant.

Chinese has an extensive and important literature.

There's an extensive Chinese diaspora, and it's more Mandarin and less Cantonese every year. In any event, the written language is substantially the same.

Chinese is useful in business -- whether it's true we're being bought by or sold to them as a nation is debatable, it's a fact that we do an enormous business with them.

And assume ex hypothesi that they are our enemies -- is that a reason to have more, or fewer, Americans comfortable in Chinese?

[cornermouse]

17. Because we plan to lose.

[Freedomfried]

18. Its the language for sucess in the future.

e0m

[rman]

19. We won't be working for "the Chinese" as such,

since most of "the Chinese" don't own shit, just like most of us.

Laborers of both China and the US (and the rest of the world for that matter) will be (are) working for the transnational power elites.


It's "us versus them" alright, it's just that "them" is not the Chinese, nor the Russians, nor the Cubans, nor the Venezuelans etc... much unlike what the elites would have us believe.

[Thom Little]

20. No language is an enemy. Only people are.

[ErisFiveFingers]

21. The enemy is not a language. n/t

[cire4]

23. Ummm...Chinese does have the most native speakers in the world

Chinese and Spanish will be the two most important languages to know this century. Anybody who wants to conduct any kind of international business will have to know a little Chinese. Those 1st graders are lucky that a school district has enough sense teach them the language at such a young age. By the time they graduate from college or even high school, they will have an unparalleled competitive advantage