English

Some argue that Chinese people speak very poor English, Chinese people, if hear of this, will say their English speaking is at least better than that of Japanese or Korean. This is really a riddle because I gradually find lots of Japanese and Koreans speaking excellent English.

We, I mean in the communist period, studied Russian for 30 years, then English. In the Northeast part Japanese study is also a tradition (or sub-culture) because this part has been invaded by Japanese long time ago. Few people study French and German, even less people study Spanish and Arab.

Among the 7 top political leaders, only one has been to study abroad. And I'm afraid even he, Luo Gan, has forgotten German already. Bureaucratic life needs no foreign language at all. That's ironic that he is recommended to be in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs because only he has experience in communicating with the west, but foreigners didn't like him because he had suppressed Tian'an Men Protest. Western school life didn't help him to be tolerant.

Now many new leaders can speak English, some speak very good. The next generation, people born in the 1970s, and our generation who born in the 1980s, speak English in general. There is going to be a whole country can speak English, although average poor. We don't want India to steel our cake from hands of American and European.