China ’s influence felt abroad

Though she is American by birth, the first words Elinore Fresh ever learned were in Chinese.

When Fresh was only 6 weeks old, her father’s job with the Navy brought the family to Taiwan where they lived for seven years.

But the China of today is no longer the China of Fresh’s childhood, and the country has quickly risen as an economic powerhouse.

“You always hear about China as an emerging market,” said Fresh, a University of Florida lecturer of 2 nd year Chinese. “I think China is an emerged market.”

She’s not alone.

Its seems college students are starting to recognize the value of learning Chinese as a supplement to their degree choice.

In 2001, an online survey by Ohio State University’s National East Asian Languages Resource Center polled 302 teachers of higher education level Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The survey found that overall, Chinese language teachers were most optimistic about increases in enrollment over the proceeding five years, with 25 percent anticipating a “great increase” and 54 percent predicting a “gradual increase.”

Growing enrollment

At UF, Fresh said she has noticed enrollment numbers for Chinese language classes start to pick up, and the university’s Department of African and Asian Languages and Literature is responding by opening more class sections, she said.

U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman is currently working to pass legislation that will support such educational efforts. The proposed legislation – known as the United States-China Cultural Engagement Act of 2005, or S. 1117 – would authorize $1.3 billion in federal funds for Chinese language instruction in the US.

Overall, student reasons for learning Chinese vary, Fresh said.

Some students sign up because they hope to gain a competitive edge, while others just want a challenge or to be able to read a menu, Fresh said.

And as the Chinese business market moves westward toward the interior of the Orient, where less people speak English, there is a growing need for American businessmen and women to be able to converse in the native tongue, Fresh said.

Even when Chinese business associates are fluent in English, a foreigner’s ability to speak the hosts’ language often says a lot.

“When an American or non-Chinese person is able to say even some basic things in Chinese, the response from the Chinese person is incredible, how much they open up to you as a person and realize that you really are concerned or really are interested in knowing me and my culture – that goes a long way for the Chinese person,” she said.

‘Cooperate or kill’

For UF student Jason Blackerby, 22, studying Chinese is a way to advance his future career.

“If we look at the world today, we have two major powers – the United States and China – and the way I see it, in the future, we’re either going to cooperate or kill each other,” he said. “I’d like to lend my life to promoting the former and preventing the latter.”

Blackerby, who is majoring in Computer Engineering and East Asian Language and Literature, said that after completing graduate school, he would like to develop his own software engineering company in Beijing or Shanghai where advances in computer technology are gaining momentum.

“Things are changing,” he said.