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I suppose I should throw out my copies of the I Ching, collected workings of Confucius, and The Art of War now before people think I'm a Communist. And that Mao text on Guerrilla Warfare especially needs to go. Also Wo hu cang long and Ying xiong probably need to be tossed out of the DVD collection...
People. Are. Stupid. "English, pfft, I'm never going to England anyway." Seems like if we're going to be trading with China all this much, which we are, then why not learn how to speak and read some of the language? If we're going to be belligerent in attitudes toward China, then why not learn how their country operates and cultural traditions exist in order to better counter their international agenda? We had thousands of students studying Russian during the Cold War (to keep tabs on the Soviets) and I remember seeing all kinds of stuff about life behind the Iron Curtain as a child (as in, it was largely inane and insufferable). But no. There's no reason to study China when it's a rising economic and military powerhouse in the Far East.
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2 comments:
Watched that episode. It is quite ridiculous that the amount of hyperbolic complaining that is going on over teaching some kids Chinese.
I think the common American persuasion is that everyone else should just learn English. I don't think Mandarin should be mandatory, any more than learning Spanish or German should be. But it's certainly going to be more useful in a current kid's working lifetime than just having learned English to learn a) any second language at all, b) one that's really common and c) one that's really common with an increasingly common trading partner and/or regional rising superpower that may seek to oppose American hegemony.
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