Learning Chinese
Re: More Young Americans Take Chinese Language Challenge
Although I am no supporter of Red China, I think this is a good trend. I am not thinking this for practical reasons; Chinese will never be a language of international communication the way Englsh is today. Even if America sinks into the dust and China becomes the world's sole super-power, English will remain a global lingua franca, at least in the West, just as Greek did in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. While Chinese grammar is simple, its wonderful written language is just too difficult and impratical.
The impracticality of Chinese writing is part of what makes it so wonderful, as I'm sure my favorite Chinese philospher Chuang Tzu (莊子)* would agree. Each Chinese character contains an etymological history. In his book Pictorial Sino-Korean Characters, Korean Protestant pastor Rev. Jacob Chang-ui Kim even uses Christian theology and imagery to explain them, a testament to their universality.
*For an introduction to this philosopher of the impractical, I recommend Way of Chuang Tzu, by the sometimes-problematic Thomas Merton.
Re: More Young Americans Take Chinese Language Challenge
Although I am no supporter of Red China, I think this is a good trend. I am not thinking this for practical reasons; Chinese will never be a language of international communication the way Englsh is today. Even if America sinks into the dust and China becomes the world's sole super-power, English will remain a global lingua franca, at least in the West, just as Greek did in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. While Chinese grammar is simple, its wonderful written language is just too difficult and impratical.
The impracticality of Chinese writing is part of what makes it so wonderful, as I'm sure my favorite Chinese philospher Chuang Tzu (莊子)* would agree. Each Chinese character contains an etymological history. In his book Pictorial Sino-Korean Characters, Korean Protestant pastor Rev. Jacob Chang-ui Kim even uses Christian theology and imagery to explain them, a testament to their universality.
*For an introduction to this philosopher of the impractical, I recommend Way of Chuang Tzu, by the sometimes-problematic Thomas Merton.
Redeemed by Our Savior, I work out my salvation with fear and trembling in Pohang, South Korea, where I live with my wife, daughter, and son and teach English at a science and technology university. Baptized a Methodist and raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran in Buffalo, NY, I spent six years as a guest of the Anglican Communion before being received by the Grace of God into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church on the Feast of Saint Andrew, my patron, anno domini 2002.
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