If an institute opens a new branch every three days, will it be
called "overheating"? Obviously not, says Xu Lin.
The chief executive of Confucius Institute Headquarters draws an
analogy from war times. "It's like a continuous campaign, one
battle leading to another. Before you have the time to clear the
battleground, another battle has started."
She is talking about the opening of Confucius Institutes around
the world. At the end of last year, there were 100 institutes, but
by the end of last month the number had reached 209, that is, one
in every three days.
"We're trying our best to manage our growth," says Xu, who is
also director of the Office of Chinese Language Council
International, known as Hanban. "There have been so many
applications from all over the world. We have been very selective,
but we still granted 100-odd of them."
With China's rapid rise on the global stage comes the growing
need for knowledge about the country. "We happen to work during
good times. We don't need to push foreigners to learn Chinese.
Instead, we are being pushed by them to accommodate their
need."
During a visit to Egypt, Xu saw a tour guide reading a textbook
of Chinese language. Since it was a photocopy of a book endorsed by
her headquarters, she struck a conversation with him. What he said
came as a revelation: "Tour guides proficient in Chinese could earn
twice as much as those who speak French." He was among the
20,000-odd people who applied for admission when Cairo University
opened its Confucius Institute and was among the first to
enroll.
Xu was told of another reason why so many non-Chinese wanted to
learn the Chinese language when she was in England. "Of all the
10-year-olds here, most will need to have contact with China, its
people and its language on one occasion or another," said a local
school authorities.
So far, 46,000 people from 64 countries have benefited from
Confucius Institutes' language programs, most of who have been very
pragmatic in choosing the language, says deputy chief executive of
the institutes' headquarters Zhao Guocheng. "They want to improve
their job prospects. The knowledge will come in handy to many,
irrespective of whether they're in trading or other fields."
Take the example of a businessman in Nairobi. He enrolled in a
Confucius Institute so that he could translate the user manuals of
the disks imported from China, says Zhao.
Teaching Chinese overseas requires special methodologies. What
is useful here in China may not work in other countries. "The way
we speak differs from the way we write, and writing is the most
daunting obstacle. You'll scare people away if you start with
written words." That's why most Confucius Institutes emphasize
listening and speaking, and then graduate to reading. Even for
writing, only recognition is necessary for most people because much
of the writing is done on the computer nowadays.
Will Confucius Institutes become a competitor for overseas
Chinese language schools? No, says Zhao. In fact, the opposite has
happened. In places like North America, children of Chinese
emigrants are sent to weekend language schools, but they are often
unwilling to learn because it won't heighten their sense of
belonging to the mainstream. Now that Chinese is being offered in
their own schools, their relative ease at learning the language,
compared with classmates of other ethnic groups, instills a sense
of pride in them.
Since Chinese - as a second or third language - is being
understood and spoken by more and more people, it will inevitably,
like English, lose some of its "purity". But this is not something
to be feared, argues Zhao, because it is inevitable. "Linguistic
purity is an academic and artistic pursuit. It's not a major
requirement for communication. Language is learned for pragmatic
reasons. A language used worldwide won't be pure and does not need
to be so."
But teaching Chinese is only "half the job" of Confucius
Institutes. You cannot separate the language from the culture. Many
institutes offer all kinds of services. Xu recounts several
examples to illustrate the point: People consult local Confucius
Institutes to seek advice on what places to visit in China, what
gifts to buy for their Chinese counterparts on their business
trips, what etiquette faux-pas to watch out for.
Language is a facilitator and a launching pad. Screening movie
is a very useful tool, too, says Zhao. It puts a language in the
proper perspective and provides a much more relaxed way of
learning. The institute in South Korea's Woosong University also
has Chinese cooking classes. The institute at Kazan State
University in Russia held a special party to celebrate China's
National Day, while the one at the University of Dusselfdorf in
Germany threw a Mid-Autumn Festival party. On the more serious
side, the institute at Dublin University held a conference on "The
Rise of China in a Global Era".
The opening of so many outlets requires a major financial
commitment, part of which comes from the headquarters. "Our
headquarters and its foreign partner split the investment in half,"
Zhao says. "We can't break even and we're not looking to earn a
profit. We are an NGO, after all. But that does not mean we can't
charge for our courses."
There are exceptions, though. The one in Japan's Aichi
University has enrolled 1,500 students and can cover its own
cost.
Zhao denies the allegation that Confucius Institutes are set up
to brainwash foreigners with Chinese ideology. "Learning a foreign
language means respecting another culture, not embracing it in its
entirety. Cultural differences have their benefits. The old
colonialists had a way of using language for brainwashing. In the
era of globalization, our goal is to facilitate mutual
understanding of multiple cultures, their mutual accommodation and
even blending. We seek harmony with differences intact."
The real challenge for Confucius Institutes is a severe shortage
of teaching resources. "There simply aren't enough teachers in
China or elsewhere who can teach Chinese as a foreign language,"
Zhao says.
He refuses to hazard a guess on how many more Confucius
Institutes will be set up. "We don't have a preset number. It all
depends on the need and whether everything else is ready."
(China Daily December 12, 2007)
