Arts3991 Newspaper Article, Defend Your Major Chinese Capstone Unsw

Assignment 3 Newspaper Article

Cheap China taking over the world? Super powers that nobody likes?

Majoring in Chinese, why would anybody ever want to do that? The place is too big, the writing systems too complicated, you don’t learn enough at university to be actually functional in the language and make a difference, isn’t that just a waste of time? I mean like look at Kevin Rudd, even if he is fluent in Chinese, he still didn’t have a successful political career. These claims that would break anybody’s heart when it comes to learning Chinese, well it’s not like they don’t have anything to back it up. Every single lecturer in Chinese streams says there’s just too much content that they can’t cover – who can blame them when there’s at least 4,000 years’ worth of history down China’s belt.

Despite increasing public acceptance as the next super power, global public opinion polls in 2013 (www.pewglobal.org) show an increasing portion of the population not liking China. Their human rights record, constant badgering over borders, cheap products and even cheaper labour makes it hard for the average Joe to want to like China as a nation. Even if the survey shows Chinese people to be the most optimistic in the world, confident in their economic poweress and future, when pressed, they reveal a host of worries and concerns.

When you overhear things like “I don’t understand the lecturer’s accent, why don’t they just hold this in Chinese, I mean like China is going to take over the world anyway.” learning Chinese becomes such a turn off. So what if I blend in with the sea of Asian heads behind me at UNSW in accounting with my black hair and yellow skin. Even I lose face to be mildly associated with this kind of idiot and feel like telling them ‘go back to where you came from’ if you don’t want to learn English.

But let’s consider the facts (DFAT 2012) for a second:

* Population: 1.354 billion

* GDP per capita: US$6,706

* GDP growth: 7.8%

*...