MSL - Mandarin as a Second Language

WSJ has a story about how MSL - Mandarin as a Second Language - is becoming popular overseas. Though not surprised, I've never thought of the term "MSL" being emerging in the world's language learning stage. The world is really changing fast. I'm certain that traditional Chinese characters (or "complex characters") will soon become extinct among the dominant wave of simplified Chinese characters in the world. (full story here)

When she started college in 2000, Tang Guofang didn't chose a popular major such as computer science or business administration that would have given her an edge in China's increasingly competitive job market. Instead, she enrolled in a newly launched course that attracted only a handful of students and puzzled her parents: Teaching Mandarin as a Second Language.

Equally vexing to them was her decision to take a job teaching Mandarin in Thailand after graduation. But for the native of Guilin, now 27 years old, working abroad for two years or more made perfect sense. "I knew that if I stayed in China, my path in life would have been set out for me, whereas if I lived abroad, I would develop a different understanding of the world," says Ms. Tang, who now teaches 8-year-olds at an international school near Bangkok.

Meet a new breed of Chinese migrant worker: young, educated and hungry for new experiences and international travel. Although the West has been churning out globe-trotting English instructors for decades, thousands of young Chinese are now discovering that teaching Mandarin is an increasingly feasible way of funding foreign adventures. They're returning to China transformed by their experiences, and with a fresh, international outlook. "I wanted to go out of the country and have a look around the rest of the world," says Liu Shiming, a slight 31-year-old who taught in Bulgaria's capital, Sofia, for a year in 2005 and 2006. "For us Chinese, international travel has become easier, but it's still not that easy. So I thought teaching would be a good way to get to see the world."

A few years ago, Ms. Liu and her fellow instructors might have struggled to find students. Now, they're being welcomed with open arms as more people world-wide rush to learn China's official language amid the country's expanding influence. Only about 25,000 students in American public schools were studying Mandarin in 2000. Since then, public school systems in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Houston have stepped up Mandarin instruction, doubling that number, according to estimates by the Asia Society, a New York nonprofit organization aimed at boosting U.S.-Asia ties.

The Language of the Future

Six-year Bangkok resident Jackie Thompson, 41, from Australia, has both of her children, Georgina, 11, and Sam, 7, take Mandarin classes. "We're looking at 15 years down the line, when Georgina has graduated from university," she says. "If you have three people interviewing for a job -- one speaks Spanish, one speaks French and one speaks Mandarin -- we're quite sure that it's the Mandarin speaker who's going to get the job."

Mandarin fever runs especially high in Asia, where countries are directly feeling China's economic, political and, increasingly, cultural clout. Thailand and South Korea are planning to introduce Mandarin classes in schools, and Thai officials have said they hope a third of all high school students will be enrolled in Chinese language classes within five years. In Bangkok, private Chinese language centers have mushroomed, while an increasing number of international schools are boasting about their trilingual curricula in Thai, Mandarin and English. Mandarin schools are even opening in Indonesia, where the language was banned for more than three decades as an anti-Communist move by former dictator Suharto.

(full story here; also appears in here.)

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Feds building named after first Chinese Canadian MP

The Province - After months of controversy and consultation, Ottawa has finally picked a new name for an eco-friendly office building in downtown Vancouver.

401 Burrard building will be named after Douglas Jung, the first Chinese-Canadian member of Parliament.

But while some are applauding the new name -- and Ottawa's second attempt at naming the building -- others have been left fuming over the decision.

"I'm disgusted," said John Green about the naming process. "They took [my father's] name off without any research."

Last September, Public Works Minister Michael Fortier originally named the building after Green's father, Conservative MP Howard Green.

But public outcry soon followed from Japanese-Canadian groups who remembered Howard Green as one of the most feared politicians in B.C. for his racist remarks in the 1930s and '40s.

Ottawa soon rescinded its decision and asked for a new naming committee to come up with fresh suggestions for Fortier to consider.

"The irony there is supreme. Dad played a key role in getting him [Jung] into the House of Commons and also took him to the UN as part of the Canadian delegation," said Green. "My dad was a mentor of Douglas Jung."

Green had resubmitted his father's name for consideration in May.

He said he has no objection to Jung but rather to Ottawa's decision to backtrack on the original name.

"My objection is to them removing my father's name on an incorrect and unjustified slur," said Green.

He said his father was not a racist and maintains that his father's public campaign to oust Japanese-Canadians from B.C. in the 1930s and '40s was based on concerns for Canada's security at a time of war.

But Mary Kitagawa, who played a key role in lobbying for a name change, said she's relieved about the new name.

"I was quite relieved the process has come to an end," said Kitagawa, of the Japanese-Canadian Citizens Association Human Rights Committee. She said she's happy with the new name.

Jung was born in Victoria in 1924 with no legal status as a Canadian.

He and a dozen other Chinese-Canadians joined the army at the start of the Second World War.

Jung said this was in order to help them gain citizenship -- which they were granted after the war, in 1947.

In 1944 Jung and the others were sent on a secret mission to Malaysia to train locals to fight the Japanese.

Veterans' Affairs paid for Jung to go to the University of B.C. to study law after the war.

Jung joined the Progressive Conservative Party and in 1957 was elected MP for Vancouver East.

He was appointed a member of the Order of Canada in 1990 and died in January 2002.

The unveiling of the name coincides with 100th anniversary of Vancouver's anti-Asian race riots.

On Sept. 7, 1907, a white mob swept through the Chinese and Japanese sections of Vancouver, smashing windows and attacking Asian immigrants.

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Vancouver Courier - On the 100th anniversary of race riots in Vancouver's China and Japan towns last Friday, a federal office tower was named after Canada's first Chinese-Canadian MP.

Ken Tung, chair of the SUCCESS immigrant service agency, couldn't be more pleased with the choice to name the building after Douglas Jung. Tung, a member of a committee that picked the name, thought Jung was the best choice.

"Putting Douglas Jung's name on 401 Burrard is a very important symbol of the Canadian history today," he said.

Tung noted last year's apology by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Chinese-Canadians for the government's entrance tax and Exclusion Act that restricted Chinese immigration to Canada between 1885 and 1947.

Jung was his first choice of the dozen or so names up for final consideration. Tung believes Jung is a timely choice because 2007 marks the 60th anniversary of Chinese-Canadians winning Canadian citizenship.

Jung went from having no citizenship rights to representing Canada at the United Nations. Jung, who died in 2002, was born in Victoria in 1924. He was among a group of Chinese-Canadians who volunteered to serve in the Second World War to strengthen their demand for civil rights once the war ended.

He was the first Chinese-Canadian veteran to receive a university education under the auspices of Veterans Affairs Canada. He graduated in law and was called to the bar in 1954. In 1955, he was the first Chinese-Canadian lawyer to appear before the B.C. Court of Appeal. He was the first Chinese-Canadian MP, serving as a Conservative Vancouver Centre representative in Parliament from 1957 to 1962.

In 1962, he was appointed a judge on the Immigration and Appeal Board in Ottawa. He implemented the amnesty program that made it possible for thousands of Chinese who had come to Canada using false names to regularize their status with federal immigration. He became a member of the Order of Canada in 1990 and the Order of British Columbia in 1997.

But Jung's name isn't the first assigned to the 19-storey office building at Burrard and Pender, which houses Environment Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Last September, Michael Fortier, minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, named the environmentally friendly, energy-efficient tower after former cabinet minister and Conservative MP Howard Green. Japanese-Canadian groups promptly protested the choice because Green led a public campaign to oust them from the province during the Second World War. The decision to name it after Green was rescinded to the ire of Green's son, John.

The younger Green argued his father, who fought in the First World War, was not racist and, in fact, mentored and boosted Jung.

Green was a longstanding Vancouver South and Vancouver Quadra MP and cabinet minister during the Diefenbaker era who was a strong advocate of nuclear disarmament. He also represented Canada at the U.N.

Arthur Calderwood, Jung's son, feels honoured that his father's name was chosen.

"He would be proud, primarily not for his own behalf," Calderwood said. "He said this numerous times, that whenever you receive an award there are lots of people behind you that have helped you in giving you encouragement and support along the way that are essentially unnamed, and that he felt that any award or recognition that he received was also a reflection of the Chinese-Canadians and of people that had supported him."

But he never specified Howard Green as one of his major supporters, Calderwood said, adding experienced Conservative B.C. MPs mentored all of the junior MPs in Ottawa at the time, but his mom, Joy Calderwood, said Green showed her ex-husband no special treatment.

Tung wasn't on the initial committee that chose Green's name.

"Not one name would please everyone, definitely," Tung said. "I would pick the person who will receive the most welcome from the community, so that's why Douglas Jung is chosen."

Asian-Americans pass the 10 million mark

Hindustan Times - Asian-American immigrant population broke the 10 million barrier in the US for the first time, says data released by the US Census Bureau. These immigrants, especially those from India and China, are also the most highly educated in the country.

Asians represent roughly one-fourth of the total 37.5 million immigrants in the US in 2006.

Nearly half of Asian immigrants hold at least a bachelor's degree. Indian immigrants are among the best educated immigrant populations in the US, matched only by Japanese-Americans. According to the 2000 US Census, 64% of Indian-Americans held a college degree and 40% held a master's or professional degree.

The percentage of native-born Americans holding a bachelor's degree is 27%. Latin American immigrants, the largest migrant population, were the least educated. Only 11% held a bachelor's degree.

Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau was quoted as saying, "Driving this are people coming from China and India. They are either coming with a bachelor's degree, or they are coming with visas and getting degrees once they arrive."

Indians represent the largest foreign student population in the US. Massachusetts, helped by the concentration of educational institutions in Boston, was the state with the highest number of college-educated (37%) adults.

Jeanne Batalova of the Migration Policy Institute says this largely reflects the windows provided by US immigration law. Indians who migrated to the US in the late 19th century worked on farms and mines. When the US allowed employment-based visas in 1965 the door was opened for educated Indian migrants. "In the 1970s, as many as 90 per cent of Indian-Americans migrants had professional degrees. But their absolute numbers were small."

A further shift happened when the US liberalised student visas and the software boom brought in tech workers in the 1990s. This again biased immigration in favour of educated Indians. But, says Batalova, a balance was provided in the increasing number by immigrants being sponsored by relatives already in the US. Though family reunification normally brings in people of the same class, it also leads to greater diversity in terms of educational levels.

Whether this represents a "brain drain" on developing countries is less of a debate than it once was. Says Vivek Wadhwa, an expert on immigrant entrepreneurship at Harvard University: "The sad thing here is that with US's flawed immigration policies, the country is driving away some of the best and brightest." He suspects Asian countries may be contributing more to the US in intellectual capital than they get in foreign aid.

The triple flow of students, skilled workers and relative sponsorship are determining the educational profile of Indian-Americans. The peak of educational attainment for the Indian-American community as a whole was the 1970s, but the present figure is likely to stay more or less the same in the coming years.

Asian immigrants driving education level up in US

The Times of India - Immigrants from Asian nations like India and China, nearly half of them holding at least a bachelor's degree, are raising average education levels in many American states, according to latest official statistics.

Although the number of immigrants in America has reached an all-time high of 37.5 million in 2006, there is significant disparity in education and income levels, the Census Bureau, which released the data, said.

Immigrants from India and China are driving the Asian percentages up in the realm of education either arriving with a bachelor's degree or getting a higher degree upon arrival, the Bureau pointed out.

Asian immigrants are raising average education levels in many states, with nearly half of them holding at least a bachelor's degree.

"There is no one-size-fits-all policy that you could apply for all immigrant groups. I think most of the attention has been on low-skilled workers coming from Mexico. But we have 10 million immigrants from Asia, a number that's growing," Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau said.

About 48% of Asian immigrants held at least a bachelor's degree, compared with about 11 per cent of immigrants from Latin America. Among people born in the US, about 27% were college graduates.

"Driving this are people coming from China and India," Mather said. "They are either coming with a bachelor's degree, or they are coming with visas and getting degrees once they arrive."