A Return to Normalcy

[mindstalk]

American parents starting to have their kids learn Chinese -- even in first grade. The beginning of the end of the post-1500 aberration of history not revolving around the Middle Kingdom?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/education/29mandarin.html

Comments

[pompe.livejournal.com]

Maybe the end of the idea that one's own tongue is and will be a universal language, which might have to do less with Chinese strength than with a perceived lack of own dominance.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Good point.

[cyperus-papyrus.livejournal.com]

Here via your comments (http://pompe.livejournal.com/139792.html?thread=463120#t463120) over in pompe's journal.

The first thing I thought when I read this was, it's going to be a Firefly world, all these kids are going to grow into teenagers who swear at their parents in Chinese. :)

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Hee hee!

And then the US can send out what James Nicoll calls the B Ark (after Adams) to make the Chinese-swearing slant-eyed-free[1] colonies.

[1] Except for the pesky detail of all those Asian-Americans.