my observation as ABC is that most of my peers (other ABCs) can’t read Chinese and have fossilized speaking/listening skills, if they retain much at all. There is some “blame” on parents pushing kids to focus on English, or the education system or other society things, but the fact of the matter is at least for me anecdotally, Chinese language weekend schools (designed for native speakers) I attended start off with a lot of kids in the beginner/lower levels (30+) but very few sticks with it all that long. Grade 11/12 and HSK class we only had 7 people iirc, and this was more than 10 years ago. I didn’t even want to attend, being Chinese and doing culturally Chinese things were uncool and made it really awkward to try to make friends in white society, as well as took time away from socializing as a teen. I’m glad I stuck with it, however I will say that efforts towards Chinese literacy was more due to efforts I made as an adult, but I’m very grateful that my parents tried and it gave me a decent foundation.
Another thing is, even as recently as 10-15 years ago, China was still very much developing country, homeless could still be seen begging on the streets and income inequality especially with lots of migrant workers from rural areas - surface level observations but very visually prominent, which could lead someone to think that China is backwards or communism is a fraud or failure. Additionally during that era my relatives were abuzz about corruption in government officials and my understanding from them was that moving up in society was about who you knew 关系. So these things reinforced my left-liberal position for a long time, didn’t start shaking it off until the pro-dem HK situation in 2019 and atrocity fabrication in XUAR.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience, this was very interesting to read. I hope some of this is starting to change and more folks in the Chinese diaspora start to take an interest in China. I feel like we’ve truly reached an inflection point with how easy it is nowadays to watch videos from China and see just how far they have come in the last 10-20 years, with how easy it is to bridge the language barrier with translation apps, and with the various travel opportunities that have opened up.
my observation as ABC is that most of my peers (other ABCs) can’t read Chinese and have fossilized speaking/listening skills, if they retain much at all. There is some “blame” on parents pushing kids to focus on English, or the education system or other society things, but the fact of the matter is at least for me anecdotally, Chinese language weekend schools (designed for native speakers) I attended start off with a lot of kids in the beginner/lower levels (30+) but very few sticks with it all that long. Grade 11/12 and HSK class we only had 7 people iirc, and this was more than 10 years ago. I didn’t even want to attend, being Chinese and doing culturally Chinese things were uncool and made it really awkward to try to make friends in white society, as well as took time away from socializing as a teen. I’m glad I stuck with it, however I will say that efforts towards Chinese literacy was more due to efforts I made as an adult, but I’m very grateful that my parents tried and it gave me a decent foundation.
Another thing is, even as recently as 10-15 years ago, China was still very much developing country, homeless could still be seen begging on the streets and income inequality especially with lots of migrant workers from rural areas - surface level observations but very visually prominent, which could lead someone to think that China is backwards or communism is a fraud or failure. Additionally during that era my relatives were abuzz about corruption in government officials and my understanding from them was that moving up in society was about who you knew 关系. So these things reinforced my left-liberal position for a long time, didn’t start shaking it off until the pro-dem HK situation in 2019 and atrocity fabrication in XUAR.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience, this was very interesting to read. I hope some of this is starting to change and more folks in the Chinese diaspora start to take an interest in China. I feel like we’ve truly reached an inflection point with how easy it is nowadays to watch videos from China and see just how far they have come in the last 10-20 years, with how easy it is to bridge the language barrier with translation apps, and with the various travel opportunities that have opened up.