Tongue Twister
While most Nepalis might be skeptical of the actual benefits and usefulness of learning Mandarin, attitudes, it appears are changing of late. 30-year-old Dipak Shakya, a manufacturer and supplier of Buddhist artifacts from Patan, Lalitpur is among those who associate a grasp on Mandarin with brighter futures.
It was about half a decade ago that tourists from neighboring China began to flood into the Kathmandu Valley, drawn especially to Patan Dubar Square and its surrounds owing to the variety of handicrafts on offer here. Preempting the rush of customers, Dipak wisely registered for Chinese lessons at the Confucius Institute at Kathmandu University (CIKU), a joint initiative of Kathmandu University and China’s Hebei University of Economics and Business, established in 2007.
Among the first batch of students of CIKU, Dipak has been learning Mandarin for nearly five years now. And by virtue of his now fluent Chinese, he is able to clinch wholesale deals with around 1OO businessmen from Tibet, Sichuan, Taiwan and other regions, earning gross monthly income of about Rs. 20,000.
This advantage that Mandarin offers to Nepalis particularly those in the handicraft business is attested to by two other proprietors-Ramesh Ratna Shakya, 38 and Majin Shakya, 34. Both state that since about 80 percent of their purchasers come from China, it just makes better sense to learn Mandarin so as to better communicate with their clients, a necessary asset in an area where half of the locals are making out a living by manufacturing statues and competition is naturally high.
Dipak recently hired an apprentice, Harry Shakya, a young man who previously worked as a driver with a monthly salary of about Rs. 10,000. Harry too has enrolled in Mandarin classes at the CIKU alongside Dipak, and although what he earns as an apprentice isn’t much better than what he made as a driver, the 27-year-old thinks of it as an investment in his future.
The institute, a non-profit organization designed with the the objective of promoting Chinese language, culture and literature is, clearly doing well, with several classrooms and teaching points scattered in strategic locations around the Valley and beyond-including Lumbini and Pokhara, besides the main premises in Patan. Representatives say that demand has gone up sharply in 2012, in part owing to the fact that this year was officially designated ‘China-Nepal Friendly Exchanges Year’ during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visit to Nepal in January.
Of course, the surge in admissions means that the few teachers and volunteers who comprise the staff at the institute are overworked and unable to give students attention. There are even people from Bhutan and cities in India’s north who have expressed interest in joining classes and surely, there will be more in the coming months.
In the last five years, the classes have seen more than 1000 registered learners, mainly composed of peddlers, merchants and tour guides. And in an effort to lure others from different back-grounds, a high level class was launched in Thamel in February, where all students are bank executives. Other classes targeted at specific groups are in the works.
Besides ensuring that students acquire a good grasp of Mandarin, enough for them to communicate with Chinese-speakers in their daily personal and professional lives at least, the institute--currently operanting in more than 100 countries and region--also places storng emphasis on the necessity of facilitating cultural exchanges and opportunities for collaboration. This March, for instance some 50 Nepali students from the institute were taken on a visit to five Chinese-funded projects, such as the Birendra International Convention Centre and the Dashrath Stadium.
Such projects abound in the country but not all locals recognise these as being sponsored by China. Zhang Shubin, one of the teachers, says that the institute is doing a commendable job of not only offering Nepalis to a chance to become fluent in Mandarin but also organising extracurricular activities that educate students on instances of intra-country cooperation, thereby strengthening ties between the two neighbors.
The increasing popularity of Mandarin the world over--including in the West, where it is expected to soon catch up with European languages as a second-language choice in elementary and secondary school levels as well as in college--can be attributed directly to the emergence of China as a global economic power. It is therefore natural that Nepalis too have widened up to the pragmatic benefit of learning Mandarin; the next few years are surely bound to see more Chinese language and culture programmes prop up in the country.
(Published by The Kathmandu Post on July 7, 2012)
