News The Future of English
posted by on October 26 at 8:45 AM
On the very, very small list of useful recommendations that Zimbabweans have received from their permanent president, Mugabe, this one might be at the top: Stop learning English; start learning Chinese.
CHINA’S strengthening ties to Africa were ambitiously tightened on Thursday October 25th. South Africa’s Standard Bank, the largest banking group in Africa by assets, announced that it was hooking up with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) in a transaction worth a whopping 36.7 billion rand ($5.5 billion). ICBC, the most valuable bank in the world, is worth some $319 billion. It will take a 20% stake in its Johannesburg-based counterpart.
Start learning chinese while the chinese are learning english.
While we sleep in our post 9/11 haze, chasing shadows across Babylon and Persia, the Chinese are doing an excellent job cultivating the 3rd world, where China is increasingly popular. The deals the 3rd worlders can get from the Chinese are better. For example, the Chinese share technology. We don’t.
And the Chinese give not two shits whether the local resident leader is a murderous thug. Their position on Burma? Their position on Mugabe? Keep the money flowing, that’s their position. Theirs is a pure capitalism, unhindered by moral considerations.
In 20 years the Chinese will speak English, Zimbabweans will speak Chinese, and Americans will speak Ndebele.
@2,
Americans don't give a shit about despots either, as long as they're our despots.
Be more specific. Cantonese or Mandarin? Or Hakka? Or any one of dozens of dialects? I'm guessing the latter, since there are waaaaaay more Mandarin-speakers, but "Chinese" just isn't very helpful.
Thank goodness Africans finally have a world power ally free of reflexive racism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Anti-African_protests
You haven't really lived until you've had a "Darkee" brand mint, complete with Al Jolson blackface on the front.
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