May 2, 2012

Off-topic: Learn English to Know China

I read this on weibo.com, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter: "We used to learn English to know the world. We now learn English to know China" (当初我们学英语是为了了解世界，如今我们学英语是为了了解中国). (The earliest occurrence of this quote as of now is on Twitter authored by huqiwen.) The apparent oxymoron in the second sentence is one of the best remarks on the national censorship. Although any web site deemed sufficiently government-unfriendly is blocked, those in English are generally in much better shape than those in Chinese. If this were not so, learning English to know China would be just as ineffective as reading Chinese materials