Recently I have read so much about how American parents are coaxing their kids to learn mandarin. Americans believe that learning mandarin will help them in their businesses a lot, keeping in mind the big impact the chinese market is having on world economy. While George Bush led western world, has been fighting a war against the "axis of evil", China has been busy doing its own thing; Progressing, improving every which way possible and quickly becoming a super power. I think China will formally announce itz arrival on the world stage, at the 2008 Bejing Olympics. They will probably use that opportunity to show the world about "who they are".
I think we indians are very much aware of the world around us, we are always upto date with the happenings in other big countries. Maybe the media in India is such that it focuses on news of the world a lot, or maybe our interest in other countries is generated because of the presence of large number of indian immigrants in those countries. I think if you keep in mind the size and population of all the BIG countries in mind then probably China is the only country about which we know so little about. It was only last year that I found out that people in China do not speak "Chinese" but mandarin. I still can't name any other city of China apart from Bejing ( Thanks to my geography teachers in school, I will never forget that Bejing was formerly called Peking)
Itz indeed surprising that we have so little exposure about the most populated country in the world which also happens to be our neighbour.
We talk a lot of how india is on itz way to become the "next China" but I think that is a far-fetched thought. India's massive population became a boon because of the large number of english speaking people so I do'nt think I will ever read about American parents asking their kids to learn hindi, if that ever happens, that day you can truly say "India Shining"
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