Interest in learning Chinese is increasing in India

New Delhi: Of late, China has been attracting a lot of attention, be it in the field of politics, economics or military. It is no more a secluded country surrounded by huge mountains, plateaus and seas.

As China is opening up, there is a general tendency in the rest of the world to learn more about its language, culture and society. In recent years, several youths are keenly pursuing the course of Chinese language in India. Be it in a big city like Kolkata, where there has already been a small Chinese community living for decades or a small pilgrim town like Bodh Gaya in Bihar, youths are getting attracted to learning the language. In addition, New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and other cities are also places where there is a culture of learning the language.

Though momentarily the number of students learning the language has come down because of several factors like COVID-19, the relationship between India and China etc., people associated with the field are of the view that this is a temporary phenomenon, and that the earlier situation will be restored.

Charisma Saraff, Principal of the School of Chinese Language, Kolkata notes that our youngsters need to know the language as it has acquired much significance. She adds that our Defence Forces, the private and business sector and research institutes are amongst others who need good interpreters of the language.

The School was established in 2008 with the assistance of the then Chinese Consul General and has both Indian and Chinese faculty. It is the only Confucius Classroom in India and one of the few which is authorised to hold HSK tests. HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi translated as Chinese Proficiency Test) is the Chinese language equivalent of TOEFL or IELTS.

As far as the impact of the current political situation between the two countries is concerned, she adds that, surprisingly, it has not made much of a dent in individuals who wish to learn the language, though it has disrupted the studies of thousands of Indian medical students many of whom would have got their degrees by now.

Though Corona had its own share of problems, one by-default ‘blessing in disguise’ has been online classes, making it easier for students to attend classes from anywhere, whether at home or elsewhere. This is especially true in the case of learning Chinese.

When this writer contacted MeiYu Chinese Language Centre situated in New Delhi, he got to know that all their faculties are from Taiwan and the education has shifted entirely to the online mode after the advent of COVID-19. MeiYu and HanYou are notable Chinese language institutes situated in the national capital.

In addition, students in relatively small cities like Patna too have started to get a flair of learning the language, albeit on a much smaller scale. This writer too initially started learning the language from a multi-language educational institution in the city named Brit-American, run by Mr. Shravan Kumar. He too holds the view that learning new languages, especially Chinese, is very beneficial in the current era.

Needles to mention, Patna is a little more than 100 km away from the world-famous pilgrim towns of Bodh Gaya and Rajgir, where a large number of Chinese tourists used to come before COVID-19.

In spite of the political as well as military issues, countries like the US, Japan, Taiwan and India still have their business and commercial relationship with China, in large part due to the fact that the latter is one of the biggest manufacturers in the world.

Mumbai University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Banaras Hindu University, Calcutta University, Nalanda University, Maharishi Dayanand University (Rohtak) and St. Stephens College are other government or semi-government institutions which offer Certificate as well as Diploma courses in Chinese language.

Among other smaller cities, Gwalior, Agra, Pondicherry, Dehradun, Dibrugarh etc. deserve special mention as far as Chinese learning is concerned.

It is estimated that more and more students in the country, especially those who wish to make a career abroad, would take up the language seriously in the coming years, especially in view of the fact that China has, of late, started opening up its borders for foreign travellers and the Corona situation was gradually easing.

—–INDIA NEWS STREAM