Suna in Wonderland

I remember when I was young, my mom made me watch lots of Walt Disney movies and sesame street videos, hoping that it would help me to learn English quickly. I think i watched more Disney cartoon more than Korean cartoon. When I reached high school, there were options for 2^nd language course. Options were French, German, Chinese and Japanese, but people mostly took either Japanese or French. Many Korean mothers send their kids to very expensive English kindergarten and number of kids go abroad to learn English has increased rapidly past 10 years.

But currently I noticed that things are changing. My little cousins in Korea, primary students, are very busy cramming Chinese character these days and every month they set for Chinese character test. English is still important in Korea but Chinese is quickly becoming as important language. And this seems to happen not only in Korea but also in other parts of the world.

Yesterday, my husband showed me a cartoon called ‘Nihao Kai-Lan’ which is airing in The Netherlands. He said, It is mainly targeted for Chinese kids in Netherlands, but many of Dutch kids also watch it. I watched few episodes, and it surely is fun, attractive to kids as well as very educative in terms of learning Chinese.(I also decided to watch this everyday to learn Chinese and Dutch for myself ) Many of easy Chinese were repeated carefully in the middle of English/Dutch, so that kids would not feel overwhelmed or perhaps not even realize that Kai-Lan (Main Character) spoke different language. My husband and I joked that; pretty soon parents would not able to understand what their kids saying.

Nickelodeon has introduced ‘Nihao Kai-Lan’ cartoon in US in 2008 and now it has expanded to Ireland, Canada, The Netherlands, Russia, Israel and France. It really got shocked and once again realized that China is surely next world power. Most shocked was the fact that it is aired in US. While many of Americans does not think that US would not step down from world biggest power, yet young generation is already preparing to face China.

US just downgraded their credit rating and China is busy making RMB as world currency. I wonder in near future, Chinese would become compulsory language in school education just like it did with English.