[INTERVIEW] Learning Chinese remains attractive investment for future

Park Min-hye gives lessons at her Chinese Academy in Gyeonggi Province. Courtesy of Park Min-hye

By Hwang Jae-ho

When U.S. President Donald Trump visited China in 2017, he revealed a video of his granddaughter Arabella Kushner singing Chinese songs and reciting Chinese poems. The video was highly popular and shared more than 100,000 times. Trump's daughter Ivanka, Arabella's mother, sent her then three-year-old to Carousel of Languages School in Manhattan to learn Chinese. For the middle classes in America, having a Chinese nanny became more than a fad but a trend to be prepared for the G2 era, with the U.S. and China leading the international community.

Arabella Kushner recites Chinese poems. Capture from Ivanka Trump's Instagram

Actually, Chinese became popular earlier in Korea. Considering Korea and China began diplomatic ties in 1992, such popularity is not surprising. There are a million personal exchanges a year between the two nations, reflecting close political, economic, security, social and cultural ties. Today, 100,000 people, including students, are studying Chinese. Just how popular is the Chinese language in Korea? Professor Hwang Jaeho spoke with Ms Park Minhye, a director of a Chinese language academy in Gyeonggi Province and a Korean-Chinese interpreter for international conferences, to find out.

Q1. How many Koreans want to study Chinese?

In Korea, the demand for Chinese study varies slightly depending on age. First, adults often study Chinese as a necessity at work. Since many Korean companies are actively engaged in trade with China, each company often provides Chinese language courses and educates its employees as a necessity for in-house lectures. However, it is true that the demand for Chinese among adults has decreased since the issue of THAAD (A U.S. missile defense system deployed in South Korea). Most adults learn Chinese for business. However, after the THAAD issue, it seems that business with China is unstable because the political factors between Korea and China have directly affected it. As a result, fewer adult learners are trying to study Chinese than before.

Q2. What are the differences between adults and children's objectives in studying Chinese?

A Chinese language certificate has become an essential requirement for a job. Therefore, most university students study Chinese in various ways, such as language training or online lectures. What's unusual is that because their objective is to get a job, they often stop learning after getting a certificate after cramming for a short period of time, and there are relatively few who are able to communicate fluently in Chinese when they actually meet a Chinese speaker. For kindergarten or elementary school students, they study Chinese with long-term goals. As China has emerged as one of the G2, Chinese is recognized as a must-learn language. Therefore, private kindergartens and elementary schools are teaching Chinese as a second foreign language subject, and the private education market for children's Chinese is growing steadily.

Q3. Do many Koreans still study Chinese in China?

The number of Koreans studying in China has hugely decreased compared with 10 years ago. In the past, there were lots of language programs for teenagers, but recently college students are the main consumers. These programs help them to get a decent job by passing the HSK exams. Also, many students mainly studied in a big city before ― Beijing, Shanghai. However, these days, small towns such as in the north-east area have become attractive places due to cheaper costs.

Q4. Did the issue of THAAD have an impact on the Chinese language education market in Korea? What do you think about recent Korean-Chinese relations; are they better or worse?

The issue of THAAD had a great effect on the market for Chinese language education in Korea. First, adults who used to do business with China stopped taking Chinese classes because their business with China has faced severe challenges. Second, students who were preparing to study in China at that time also gave up their studies because they felt it unsafe. Nowadays, relations between the two countries could be better, but the damaging effect on the Chinese language education market has not fully recovered yet. It is totally true that negative feelings arose from both Chinese and Koreans, and they weren't friendly to each other right after the issue of THAAD occurred. Political and diplomatic problems have been sealed, but I expect that market conditions will improve gradually as more time is needed to resolve negative feelings toward one another.

Q5. What is the problem with Chinese language education in Korea that the academy feels?

The importance of Chinese language should be recognized more. Even though people who study Chinese have increased, they still recognize Chinese as a secondary language. Therefore, it is hard to find a high-quality Chinese academy in Korea. Most of the existing ones are small academies at relatively low-quality level. Therefore, students do not want to spend huge expense on Chinese language study and they choose the language class not based on the quality of the class but the fees. As a result, due to the lack of investment in various language activities and the Chinese language education system, there is a standardized or cookie-cutter approach in most academies.

Q6. Is there any way to solve this problem?

To create a better relationship between Korea and China is the most important way. For instance, improving business relations with China or implementing a faster and easier visa approval process. It makes the people feel the need to study Chinese and to enlarge the investment for studying Chinese.

Q7. Is there anything you would like to add?

I think the Chinese academy is the most basic private diplomacy actor. We are introducing China to people who do not know the country at all. It is not a big thing but rewarding. We want to improve our role; not only teaching a Chinese language but introducing Chinese culture and trends. Also, we hope Korea-China relations will be better if people study, interact and like each other more.

Hwang Jae-ho is director of the Global Security Cooperation Center, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul. Song Min-ju, a researcher at the center, assisted Professor Hwang with the article.

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