An article about my country in the English speaking press

The newspaper article I have chosen was from New York Times and I was really attracted to it. The title called "Non-Asians Show a Growing Interest in Chinese Courses".

This article shows that now days in America, Chinese Language is not only offered in Chinese-American International Schools, it also getting popular in public schools even in heritage schools. More and more non-Asian students enrolling in Chinese classes to learn Chinese language, history and culture. For instance, nearly 6,000 public school students, out of 421,000, study Mandarin in Chicago and the number is keep increasing. Furthermore, many American parents are willing to send their children to learn Chinese, they also expect to have this kind of program in their communities as well.

In my opinion, because the world is becoming a global economy, I think it is very necessary to learn a foreign language. And as we know that China has become the factory of the world and Chinese people are playing increasingly important roles worldwide today, also Chinese is the language of nearly 1/4 of the World's Population. Therefore to take advantage of this huge economic shift and opportunities, learning Chinese is a great “long-term benefit” to the children.

The Impact of Globalization on Culture

Globalization is one of the most charged issues of the day. In China, people have more opportunities to cooperate and exchange because of globalization. Since people can experience different cultures during international cooperations and international exchanges, many of them believe that globalization benefits the development of their native culture. However, it also brings some negative effects on Chinese culture in terms of native language, traditional views and some native cultural industries.

For instance, the native language is gradually changed by loanwords because of globalization. The standard words and phrases are ignored by the young generations. Using loanwords is treated as a kind of fashion for them. Those informal language are appeared often even in some formal scenes.

In addition, some traditional views which are important parts of native culture have been influenced by western culture because of globalization. The most obvious problem is early sexual behavior. Because of the impact of western culture, young people start to admire extreme individualism and hedonism, which are harmful to the development of society.

Finally, thanks to globalization, people have all kinds of choices to watch movies. However, people would choose overseas films rather than films made in China. This is also harmful to the domestic film industry. Another example is that the traditional opera, Peking opera, is being forgotten by young generations since they are attracted by western opera and pop music.

In conclusion, although globalization brings lots of economic benefit to China, however it also has many harmful effects on Chinese culture in terms of native language, some traditional views and some native cultural industries. People should realize these negative effects while taking part in the international cooperation and exchange and should try our best to reduce them.