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Opinion Forum:
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politics.
Saturday's
Lagniappe
Across
Latin America, Mandarin Is in the Air
By
Juan Forero
Elizabeth Zamora is a busy mother and executive. Still, for
three hours every Saturday, she slides into a battered wooden
desk at Bogota's National University and follows along as Yuan
Juhua, a language instructor sent here by China's government,
teaches the intricacies of Mandarin.
Zamora already
speaks German and English, but she struggles to learn written
Chinese characters and mimic tones unknown in Spanish. She persists
for a simple reason: China is voraciously scouring Latin America
for everything from oil to lumber, and there is money to be
made. That prospect has not only Zamora but business people
in much of Latin America flocking to learn the Chinese language,
increasingly heard in boardrooms and on executive junkets.
"It's
fundamental to communicate in their language when you go there
or they come here," said Zamora, 40, a sales executive
for the German drugmaker Bayer, which is growing dramatically
in China. "If you don't know their language, you're lost."
Latin America,
with its vast farmlands and ample oil reserves and mineral deposits,
has become a prime destination for investors and others from
China, whose economy has been growing at 9 percent annually.
The total value of trade between China and Latin America rose
from just over $10 billion in 2000 to $50 billion last year,
according to Chinese trade data.
"Latin
American countries want to diversify their markets, and they
see a huge opportunity, not just in the present but in the potential
for growth," said Chris Sabatini, a senior director of
policy for the New York-based Council of the Americas, a business
association that encourages trade in the Americas. "Latin
Americans, as people in any country, should be opportunistic,
and they see opportunity with China."
Chinese
companies are investing in farmland and energy installations
in Brazil. Beijing has signed a free-trade agreement with Chile,
its first with a Latin American country, while announcing investments
in the Chilean copper industry and gas and oil fields in Ecuador,
Argentina and Bolivia. Beijing has also cemented a $5 billion
oil deal with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, which
is seeking to diversify exports to other countries beyond the
United States.
The arrival
of China in a largely Spanish-speaking region half a world away
might seem unusual. But Beijing is in a relentless quest for
oil, coal, iron ore and copper for its factories, soybean and
poultry to feed its 1.3 billion people, lumber for housing,
and fish meal for its livestock. President Hu Jintao's government,
which two years ago pledged $100 billion in investments for
several South American countries, said it also wants to bankroll
road, port and railroad developments that would help bring exports
more quickly to China.
Veering
toward China, though, is far from easy for entrepreneurs and
students from a region that has long been intertwined with the
giant to the north. The United States remains the biggest investor
in Latin America, its trade with the region eight times that
of China's. English prevails as a second language.
Mandarin,
on the other hand, is considered far harder to learn, with dialects
and a tenor significantly different from the phonetic cadences
of Spanish and Portuguese. Yet the Chinese language is making
gains, as is the revolutionary idea of looking west across the
Pacific for business opportunities.
"The
world is divided into east and west, and the culture is completely
different," said Miguel Angel Poveda, president of the
Colombo-China Chamber of Commerce in Bogota. "The only
way to get around it is to understand the culture and learn
to do business with them, but in their language."
Many of
those taking up the challenge are young, like Leidy Catalina
Ortega, 17, who recently dropped an English-language class in
favor of Mandarin. Her parents want to import clothing from
China to sell in Bogota. If she learns the language, she will
help manage the business.
"If
you're interested and work hard, you can learn and talk almost
like they do," she said. "You are afraid at first.
Later you get it and move on."
Universities
across Latin America, from Mexico to Buenos Aires, are founding
Asian studies programs and teaching Chinese. Institutions of
all kinds -- some are expensive one-on-one tutorials and others
are fly-by-night language academies staffed by illegal Chinese
immigrants -- are being inundated with new students.
The University
of Buenos Aires started its Chinese-language department in 2004
after Hu led a high-level delegation to Argentina, Brazil and
other countries.
"It
generated so much interest, and people started to say, 'Where
is there a place to learn Chinese?' " Maria Chao, the coordinator
of the department, said by phone from Buenos Aires. "They
see the language as a way to communicate and cut some distance
between the two countries."
But in her
wildest dreams, Chao said, she could not have foreseen how intense
the interest would be. Instead of twenty students, as she expected,
more than 600 signed up for classes. Now there are more than
1,000 students studying Chinese at the university, she said,
in nearly 70 classes.
Chao, who
was born in China and immigrated to Argentina at age 5, said
she has been astounded by the interest people have in China.
She recently asked a policeman for directions and, without missing
a beat, he responded: " Ni hao ma ," Mandarin for
"How are you?"
In Peru,
which has a dynamic Chinese immigrant community and an economy
that is growing at 5 percent annually, business people are looking
for classes that can quickly give them an advantage as the country's
trade with China grows.
Joseph Cruz,
46, who has been teaching Chinese for 23 years, will soon launch
a course for executives costing $2,200 a year, a hefty sum in
Peru.
The course,
to be taught at Lima's Catholic University, will not just deal
with grammar and vocabulary, but with the trappings of Chinese
culture and history, from Confucian philosophy to the importance
of tea.
"The
idea is to use these courses to teach people how Chinese thinking
is reflected in modern China," Cruz said. "We're not
going to waste their money."
China, too,
sees great opportunity in Latin America, said Zhao Xingtian,
cultural counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Bogota. He spoke
on a recent night as a Colombian-Chinese salsa band -- singing
in both Mandarin and Spanish -- prepared to play at a cocktail
party given by the Colombo-Chinese Chamber of Commerce.
"Many
Chinese would like to come to this country, know its people,
drink its coffee," said Zhao, speaking a fluid Spanish.
"It makes us very happy that many Colombians want to learn
Chinese. It's a good beginning. It's a good cultural exchange
between Latin America and China."
China is
dispatching teachers abroad, sending people like Yuan Juhua
to countries that just a few years ago gave short shrift to
the idea of strengthening ties with Beijing. Yuan arrived here
just two years ago to help launch the National University's
Mandarin program.
Now, her
12-year-old daughter speaks fluent Spanish, and Yuan divides
her time between teaching university students during the day
and business people on weekends.
The university
"didn't have any resources for the Chinese program, so
after I came here, everything was a challenge for me,"
Yuan said. She also found teaching Spanish speakers a challenge.
"These
two languages are very different, and because of that, it's
difficult for Chinese people to study Spanish and people here
to study Chinese," Yuan said. Many drop out after level
one, the first of four offered. "If they don't have patience
and enthusiasm, it's hard to get to level two," she said.
In a break
from Yuan's class, Miguel Aroca, a petroleum engineer for France's
Total oil company, recounted the difficulties of reaching level
two. Aroca, 33 and fluent in English and French, said he wanted
to study Mandarin as a hobby.
Now
he realizes it is a career tool. Mastering it will not be easy.
"It went from being a hobby to being real work," he
said. "The last exam, I was really stressed out."
