The Chinese government has launched a web site to teach Chinese and promote Chinese culture. Unfortunately, many of the 30 million people studying Chinese around the world must be trying to access the site, www.linese.com, all at once because I can’t get through! I can’t wait to try this out once the traffic dies down or they get more capacity online. My interest in anime and manga drives my interest in learning Japanese and Japanese culture, but these studies really cannot be complete without learning Chinese culture as well. You find out very quickly how much of East Asian language and culture has its origins in China. Indeed the manga fan learns this the first time a kanji smacks ’em in the face! At that point you can either run, or embrace a whole new world. Wow! With China, Japan, and Korea’s growing economic influence and all actively promoting their languages and cultures abroad, this may be shaping up to be an East Asian century.
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