Chinese has a reputation as one of the world's hardest languages, but Beijing is hoping a slick new primer will get foreigners ready to at least greet locals with a friendly 'ni hao!' when they come to town for the 2008 Olympics. The Chinese phrase for hello is the first lesson in 'Basic Chinese 100 for Beijing 2008 Olympic Games', which works up to more complex, cheery statements such as, 'the sports facilities are very good, everything is exceptionally well organised and the service is great'. A file photo shows Chinese calligraphy on a car. [Reuters]
The Chinese phrase for hello is the first lesson in "Basic Chinese 100 for Beijing 2008 Olympic Games", which works up to more complex, cheery statements such as, "the sports facilities are very good, everything is exceptionally well organised and the service is great".
The colourful, picture-filled text book, put together in part by the Beijing Organising Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), was released on Tuesday in Beijing before the start of international distribution.
Each chapter includes text in English and French and follows the increasingly complex adventures of American visitor "Mike" as he boards a Beijing bus, buys a suit in a shopping mall and has a pizza delivered to his hotel room.
Though Mike catches cold in chapter 20, he has nothing but praise for China's capital: "The sky is bluer, the water is clearer and Beijing is becoming more and more beautiful".
By 2008, Beijing plans to have spent $37 billion (20.5 billion pounds) to host the Olympics, including $2 billion on venues, $2 billion in operating costs, $24.2 billion on infrastructure and $7 billion on environmental clean-up.
In the past few years, Beijing has tried to teach taxi drivers and police basic English in preparation for the influx of foreign Games-goers.
The central government has thrown all its weight behind the 2008 Games, a badge of legitimacy to the ruling Communist Party and a yardstick by which the world will judge three decades of reform.
"We need everyone to work together to help more foreign friends understand China," Jiang Xiaoyu, BOCOG vice president said Tuesday.
Zhang Xinsheng, vice minister of education, gave more down-to-earth goals for "Basic Chinese 100".
"Visitors will want to greet and talk a bit with ordinary Beijing people and that requires studying some Chinese," he said.
"If every visitor can learn to speak 10 to 20 phrases of Chinese, that would be an amazing achievement."
Students that make it to chapter 18 will not only have met that target, they will be able to order a dinner of Peking duck and a bottle of firey, 50-plus-proof Maotai spirits.
"Let's drink to the success of the Olympic Games! Cheers!"
From the Economist: A phrasebook for the 2008 Olympics:
"LET'S drink to the success of the Olympic Games! Cheers!" This, itseems, is what the Chinese government wants to hear from foreigners, and in flawless Chinese, too. To that end, it has drawn up a handy new phrasebook "Basic Chinese 100 for Beijing 2008 Olympic Games", which will allow novice Chinese speakers to render such phrases, not to mention praises.Liftmeup claims that in the title "The road to Beijing", "Beijing = Serfdom". It's an intruiging interpretation, but I don't think so.
The phrasebook is China's latest propaganda tool: colourful, slick and heavily subsidised. The book, edited by the Beijing Organising Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad and the National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, will be distributed globally to promote a conveniently stripped-down version of the Chinese language for visitors to the games.
Judging by the tone of the book, China is expecting to blow the world away with its Olympic extravaganza. After careful study of its pages, sentences like "the sports facilities are very good, everything is exceptionally well organised and the service is great" should simply roll off the tongue.
Phrasebook users will get up to speed on the lingo through the adventures of an American tourist called Mike. From simple greetings to room service, public transport to poetical observations ("The sky is bluer, the water is clearer and Beijing is becoming more and more beautiful"), millions of Mikes will be equipped to say just the right things. As with Orwell's Newspeak, dissent is impossible, since there are no words in which it could conceivably be expressed.
Beijing's city authorities have already started teaching English to taxi drivers, policemen, and ordinary citizens to ensure the communication effort goes both ways. With Athens now over, the world is turning its attention to Beijing, and there is no time to waste.
The next Olympics will crown 30 years of economic reform in China, and the government hopes they will be recognition of its pretentions to be a great power. By 2008, China aims to have spent $37 billion on the games, dwarfing the $8.7 billion spent by Greece. Small wonder that the organisers assume that Beijing 2008 will be a success, well worthy of a florid toast.
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