Chinese - a language of choice
Two very different and unrelated experiences
ROME/BANGKOK: 24th October 2005 -- From two very different
parts of the world comes information regarding a growing interest in
Chinese language amongst Salesian educational efforts, and for two very
different reasons. In Italy, there are several hundred thousand
Chinese immigrants, many of them young, not all of them legal.
For
Thailand, China is a near neighbour and there are understandably a
dozen
reasons why knowing Chinese is an advantage - and there are many native
Chinese speakers in the country. In both these
nations, Salesians have taken some initiative to respond to the issue.
This week the academic year opened for the Salesian
Pontifical
University in Rome (UPS), and along with it a course in Chinese
language and culture provided by the Faculty of Christian and classical
arts (Lettere cristiane e
classiche). The course offers two hours per week over first and second
semetsers and is taught by a visiting lecturer, Li Guangli, who has a
Masters from Beijing University and is attached to the University for
outlanders (or foreigners) in Perugia where he teaches Chinese.
The course aims to
provide basics in phonology, morphology and syntax, as well as to offer
an introduction to Chinese culture, civilisation and history.
Meanwhile in Thailand, the Thai Provincial, Fr
Dheparat, has
recently visited China, where he found a warm welcome from the
University of Kuming. Salesian schools in Thailand are hoping to
add
the teaching of Chinese to their curriculum, and the aim is to find
Chinese graduates who would be prepared to be involved in teaching
their language. The University has offered its support to this
initiative, also offering the possibility that Thai students may take
summer courses at Kuming. Fr Dheparat also passed by a Church
where he
noted a statue of Mary Help of Christians, and was informed that there
used be a Salesian school behind the Church. In fact he found
that
there was still a school there, one of the middle schools for the city.
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