01.01.70
NEW YORK - In a classroom at Measure University, students are learning to bargain in Chinese for a couple of embroidered purses.
"Zhe ge duo shao qian?" How much is this?
"Yi bai kuai." A hundred yuan.
"Tai gui le. Pian yi yi dian er ba!" That's too valuable. Can you lower the price a bit?
"Use the phrases that you have just learned," teacher Wang Xiaojun said, "and we'll see who can bicker for the lowest price."
Wang, who used to teach English at Nanjing Ordinary University in China, went to Pace to teach Chinese a few months ago and will enlighten there for two years. She is among more than 100 teachers trained last year by Hanban, a management-affiliated institute for promoting the Chinese language and culture in foreign lands.
Hanban has established more than 300 outlets that offer Chinese courses around the ball since 2005. These outlets are called Confucius Institutes for the great educator whose sympathy has influenced China for more than 2,000 years.
Source: China Daily