"We know the situation in Japan is terrible right now, so we hope that our activities can help the Japanese victims, " said Chinese organizer Jing Yao, a junior aspiring to be Mandarin language teacher.
So to justify the extra effort needed, the demand for fluency in Mandarin would have to be way above demand for, say, French.
ECONOMIST: The craze for teaching Chinese may be a misguided fad
"People think, 'OK, a lot of stuff happening in the world will be in China, ' and they want their kids to be ahead of the game, so they hire Mandarin-speaking nannies from us, " she says.
The role as head of the civil service will be hived off, after a competition, to a top mandarin running a government department.
"More than just instilling Mandarin into them, we would want it to be about giving them the joy of experiencing the language overseas, " says Mr. Baird.
The weirdest one on offer today is mandarin and olive oil, but it turns out to be delightful, the crunchy biscuit fresh and citric, the paste unctuous and peppery.
Of course, Huong could pass for Vietnamese, speaking the language as her native tongue, and Nana could pretend to be Malaysian or Singaporean, since she came from Hong Kong and spoke accented Mandarin.
The new Ang Lee film is scripted in Cantonese and Mandarin and set in the China of the early nineteenth century, although we could be watching a fable from any time in the last millennium, or from no time at all.
But when the Treasury's top mandarin Sir Nicholas Macpherson makes his presentation, the news he will bring is likely to be as chilly as the weather outside.
Sir Robin retires at the end of the year, to be replaced by Sir Richard Wilson, permanent secretary at the Home Office and a more modern sort of mandarin.
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