Talking up Mandarin a global undertaking(2)

The need for teachers has prompted some creative and bold thinking. Xu and India's Ambassador to China, S. Jaishankar, recently announced that India will send 300 teachers to Beijing for six months to learn a rudimentary level of Mandarin. Those teachers will then return to India to launch Confucius Institutes at multiple universities across the county.

"Of course, six months is not enough time for teachers to master the language," Xu said, but it will enable them to teach basic, introductory Mandarin. Teachers who are successful will return to Beijing for more study and training. There are also pragmatic concerns behind the plan: Longer training upfront will delay getting the Indian classrooms off the ground, and better-qualified Mandarin teachers can quickly drift away to private-sector jobs in India.

"We need to make sure we are creating sustainable programs for the long term," Xu said. "Or we will just be starting over again next year and the year after."

As the face of the Confucius Institute around the world, Xu travels about three months of the year, most recently to Stellenbosch University in South Africa. A Hanban conference there included delegates from more than 30 Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms for students below university-level, from 26 countries and regions in Africa as well as 11 Chinese partners. 

While Hanban's mission aims to reach foreign countries, it has raised its profile on the home front under Xu's watch, with regular weekend classes in Beijing for diplomatic personnel stationed in the capital.

The most recent classes, held at Hanban's headquarters in Beijing, were taught at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels, as some embassy personnel returned for a second and third round of lessons. And just like at the Confucius Institutes abroad, the diplomat's classes include exposure to culture beyond the language, including one afternoon devoted to a formal tea ceremony.

"I have wanted the Confucius Institutes to feel less like a 7-11 and more like a superstore," she said, grinning.

Xu came to her role as a champion of language indirectly. A chemist by training, she earned a master's degree in economics from Beijing Normal University that took her on a path to the World Bank, where she negotiated soft loans for education in China. That gave her lots of face time with foreign experts and administrators, and opened her eyes to the challenges of making Eastern and Western cultures work together. After China's surging economic growth pushed the country above the threshold for such loans, Xu went to Vancouver as an education counselor at the consulate-general there for five years. 

Then her old boss at the Education Ministry suggested that the fledgling Hanban could use her administrative experience, and Xu found herself with a brand-new challenge.

Although constantly on the go, she said she's been very happy at Hanban. There is both pride and patriotism in the mission, she said, and it's a pleasure "to work in an environment where people talk from the heart, not just from the head".