Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.
A poll was conducted of 354 Chinese Americans who were chosen at random nationwide by from a surname list.
They were asked a series of questions about their attitudes toward China and their views on China and US-China Relations.
Question 38:
Can you speak Chinese?
I thought some of them would say yes, but I didn’t expect 92% of them to say so.
But, then speaking Chinese is relative.
I know one word in EVERY language in the world.
“AGHHH!!!” It’s the same everywhere.
Speaking a language and speaking it fluently are not the same.
For the 20 some percent who were born in the US, how CAN they know the culture of China. Perhaps they can do daily things, but I don’t know about the finer points.
What do you think?
These survey results were taken from a poll conducted by the Committee of 100.
The Committee of 100 is a national, nonpartisan organization composed of prominent American citizens of Chinese descent. The members of this group pool their resources to address important issues that concern the Chinese/American community but, IMHO, more importantly, foster better US-Greater China relations.
Recently, this group task the polling firm ZOGBY to conduct an extensive survey of American Attitudes Toward China.
They polled the General Population (General Public) as well as Chinese Americans. Business leaders, Opinion leaders and Congressional staffers, subsets of the general public were also polled.
In keeping with the Committee of 100 ideal, I hope it will create discussion and be used to better understand U.S.-China relations and help those concerned to formulate recommendations on how to improve relationships between these two great countries.
Seems to me that anything observable is knowable. It is interesting that many people in China think that nobody but those in China, who happen to be Chinese, can really know China.
I suppose that’s unfair. And it also seems kind of hegemonic in retrograde, saying that only those with “Chinese” power dynamics know how it works.