On Learning Chinese...

I have been living in Yangshuo for six weeks now, taking intensive language classes and working toward one of my original goals of learning Chinese.

I am often asked the question "Why learn Chinese?"

After explaining to people that I am a half Japanese/half Korean fourth generation American that only speaks English, many people are puzzled that I would choose to move halfway around the world to learn Chinese.

Well first and foremost, I consider myself a pragmatist. If I am going to spend the time and energy to learn another language, it only seems logical to learn the most useful language possible.

And I think I can say unequivocally that the most useful language for me to learn right now is Mandarin Chinese.

Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world and it’s not even close. Over 1 billion people speak it as their 1st or 2nd language. That's twice as many as English, which comes in second.

Beyond mainland China, Chinese is widely spoken in many locations that I would like to travel to or perhaps settle down in someday such as Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Just as importantly, the Chinese do business with people all over the world. I happen to be one of those people that believes that China will one day overtake the United States as the world’s economic superpower. Even conservative estimates project the Chinese economy to overtake the US in size within 20 years. Any way you slice it, the economic opportunities here are undeniable, and will only increase as China’s role in the global economy expands.

One of the primary inspirations for my travels are the writings of former hedge fund manager Jim Rogers. Rogers whimsically circumnavigated the globe on two separate occasions, once by motorcycle and once by Mercedes convertible, writing extensively about the cultures and economies of the countries he visited. He chronicled his adventures in his books Adventure Capitalist and Investment Biker. His books were what originally sparked my interest in travel.

Drawing on his traveling experience, the most useful piece of advice he could think of to give young people today was to learn Mandarin Chinese. He deemed it so important that he moved to Singapore and hired a Chinese nanny to rear his infant daughter so that she would grow up learning Chinese.

For someone like me, with the broad goal in doing something interesting and important with my life, but with no specific plan or focus, I believe that learning Chinese is as worthy a goal as any.