How can U.S. students compete globally? They can start by learning Chinese....
from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/education/07education.html?_r=2
Top Test Scores From Shanghai Stun Educators
By SAM DILLON
Published: December 7, 2010
With China’s debut in international standardized testing, students in Shanghai have surprised experts by outscoring their counterparts in dozens of other countries, in reading as well as in math and science, according to the results of a respected exam.
American officials and Europeans involved in administering the test in about 65 countries acknowledged that the scores from Shanghai — an industrial powerhouse with some 20 million residents and scores of modern universities that is a magnet for the best students in the country — are by no means representative of all of China.
About 5,100 15-year-olds in Shanghai were chosen as a representative cross-section of students in that city. In the United States, a similar number of students from across the country were selected as a representative sample for the test.
Experts noted the obvious difficulty of using a standardized test to compare countries and cities of vastly different sizes. Even so, they said the stellar academic performance of students in Shanghai was noteworthy, and another sign of China’s rapid modernization.
The results also appeared to reflect the culture of education there, including greater emphasis on teacher training and more time spent on studying rather than extracurricular activities like sports.
“Wow, I’m kind of stunned, I’m thinking Sputnik,” said Chester E. Finn Jr., who served in President Ronald Reagan’s Department of Education, referring to the groundbreaking Soviet satellite launching. Mr. Finn, who has visited schools all across China, said, “I’ve seen how relentless the Chinese are at accomplishing goals, and if they can do this in Shanghai in 2009, they can do it in 10 cities in 2019, and in 50 cities by 2029.”
The test, the Program for International Student Assessment, known as PISA, was given to 15-year-old students by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group that includes the world’s major industrial powers.
The results are to be released officially on Tuesday, but advance copies were provided to the news media a day early.
“We have to see this as a wake-up call,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in an interview on Monday.
“I know skeptics will want to argue with the results, but we consider them to be accurate and reliable, and we have to see them as a challenge to get better,” he added. “The United States came in 23rd or 24th in most subjects. We can quibble, or we can face the brutal truth that we’re being out-educated.”
In math, the Shanghai students performed in a class by themselves, outperforming second-place Singapore, which has been seen as an educational superstar in recent years. The average math scores of American students put them below 30 other countries.
PISA scores are on a scale, with 500 as the average. Two-thirds of students in participating countries score between 400 and 600. On the math test last year, students in Shanghai scored 600, in Singapore 562, in Germany 513, and in the United States 487.
In reading, Shanghai students scored 556, ahead of second-place Korea with 539. The United States scored 500 and came in 17th, putting it on par with students in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and several other countries.
In science, Shanghai students scored 575. In second place was Finland, where the average score was 554. The United States scored 502 — in 23rd place — with a performance indistinguishable from Poland, Ireland, Norway, France and several other countries.
The testing in Shanghai was carried out by an international contractor, working with Chinese authorities, and overseen by the Australian Council for Educational Research, a nonprofit testing group, said Andreas Schleicher, who directs the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s international educational testing program.
Mark Schneider, a commissioner of the Department of Education’s research arm in the George W. Bush administration, who returned from an educational research visit to China on Friday, said he had been skeptical about some PISA results in the past. But Mr. Schneider said he considered the accuracy of these results to be unassailable.
“The technical side of this was well regulated, the sampling was O.K., and there was no evidence of cheating,” he said.
Mr. Schneider, however, noted some factors that may have influenced the outcome.
For one thing, Shanghai is a huge migration hub within China. Students are supposed to return to their home provinces to attend high school, but the Shanghai authorities could increase scores by allowing stellar students to stay in the city, he said. And Shanghai students apparently were told the test was important for China’s image and thus were more motivated to do well, he said.
“Can you imagine the reaction if we told the students of Chicago that the PISA was an important international test and that America’s reputation depended on them performing well?” Mr. Schneider said. “That said, China is taking education very seriously. The work ethic is amazingly strong.”
In a speech to a college audience in North Carolina, President Obama recalled how the Soviet Union’s 1957 launching of Sputnik provoked the United States to increase investment in math and science education, helping America win the space race.
“Fifty years later, our generation’s Sputnik moment is back,” Mr. Obama said. With billions of people in India and China “suddenly plugged into the world economy,” he said, nations with the most educated workers will prevail. “As it stands right now,” he said, “America is in danger of falling behind.”
If Shanghai is a showcase of Chinese educational progress, America’s showcase would be Massachusetts, which has routinely scored higher than all other states on America’s main federal math test in recent years.
But in a 2007 study that correlated the results of that test with the results of an international math exam, Massachusetts students scored behind Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Shanghai did not participate in the test.
A 259-page Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report on the latest Pisa results notes that throughout its history, China has been organized around competitive examinations. “Schools work their students long hours every day, and the work weeks extend into the weekends,” it said.
Chinese students spend less time than American students on athletics, music and other activities not geared toward success on exams in core subjects. Also, in recent years, teaching has rapidly climbed up the ladder of preferred occupations in China, and salaries have risen. In Shanghai, the authorities have undertaken important curricular reforms, and educators have been given more freedom to experiment.
Ever since his organization received the Shanghai test scores last year, Mr. Schleicher said, international testing experts have investigated them to vouch for their accuracy, expecting that they would produce astonishment in many Western countries.
“This is the first time that we have internationally comparable data on learning outcomes in China,” Mr. Schleicher said. “While that’s important, for me the real significance of these results is that they refute the commonly held hypothesis that China just produces rote learning.”
“Large fractions of these students demonstrate their ability to extrapolate from what they know and apply their knowledge very creatively in novel situations,” he said
Showing posts with label mandarin chinese greenwich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mandarin chinese greenwich. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
NBC Today Show Hosts Chinese Language Learning Segment
NBC's Today Show sponsored a segment on the importance of learning Mandarin Chinese.
According to Daniella Montalto, NYU's Institute of Learning and Achievement, learning a language at a very young age can help improve children's reading, writing, math and IQ scores.
Watch it here: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39154226/vp/39418545#39418545
According to Daniella Montalto, NYU's Institute of Learning and Achievement, learning a language at a very young age can help improve children's reading, writing, math and IQ scores.
Watch it here: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39154226/vp/39418545#39418545
Friday, September 10, 2010
NY Times: Following Workers' Trails of Tears in China
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/movies/29home.html?_r=2&ref=movies
IN the quietly devastating documentary “Last Train Home” Chinese migrant workers huddle together in an overcrowded railway car, sweating through their annual ride home for the New Year holiday. One nattily coiffed young man inveighs against the West, complaining bitterly that American consumers who buy the cheap Chinese goods he makes also get to spend most of their higher salaries on discretionary items, while he, who makes those goods, must send most of his earnings home to support his family.
Lixin Fan, who shot, edited and directed the film, might have chosen to stick with this feisty representative of the new China. Instead his camera cuts away to a middle-aged couple who sit in silence. Zhang Changhua and Cheng Suqin, who make this trip every year to visit the children they left behind nearly two decades ago, belong to a mostly ignored generation of roughly 130 million migrant workers who have sacrificed their productive years, and possibly the integrity of their families, in service to China’s headlong rush into global economic supremacy.
“Many times I was in tears at all this misery,” Mr. Fan said, seated in an anteroom at the Los Angeles Asian-Pacific Film Festival, where “Last Train Home” played in May after winning praise at the Sundance Film Festival. “If you were on this train with hundreds of migrants around us — it stinks, it’s dirty and everyone’s trying to survive, just to see their kids.”
In 2006 Mr. Fan and a skeleton crew of three began documenting the effects of industrial change on this family, with whom he spent three years, on and off.
Mr. Zhang and Ms. Cheng left their village in Sichuan — Mr. Fan’s home province and the country’s largest exporter of labor — to work in Guangzhou, the world’s largest manufacturing source of denim jeans. The film cuts between the factory where they toil seven days a week, and the bucolic but chronically poor countryside where they visit their little boy and teenage daughter, who are raised by a careworn yet uncomplaining grandmother who suffered even worse privation under Mao Zedong.
Mr. Fan, a slender 33-year-old who cheerfully attributes his fluent English to “fighting with my Chinese-American girlfriend,” showed a sociologist’s grasp of the broad shifts that have afflicted workers like this couple. The lack of farm subsidies and expropriation of farmland for urban construction have crippled agriculture, while an outdated housing registration system that denies education and social services to rural migrants in the city has created a sharp class divide and placed untenable strains on the traditionally close-knit Chinese family.
The film’s unnerving railway station scenes — panoramic views of frustrated crowds surging forward, barely contained by nervous police officers with truncheons — underscore these changes and the growing specter of civil war. “The government does not have a perfect track record of dealing with dissent,” Mr. Fan said carefully. “So civil war would be a terrible thing. While I was making this film, it was difficult to figure out where to point the finger. At the government? The factory owners and corporations? The West? I’m not in a righteous place to answer, but I hope to raise this question for my audience.”
Mr. Fan encountered little serious official opposition, perhaps because of his accommodating demeanor, or because national issues are kept mostly in the background of this intimate film, which opens Friday at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village.
To gain the family’s trust Mr. Fan and his crew ate with them in their dormitory in Guangzhou, taught them how to manage their own wireless mikes, which they wore constantly, and would sleep on the pile of warm jeans the couple made while the crew waited to tag along after they finished their shift at midnight. “So 15 minutes into the film, after that first train ride,” he said proudly, “we’d already known each other for a year.”
“The mom once told me that they worked for 29 days, 15 hours a day straight,” Mr. Fan said. “The dormitories are right across the street from their factory, so it takes one minute exactly to go from their sewing machine to their bed. So that’s what they did for that month — sewing machine, bed, sewing machine, bed.”
At home Mr. Zhang and Ms. Cheng encountered their deeply resentful daughter, Qin, 17, who rebels against her parents’ pressure to get the grades they see as her passport to a better life. At one point the simmering tensions come to a boil, forcing Mr. Fan to decide on his feet whether to intervene. “The kids want more attention, and the parents are never around,” he said. “The parents know that education is the only way to, as we call it, jump out of the dragon’s door, out of poverty. But Qin, who is rebellious, independent and smart, did it her own way.”
Still, Mr. Fan doesn’t believe that the Chinese family is close to collapse. “Down deep we are still very family oriented,” he said. “When Qin gets a little older, she will come to understand that.”
He added, laughing, “I still call my mom every other day.”
If Mr. Fan belongs to a new generation of Internet-savvy filmmakers schooled in Western liberal ideas, his spiritual, intellectual and cinematic influences reflect both ancient tradition and modernity. His father was a college professor and projectionist, and Mr. Fan grew up watching foreign films. Like many of his generation, he broke with tradition by leaving home for Beijing, then gave up a prestigious job (“My mom thought I was crazy”) with the CCTV network, briefly relocating to Canada before working as a sound man and associate producer on the well-received 2007 documentary “Up the Yangtze,” about the mass displacements caused by the building of the Three Gorges Dam.
“Lixin is not from the foreign-influenced cultural centers,” said Daniel Cross, president of EyesteelFilm company in Montreal, which produced “Up the Yangtze” and co-produced “Last Train Home” with the ITVS television and cable company, which holds the North American television rights. “He comes from the sticks, and that’s what makes him unique.”
Mr. Fan said he is a committed Taoist, and his eye for the interplay of beauty and ugliness is influenced by what he calls the “epic poetry” of the director Jia Zhangke, whose 2004 feature “The World” centered on the youthful staff of a giant theme park that replicates the world’s famous tourist spots.
“I see a lot of Chinese philosophy in Jia’s film,” said Mr. Fan, who added that he hopes to seed his next project, a documentary about China’s green initiative focusing on a state-financed wind farm on the Silk Road in the Gobi Desert, with his earnings from “Last Train Home.”
“I’ll shoot there and in a remote mountain school where Taoist philosophy originated, where they recruit peasant children to teach them Tai Chi with martial art,” he said. “It’s yin and yang, keeping the balance between human desire and what nature can give you
IN the quietly devastating documentary “Last Train Home” Chinese migrant workers huddle together in an overcrowded railway car, sweating through their annual ride home for the New Year holiday. One nattily coiffed young man inveighs against the West, complaining bitterly that American consumers who buy the cheap Chinese goods he makes also get to spend most of their higher salaries on discretionary items, while he, who makes those goods, must send most of his earnings home to support his family.
Lixin Fan, who shot, edited and directed the film, might have chosen to stick with this feisty representative of the new China. Instead his camera cuts away to a middle-aged couple who sit in silence. Zhang Changhua and Cheng Suqin, who make this trip every year to visit the children they left behind nearly two decades ago, belong to a mostly ignored generation of roughly 130 million migrant workers who have sacrificed their productive years, and possibly the integrity of their families, in service to China’s headlong rush into global economic supremacy.
“Many times I was in tears at all this misery,” Mr. Fan said, seated in an anteroom at the Los Angeles Asian-Pacific Film Festival, where “Last Train Home” played in May after winning praise at the Sundance Film Festival. “If you were on this train with hundreds of migrants around us — it stinks, it’s dirty and everyone’s trying to survive, just to see their kids.”
In 2006 Mr. Fan and a skeleton crew of three began documenting the effects of industrial change on this family, with whom he spent three years, on and off.
Mr. Zhang and Ms. Cheng left their village in Sichuan — Mr. Fan’s home province and the country’s largest exporter of labor — to work in Guangzhou, the world’s largest manufacturing source of denim jeans. The film cuts between the factory where they toil seven days a week, and the bucolic but chronically poor countryside where they visit their little boy and teenage daughter, who are raised by a careworn yet uncomplaining grandmother who suffered even worse privation under Mao Zedong.
Mr. Fan, a slender 33-year-old who cheerfully attributes his fluent English to “fighting with my Chinese-American girlfriend,” showed a sociologist’s grasp of the broad shifts that have afflicted workers like this couple. The lack of farm subsidies and expropriation of farmland for urban construction have crippled agriculture, while an outdated housing registration system that denies education and social services to rural migrants in the city has created a sharp class divide and placed untenable strains on the traditionally close-knit Chinese family.
The film’s unnerving railway station scenes — panoramic views of frustrated crowds surging forward, barely contained by nervous police officers with truncheons — underscore these changes and the growing specter of civil war. “The government does not have a perfect track record of dealing with dissent,” Mr. Fan said carefully. “So civil war would be a terrible thing. While I was making this film, it was difficult to figure out where to point the finger. At the government? The factory owners and corporations? The West? I’m not in a righteous place to answer, but I hope to raise this question for my audience.”
Mr. Fan encountered little serious official opposition, perhaps because of his accommodating demeanor, or because national issues are kept mostly in the background of this intimate film, which opens Friday at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village.
To gain the family’s trust Mr. Fan and his crew ate with them in their dormitory in Guangzhou, taught them how to manage their own wireless mikes, which they wore constantly, and would sleep on the pile of warm jeans the couple made while the crew waited to tag along after they finished their shift at midnight. “So 15 minutes into the film, after that first train ride,” he said proudly, “we’d already known each other for a year.”
“The mom once told me that they worked for 29 days, 15 hours a day straight,” Mr. Fan said. “The dormitories are right across the street from their factory, so it takes one minute exactly to go from their sewing machine to their bed. So that’s what they did for that month — sewing machine, bed, sewing machine, bed.”
At home Mr. Zhang and Ms. Cheng encountered their deeply resentful daughter, Qin, 17, who rebels against her parents’ pressure to get the grades they see as her passport to a better life. At one point the simmering tensions come to a boil, forcing Mr. Fan to decide on his feet whether to intervene. “The kids want more attention, and the parents are never around,” he said. “The parents know that education is the only way to, as we call it, jump out of the dragon’s door, out of poverty. But Qin, who is rebellious, independent and smart, did it her own way.”
Still, Mr. Fan doesn’t believe that the Chinese family is close to collapse. “Down deep we are still very family oriented,” he said. “When Qin gets a little older, she will come to understand that.”
He added, laughing, “I still call my mom every other day.”
If Mr. Fan belongs to a new generation of Internet-savvy filmmakers schooled in Western liberal ideas, his spiritual, intellectual and cinematic influences reflect both ancient tradition and modernity. His father was a college professor and projectionist, and Mr. Fan grew up watching foreign films. Like many of his generation, he broke with tradition by leaving home for Beijing, then gave up a prestigious job (“My mom thought I was crazy”) with the CCTV network, briefly relocating to Canada before working as a sound man and associate producer on the well-received 2007 documentary “Up the Yangtze,” about the mass displacements caused by the building of the Three Gorges Dam.
“Lixin is not from the foreign-influenced cultural centers,” said Daniel Cross, president of EyesteelFilm company in Montreal, which produced “Up the Yangtze” and co-produced “Last Train Home” with the ITVS television and cable company, which holds the North American television rights. “He comes from the sticks, and that’s what makes him unique.”
Mr. Fan said he is a committed Taoist, and his eye for the interplay of beauty and ugliness is influenced by what he calls the “epic poetry” of the director Jia Zhangke, whose 2004 feature “The World” centered on the youthful staff of a giant theme park that replicates the world’s famous tourist spots.
“I see a lot of Chinese philosophy in Jia’s film,” said Mr. Fan, who added that he hopes to seed his next project, a documentary about China’s green initiative focusing on a state-financed wind farm on the Silk Road in the Gobi Desert, with his earnings from “Last Train Home.”
“I’ll shoot there and in a remote mountain school where Taoist philosophy originated, where they recruit peasant children to teach them Tai Chi with martial art,” he said. “It’s yin and yang, keeping the balance between human desire and what nature can give you
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Why Newly-Minted MBAs are Heading East
Why MBAs are Going East
Unprecedented growth, good salaries, and the ability to make an impact faster make Asia the new promised land for B-school grads
Crawford hopes he can capitalize on his Columbia MBA in Shanghai Rodney Evans
By Michelle Conlin
James Tsai is the sort of MBA corporate recruiters covet. He went to a good prep school, earned a degree with honors from Middlebury College, and made vice-president in Bank of America's (BAC) international wealth management group at the age of 26. Today, Tsai is about to graduate, straight A's in hand, from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, a top-rated program in America. And he's hustling to land his first post-MBA job—in China.
Executive Class strivers like Tsai used to have just one post-grad career destination, the U.S. Not anymore. "I am doing everything I think I can to get over there," he says.
Every era has its version of the MBA dream. In the 1980s, it was about conquering Wall Street and choppering off to the Hamptons. The late 1990s saw a stampede to Silicon Valley. In the mid-aughts, the gilded, clubby preserve of private equity beckoned. Now, the emerging narrative is about steroidal Asia and its promise of growth. At premiere institutions such as the University of Chicago's Booth School, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and Northwestern's Kellogg, the percentage of MBAs taking jobs in Asia—including U.S. students like Tsai as well as international students—has more than doubled in the past five years, from roughly 5% of the graduating class to more than 10%. "There is a sense that the center of gravity is shifting," says Julie Morton, Booth's associate dean for career services.
The number of students taking international jobs usually swells in a recession, says Kellogg Assistant Dean Roxanne Hori. But Hori and others believe that the refrain of "Go East, Young Man" is not a short-term response to the U.S. economic downturn but a structural shift toward an internationalized, mobile talent market. And right now, Asia is where the career velocity and opportunity are. "This has never really happened before, except in little spurts, where you have a fairly large group of talented, recent MBAs asking for assignments in China, Vietnam, India," says Jeff Joerres, CEO of global staffing firm Manpower. Adds Richard Florida, professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management: "I don't think many of us thought Asia would become the destination for top Western talent—but it is."
ONE WORD OF ADVICE
For many MBAs, the prospect of making a bigger impact faster is simply too good to pass up, especially now that the pay packages offered by both domestic and multinational companies are competitive with those in the U.S. Shortly before James Crawford, 30, headed to Columbia B-School two years ago, his dad sat him down in the kitchen of the family's suburban Chicago home. Think of that scene in The Graduate, only instead of saying "plastics," Crawford's father's advice was "Asia." Today, Crawford is pursuing multiple opportunities there. "I can't imagine a career over the next 30 years that would not require or give benefit to international experience," he says. Asia fever has also hit Wharton student Andrew Maywah, 32, who had a cushy life working at Oracle (ORCL) in Silicon Valley before graduate school. Now he is juggling offers from three Chinese companies. "It's like the Wild, Wild West. There is just so much happening there," he says. "I want to be at the center of it."
So do many Chinese who emigrated to the U.S. when they were young. They find themselves breaking the news to their families that they're chasing the same dream that lured their parents to the U.S., only in reverse. (What better time to leverage the family capital back in the old country?) The Chinese call these returnees hai gui, or sea turtles, referring to how these animals always return to their birthplace to lay their own eggs. Then there are the international students, who until recently would likely have stayed in the U.S. to learn the soft skills of Western management, and now are heading straight back home.
Piyush Singhvi, 27, was born in India, grew up in the Middle East, and, before Wharton, worked at the Dubai-based private equity firm Abraaj Capital, the largest non-state-owned firm in the region. When Singhvi enrolled in Wharton in 2008 he was certain, he says, that he would stay in the U.S. after graduation like most of his peers. But then came the financial crisis. "It was amazing to see how many people came in with the idea that they would stay in the West, and how that's drastically changed to just the opposite," he says. "There are a lot more opportunities in the East."
On Facebook, Twitter, and Skype, MBAs swap stories about the adrenaline rush of working in an emerging market and the joys of geographic arbitrage. After graduating from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, Quan Trinh, 27, who grew up in Virginia, took a job with Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) in Shanghai. There she partakes of an upper-crust-Manhattan-type lifestyle—food delivered to her door every night, a maid who picks up after her, a balcony apartment in a compound with a pool—at Albany (N.Y.) prices. Add to the mix that she travels around Asia with top J&J execs, working in the strategic planning division for the company's diabetes business, and, she says, "sometimes I have to pinch myself."
STANDING ROOM ONLY
Asian companies used to rarely, if ever, come to American B-school campuses for recruiting season. Now at Wharton, Chinese firms like heavyweight investment bank China Investment Corp. and IT firm Tencent are showing up, says Wharton global careers director Sam Jones. This year, CICC played to standing-room-only crowds. At Kellogg, India-based Infosys (INFY) and Tata Group are now on hand for recruiting. The University of Chicago's Booth School is seeing so much interest from Chinese companies that it recently opened a career services office in Hong Kong.
South Korea's Samsung Electronics has been on a hiring tear. Last year the company signed 50 non-Korean MBAs from the top 10 business schools in the U.S., double the number of 2008, says Samsung Vice-President Kim Keun Bae. Those 50 were in addition to the dozens of ethnic Koreans that Samsung scooped up from MBA programs in America. At Kellogg, the company hired 16 business school graduates alone—more than U.S.-based hiring stalwarts General Mills (GIS) and Procter & Gamble (PG) combined. The new hires work in Samsung's Global Strategy Group, which does all of its business in English, advising top Samsung executives on internal consulting projects. This year the company is on track to again double its hiring of U.S.-born MBAs. "The young and smart from top U.S. business schools have helped provide fresh perspectives to our company," says Kim. "Both foreign recruits and Korean employees learn from each other, and that helps globalize the company."
In many cases, companies like Samsung are acing out their American rivals in hiring the very best candidates. Kellogg graduate Jonathan Scearcy, 28, had 30 job offers last year, most from top U.S. companies. But he turned them all down to take a job at Samsung so he could "get international exposure early," he says. "If you ever want to be at a C-suite, you have to have a global skill set and you have to have significant international exposure," says Scearcy.
"GROOMING GLOBAL CITIZENS"
Multinationals like Citibank (C), Pfizer (PFE), Eli Lilly (LLY), and Nike China are also broadening their international programs and amping up hiring for their Asia divisions. Last fall a phalanx of high-level IBM (IBM)ers hit premiere B-schools to talk up IBM's new five-year boot camp for its general manager program. The program gives the new hires massive international exposure, especially in places like Asia. "We are looking to attract global citizens," says Peggy Tayloe, IBM's recruiting director. Big Blue recently flew the recruits to its Armonk (N.Y.) headquarters, where they sipped cocktails and nibbled canapés in the inner sanctum of the company's plush C-suite. One of the new hires hobnobbing at the party was Harvard MBA Yashih Wu, who was born in California and graduated from Princeton University. Before B-school, she worked on Wall Street and Madison Avenue. But for her those places aren't the career destinations they used to be. Today, she says, "It's impossible not to think globally about one's career."
How much longer can the Asian allure hold? With protectionist talk rising in America, and China trying to put the brakes on its rapidly growing economy, there's always a chance that Asia could stumble. There's also rising concern about what the migration East might mean for the U.S.'s competitive edge. "I can't get out of my head that two-thirds of Silicon Valley companies were started by non-U.S. citizens," says Manpower CEO Joerres. What if, after Stanford University, Google (GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin had returned to his birth country of Russia? What if James Tsai is about to do the Next Big Thing—but in his dad's old country in Beijing? "The best and the brightest are leaving," says the Rotman School's Florida. "As a country, the U.S. has never confronted this before."
Unprecedented growth, good salaries, and the ability to make an impact faster make Asia the new promised land for B-school grads
Crawford hopes he can capitalize on his Columbia MBA in Shanghai Rodney Evans
By Michelle Conlin
James Tsai is the sort of MBA corporate recruiters covet. He went to a good prep school, earned a degree with honors from Middlebury College, and made vice-president in Bank of America's (BAC) international wealth management group at the age of 26. Today, Tsai is about to graduate, straight A's in hand, from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, a top-rated program in America. And he's hustling to land his first post-MBA job—in China.
Executive Class strivers like Tsai used to have just one post-grad career destination, the U.S. Not anymore. "I am doing everything I think I can to get over there," he says.
Every era has its version of the MBA dream. In the 1980s, it was about conquering Wall Street and choppering off to the Hamptons. The late 1990s saw a stampede to Silicon Valley. In the mid-aughts, the gilded, clubby preserve of private equity beckoned. Now, the emerging narrative is about steroidal Asia and its promise of growth. At premiere institutions such as the University of Chicago's Booth School, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and Northwestern's Kellogg, the percentage of MBAs taking jobs in Asia—including U.S. students like Tsai as well as international students—has more than doubled in the past five years, from roughly 5% of the graduating class to more than 10%. "There is a sense that the center of gravity is shifting," says Julie Morton, Booth's associate dean for career services.
The number of students taking international jobs usually swells in a recession, says Kellogg Assistant Dean Roxanne Hori. But Hori and others believe that the refrain of "Go East, Young Man" is not a short-term response to the U.S. economic downturn but a structural shift toward an internationalized, mobile talent market. And right now, Asia is where the career velocity and opportunity are. "This has never really happened before, except in little spurts, where you have a fairly large group of talented, recent MBAs asking for assignments in China, Vietnam, India," says Jeff Joerres, CEO of global staffing firm Manpower. Adds Richard Florida, professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management: "I don't think many of us thought Asia would become the destination for top Western talent—but it is."
ONE WORD OF ADVICE
For many MBAs, the prospect of making a bigger impact faster is simply too good to pass up, especially now that the pay packages offered by both domestic and multinational companies are competitive with those in the U.S. Shortly before James Crawford, 30, headed to Columbia B-School two years ago, his dad sat him down in the kitchen of the family's suburban Chicago home. Think of that scene in The Graduate, only instead of saying "plastics," Crawford's father's advice was "Asia." Today, Crawford is pursuing multiple opportunities there. "I can't imagine a career over the next 30 years that would not require or give benefit to international experience," he says. Asia fever has also hit Wharton student Andrew Maywah, 32, who had a cushy life working at Oracle (ORCL) in Silicon Valley before graduate school. Now he is juggling offers from three Chinese companies. "It's like the Wild, Wild West. There is just so much happening there," he says. "I want to be at the center of it."
So do many Chinese who emigrated to the U.S. when they were young. They find themselves breaking the news to their families that they're chasing the same dream that lured their parents to the U.S., only in reverse. (What better time to leverage the family capital back in the old country?) The Chinese call these returnees hai gui, or sea turtles, referring to how these animals always return to their birthplace to lay their own eggs. Then there are the international students, who until recently would likely have stayed in the U.S. to learn the soft skills of Western management, and now are heading straight back home.
Piyush Singhvi, 27, was born in India, grew up in the Middle East, and, before Wharton, worked at the Dubai-based private equity firm Abraaj Capital, the largest non-state-owned firm in the region. When Singhvi enrolled in Wharton in 2008 he was certain, he says, that he would stay in the U.S. after graduation like most of his peers. But then came the financial crisis. "It was amazing to see how many people came in with the idea that they would stay in the West, and how that's drastically changed to just the opposite," he says. "There are a lot more opportunities in the East."
On Facebook, Twitter, and Skype, MBAs swap stories about the adrenaline rush of working in an emerging market and the joys of geographic arbitrage. After graduating from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, Quan Trinh, 27, who grew up in Virginia, took a job with Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) in Shanghai. There she partakes of an upper-crust-Manhattan-type lifestyle—food delivered to her door every night, a maid who picks up after her, a balcony apartment in a compound with a pool—at Albany (N.Y.) prices. Add to the mix that she travels around Asia with top J&J execs, working in the strategic planning division for the company's diabetes business, and, she says, "sometimes I have to pinch myself."
STANDING ROOM ONLY
Asian companies used to rarely, if ever, come to American B-school campuses for recruiting season. Now at Wharton, Chinese firms like heavyweight investment bank China Investment Corp. and IT firm Tencent are showing up, says Wharton global careers director Sam Jones. This year, CICC played to standing-room-only crowds. At Kellogg, India-based Infosys (INFY) and Tata Group are now on hand for recruiting. The University of Chicago's Booth School is seeing so much interest from Chinese companies that it recently opened a career services office in Hong Kong.
South Korea's Samsung Electronics has been on a hiring tear. Last year the company signed 50 non-Korean MBAs from the top 10 business schools in the U.S., double the number of 2008, says Samsung Vice-President Kim Keun Bae. Those 50 were in addition to the dozens of ethnic Koreans that Samsung scooped up from MBA programs in America. At Kellogg, the company hired 16 business school graduates alone—more than U.S.-based hiring stalwarts General Mills (GIS) and Procter & Gamble (PG) combined. The new hires work in Samsung's Global Strategy Group, which does all of its business in English, advising top Samsung executives on internal consulting projects. This year the company is on track to again double its hiring of U.S.-born MBAs. "The young and smart from top U.S. business schools have helped provide fresh perspectives to our company," says Kim. "Both foreign recruits and Korean employees learn from each other, and that helps globalize the company."
In many cases, companies like Samsung are acing out their American rivals in hiring the very best candidates. Kellogg graduate Jonathan Scearcy, 28, had 30 job offers last year, most from top U.S. companies. But he turned them all down to take a job at Samsung so he could "get international exposure early," he says. "If you ever want to be at a C-suite, you have to have a global skill set and you have to have significant international exposure," says Scearcy.
"GROOMING GLOBAL CITIZENS"
Multinationals like Citibank (C), Pfizer (PFE), Eli Lilly (LLY), and Nike China are also broadening their international programs and amping up hiring for their Asia divisions. Last fall a phalanx of high-level IBM (IBM)ers hit premiere B-schools to talk up IBM's new five-year boot camp for its general manager program. The program gives the new hires massive international exposure, especially in places like Asia. "We are looking to attract global citizens," says Peggy Tayloe, IBM's recruiting director. Big Blue recently flew the recruits to its Armonk (N.Y.) headquarters, where they sipped cocktails and nibbled canapés in the inner sanctum of the company's plush C-suite. One of the new hires hobnobbing at the party was Harvard MBA Yashih Wu, who was born in California and graduated from Princeton University. Before B-school, she worked on Wall Street and Madison Avenue. But for her those places aren't the career destinations they used to be. Today, she says, "It's impossible not to think globally about one's career."
How much longer can the Asian allure hold? With protectionist talk rising in America, and China trying to put the brakes on its rapidly growing economy, there's always a chance that Asia could stumble. There's also rising concern about what the migration East might mean for the U.S.'s competitive edge. "I can't get out of my head that two-thirds of Silicon Valley companies were started by non-U.S. citizens," says Manpower CEO Joerres. What if, after Stanford University, Google (GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin had returned to his birth country of Russia? What if James Tsai is about to do the Next Big Thing—but in his dad's old country in Beijing? "The best and the brightest are leaving," says the Rotman School's Florida. "As a country, the U.S. has never confronted this before."
Monday, February 1, 2010
Long Ridge Camp Silent Auction Gift Basket!
CLSC's Chinese New Year Festival will take place on Sunday, February 7, 2010.
Along with Honorary Guests, legendary forensic detective Dr. Henry Lee,best-selling author Grace Chang, Congressman Jim Himes, traditional food, a dragon dance, lion dance, face painting, calligraphy demonstration, cooking demonstration, arts and crafts for children, an authentic Chinese wedding sedan, Chinese shadow puppets, the Columbia University Chinese YoYo troupe, and much more, we also have a sophisticated line of vendors and a fabulous Silent Auction!
One of the featured items in our silent auction is this wonderful gift basket from Long Ridge Camp.
The gift basket will have Long Ridge Camp Gear - A Gym bag, a Long Ridge Camp hooded sweatshirt, a camp water bottle and beach ball. Along with that is a gift certificate worth $500 to be applied towards a minimum of 4-weeks of camp (they run 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 weeks). It will be valid for the 2010 season.
Visit them at www.LongRidgeCamp.com.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Abacus Bank Sponsors Chinese Language School of Connecticut
Thank you to New York's Abacus Federal Savings Bank for their very generous donation of $1,000 to the Chinese Language School of Connecticut.
Abacus' Chairman presented many non-profit organizations with grants at a ceremony at their headquarters, located on Canal Street New York. CLSC's president and board member, Susan Serven, attended on CLSC's behalf.
Abacus' gift will help CLSC provide interactive educational materials to allow even more children to learn Mandarin Chinese.
Xie Xie Ni!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Dr. Henry Lee, Internationally-Acclaimed Forensics Detective, Celebrity Speaker and Author to speak at CLSC Chinese New Year Festival!
Just confirmed!
Internationally-acclaimed forensics detective, TV host, celebrity speaker and author Dr. Henry Lee to appear at CLSC's 8th Annual Chinese New Year Festival!
For info and tickets to the event please visit www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org.
For info on Dr. Lee please visit http://www.drhenrylee.com/
Internationally-acclaimed forensics detective, TV host, celebrity speaker and author Dr. Henry Lee to appear at CLSC's 8th Annual Chinese New Year Festival!
For info and tickets to the event please visit www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org.
For info on Dr. Lee please visit http://www.drhenrylee.com/
Great video: Chinese in U.S. Schools
Terrific Asia Society on why our children should be learning Chinese.
http://www.asiasociety.org/video/education-learning/chinese-language-schools?utm_source=Asia+Society+eNews&utm_campaign=f6f01c7ae8-eNews_012610&utm_medium=email
http://www.asiasociety.org/video/education-learning/chinese-language-schools?utm_source=Asia+Society+eNews&utm_campaign=f6f01c7ae8-eNews_012610&utm_medium=email
Friday, January 22, 2010
Chinese Immigrants Tell Stories of Angel Island
http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_14224527
With reflection and tears, Angel Island turns 100
By Joe Rodriguez
jrodriguez@mercurynews.com
Malin Tom is an "emotional man," which explains why he kept his journey through Angel Island mostly to himself for 60 years.
"I did not want to cry in front of people," says Tom, now 81 and living in Santa Clara. "It is a sad story. I was so scared and poor. I was ashamed, and Chinese don't talk about their shame."
But he could not resist a granddaughter's plea a few years ago. Would he talk to her classmates about passing through the "Ellis Island of the West"?
"My granddaughter gave me courage."
And when Tom finally spoke it was as if a dam holding back immigrant tears had cracked, replenishing the soil of American history with bittersweet truth.
On Thursday, a ceremony in San Francisco
will commemorate — 100 years to the date — the opening of Angel Island's immigration station. The government will swear in 100 new American citizens. Some of the nation's top immigration officials will speak, as well as people who actually went through the island in San Francisco Bay, including poet Nellie Wong and her sister from Sunnyvale, Lai Webster.
The speakers won't sugarcoat the island's checkered past. Angel Island was different from its welcoming counterpart in New York Harbor.
About 500,000 immigrants passed through the island from 1910 to 1940. Of these, 300,000 were detained, a third of them Chinese. While most were ultimately allowed in, many, like Tom, waited months in a torturous limbo while their
backgrounds were investigated.
"Angel Island was really there to keep people out, not to welcome them," says Judy Yung, a University of California-Santa Cruz professor emeritus of American studies and author of two books on the subject. "We need to remember that. How can we use the lesson of Angel Island to live up to our ideal as a nation of immigrants?"
By the late 19th century, the easy gold in California was gone, an economic recession had settled in across the country and a new wave of immigrants from Asia and southern Europe stirred up a nativist backlash. Congress looked for scapegoats.
Even today Tom asks, "Why did they home in on the Chinese?"
He was 12 years old in 1939 and living with his mother in a poor village in Canton province. His father, Yip Way Tom, had sneaked through Angel Island in 1916 as "Jack Chew," the supposed son of a Chinese-American family. Under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, laborers could only immigrate if they were the children or grandchildren of U.S.-born, Chinese-Americans.
"The Chinese figured out a intricate system right away," Yung says.
American-born Chinese who could sponsor relatives often sold their immigration slots to underground brokers, who sold them in Hong Kong to desperate immigrants like the Toms. Sometimes, undocumented Chinese here created entirely new identities on paper, especially after thousands of birth records were destroyed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.
The Chinese men who came to Angel Island with these false identities were known as "paper sons."
At 4 feet, 81/2 inches tall, young Tom boarded a ship in Hong Kong with a new identity, May Kwong Chew, son of Jack Chew, and "coaching" notes about the Chew family. He had to study notes between bouts with seasickness because he would be grilled by interrogators on Angel Island bent on ferreting out paper sons and daughters.
"After three weeks on a ship," Tom says, "the next three months were even worse."
Tom remembers going through three or four interrogations: Where was the water well in your village? How many steps did your front porch have? When did your uncle in America die? What company did he work for? Did he have birthmarks, and where?
Then he, like the other detainees, waited as immigration agents checked out his answers. Tom waited three months, about average, but some detainees were forced to remain on the island up to two years.
Nothing frightened him more than the whispers of suicides. Yung says some immigrants who flunked the questioning probably killed themselves on the island, but there is no official proof.
"They would have been too ashamed to go home and face their families and villages," said Yung, whose own father was a paper son and adopted the surname "Yung."
She estimates that 4 percent of Chinese were deported from the island.
Immigrants channeled their hopes and desolation into poetry, which they etched on the walls of their prison barracks. Tom read some of these, but "they made me feel even more sad."
To help pass the time, he played games with other Chinese boys in the recreation yard and picked up a few words of playground English. Because of the strict segregation, he never met boys from other nations, though he could see them during their allotted time in the yard.
Mostly though, he mulled over the interrogation questions during the day, complained about "terrible mush" and other western food, and cried silently under his blanket at night.
"I didn't want to make noise for the others," he says.
After three months, he was released and traveled to San Diego, where his father delivered produce to restaurants. On a much better diet, Tom sprouted to nearly 6 foot tall and played basketball in high school. He mastered English and kept his Chinese.
When he and his father returned to China in 1947, they learned Tom's brother and sister had died during World War II, probably from disease. Tom married, but with the communists taking over, he and his new bride moved to the United States in 1949 and sailed through immigration as Mr. and Mrs. Chew.
He might have remained a Chew were it not for the "Chinese Confession Program," a sort of amnesty for undocumented immigrants in the early 1960s, so long as they weren't communists or criminals. After three decades in the shadows, he became Malin Tom again, and a U.S. citizen. More than 18,000 Chinese paper sons and paper daughters also confessed and were allowed to stay.
He raised a family, and owned a nursery in Silicon Valley. And he never talked to anyone in detail about Angel Island.
"Not even to me," says his wife, Jean.
Too much shame.
In 2001, Tom returned to the island after 61 years with his adult children and grandchildren, who had begged him to go. He says the hardest part was visiting a restored dormitory, where he spent so many tearful nights, remembering the sound of doors being locked behind him.
"I cried again," Tom says. "I'm still an emotional guy."
Contact Joe Rodriguez at 408-920-5767.
A look back through Angel Island history
An immigration station opens on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay on Jan. 21, 1910 to enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
As immigrants from Asia, Russia and Mexico arrive, the station is dubbed the Ellis Island of the West, but its detainees are segregated by race, ethnicity and gender.
About 500,000 immigrants pass through over the next 30 years, the majority of them Asians.
While Europeans arriving at Ellis Island passed through in two to three hours, Chinese immigrants at Angel Island endure interrogations that often lasted two weeks to six months, with a few forced to stay up to two years.
On Nov. 5, 1940 the last group of 200 immigrants on the island — 150 of them Chinese — are transferred to San Francisco. Congress repeals the exclusion act in 1943.
Today, visitors to Angel Island can visit a museum, restored dormitory and read the poems carved into the immigration station's walls. Guided tours are $4 for adults and $3 for children. For schedules and directions, go towww.aiisf.org or call 415-435-3392.
Source: Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation
With reflection and tears, Angel Island turns 100
By Joe Rodriguez
jrodriguez@mercurynews.com
Malin Tom is an "emotional man," which explains why he kept his journey through Angel Island mostly to himself for 60 years.
"I did not want to cry in front of people," says Tom, now 81 and living in Santa Clara. "It is a sad story. I was so scared and poor. I was ashamed, and Chinese don't talk about their shame."
But he could not resist a granddaughter's plea a few years ago. Would he talk to her classmates about passing through the "Ellis Island of the West"?
"My granddaughter gave me courage."
And when Tom finally spoke it was as if a dam holding back immigrant tears had cracked, replenishing the soil of American history with bittersweet truth.
On Thursday, a ceremony in San Francisco
will commemorate — 100 years to the date — the opening of Angel Island's immigration station. The government will swear in 100 new American citizens. Some of the nation's top immigration officials will speak, as well as people who actually went through the island in San Francisco Bay, including poet Nellie Wong and her sister from Sunnyvale, Lai Webster.
The speakers won't sugarcoat the island's checkered past. Angel Island was different from its welcoming counterpart in New York Harbor.
About 500,000 immigrants passed through the island from 1910 to 1940. Of these, 300,000 were detained, a third of them Chinese. While most were ultimately allowed in, many, like Tom, waited months in a torturous limbo while their
backgrounds were investigated.
"Angel Island was really there to keep people out, not to welcome them," says Judy Yung, a University of California-Santa Cruz professor emeritus of American studies and author of two books on the subject. "We need to remember that. How can we use the lesson of Angel Island to live up to our ideal as a nation of immigrants?"
By the late 19th century, the easy gold in California was gone, an economic recession had settled in across the country and a new wave of immigrants from Asia and southern Europe stirred up a nativist backlash. Congress looked for scapegoats.
Even today Tom asks, "Why did they home in on the Chinese?"
He was 12 years old in 1939 and living with his mother in a poor village in Canton province. His father, Yip Way Tom, had sneaked through Angel Island in 1916 as "Jack Chew," the supposed son of a Chinese-American family. Under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, laborers could only immigrate if they were the children or grandchildren of U.S.-born, Chinese-Americans.
"The Chinese figured out a intricate system right away," Yung says.
American-born Chinese who could sponsor relatives often sold their immigration slots to underground brokers, who sold them in Hong Kong to desperate immigrants like the Toms. Sometimes, undocumented Chinese here created entirely new identities on paper, especially after thousands of birth records were destroyed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.
The Chinese men who came to Angel Island with these false identities were known as "paper sons."
At 4 feet, 81/2 inches tall, young Tom boarded a ship in Hong Kong with a new identity, May Kwong Chew, son of Jack Chew, and "coaching" notes about the Chew family. He had to study notes between bouts with seasickness because he would be grilled by interrogators on Angel Island bent on ferreting out paper sons and daughters.
"After three weeks on a ship," Tom says, "the next three months were even worse."
Tom remembers going through three or four interrogations: Where was the water well in your village? How many steps did your front porch have? When did your uncle in America die? What company did he work for? Did he have birthmarks, and where?
Then he, like the other detainees, waited as immigration agents checked out his answers. Tom waited three months, about average, but some detainees were forced to remain on the island up to two years.
Nothing frightened him more than the whispers of suicides. Yung says some immigrants who flunked the questioning probably killed themselves on the island, but there is no official proof.
"They would have been too ashamed to go home and face their families and villages," said Yung, whose own father was a paper son and adopted the surname "Yung."
She estimates that 4 percent of Chinese were deported from the island.
Immigrants channeled their hopes and desolation into poetry, which they etched on the walls of their prison barracks. Tom read some of these, but "they made me feel even more sad."
To help pass the time, he played games with other Chinese boys in the recreation yard and picked up a few words of playground English. Because of the strict segregation, he never met boys from other nations, though he could see them during their allotted time in the yard.
Mostly though, he mulled over the interrogation questions during the day, complained about "terrible mush" and other western food, and cried silently under his blanket at night.
"I didn't want to make noise for the others," he says.
After three months, he was released and traveled to San Diego, where his father delivered produce to restaurants. On a much better diet, Tom sprouted to nearly 6 foot tall and played basketball in high school. He mastered English and kept his Chinese.
When he and his father returned to China in 1947, they learned Tom's brother and sister had died during World War II, probably from disease. Tom married, but with the communists taking over, he and his new bride moved to the United States in 1949 and sailed through immigration as Mr. and Mrs. Chew.
He might have remained a Chew were it not for the "Chinese Confession Program," a sort of amnesty for undocumented immigrants in the early 1960s, so long as they weren't communists or criminals. After three decades in the shadows, he became Malin Tom again, and a U.S. citizen. More than 18,000 Chinese paper sons and paper daughters also confessed and were allowed to stay.
He raised a family, and owned a nursery in Silicon Valley. And he never talked to anyone in detail about Angel Island.
"Not even to me," says his wife, Jean.
Too much shame.
In 2001, Tom returned to the island after 61 years with his adult children and grandchildren, who had begged him to go. He says the hardest part was visiting a restored dormitory, where he spent so many tearful nights, remembering the sound of doors being locked behind him.
"I cried again," Tom says. "I'm still an emotional guy."
Contact Joe Rodriguez at 408-920-5767.
A look back through Angel Island history
An immigration station opens on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay on Jan. 21, 1910 to enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
As immigrants from Asia, Russia and Mexico arrive, the station is dubbed the Ellis Island of the West, but its detainees are segregated by race, ethnicity and gender.
About 500,000 immigrants pass through over the next 30 years, the majority of them Asians.
While Europeans arriving at Ellis Island passed through in two to three hours, Chinese immigrants at Angel Island endure interrogations that often lasted two weeks to six months, with a few forced to stay up to two years.
On Nov. 5, 1940 the last group of 200 immigrants on the island — 150 of them Chinese — are transferred to San Francisco. Congress repeals the exclusion act in 1943.
Today, visitors to Angel Island can visit a museum, restored dormitory and read the poems carved into the immigration station's walls. Guided tours are $4 for adults and $3 for children. For schedules and directions, go towww.aiisf.org or call 415-435-3392.
Source: Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Banking and Finance in China in the 1970s and 80s
JP Morgan Chase Chairman (China) Peter Rupert Lighte has published a book, with proceeds going to benefit children in orphanages in China via Half the Sky Foundation.
Buy the book here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/pieces-of-china/6068378
From: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2009/12/07/memoirs-of-a-banker/
December 7, 2009, 7:41 AM ET
Memoirs of a Banker
For years, longtime China banker Peter Rupert Lighte has been diligently taking notes in the endless meetings that bankers have to sit through. Little did his colleagues realize that he wasn’t tallying profits and losses but jotting down ideas for his sideline profession of memoir writer.
Now the chairman of JP Morgan Chase Bank (China) Co. has published them in a book aimed at helping Chinese orphans. “Pieces of China” evokes an era of late 1970s, early 1980s Taiwan and China, when Lighte–a trained scholar of classical Chinese–was getting started in banking and both regions were in the midst of huge economic changes.
The book is available free online but Lighte hopes readers will buy the book for $18 with profits going to Half the Sky Foundation , one of the few foreign-run charities that has been licensed by the Chinese government.
Now 60 years old, Lighte has kept diaries for years but says the stories are drawn entirely from memory. Most striking is that they are replete with telling details, such as the time he was at a dinner table for U.S. Thanksgiving with President Ronald Reagan and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang. Zhao wondered why the holiday was celebrated with mere poultry and kept quizzing the president on the price of turkey in the U.S., while the president kept trying to talk about the pilgrims.
“In a funny way, only details are worth remembering,” Lighte said in an interview. “The beauty is in the detail of recollection–it’s the only thing that brings you into the present of the memory.”
Most evocative are the stories about the strange world of banking and business in the early 1980s. Lighte was living, like many foreign businessmen, in the Jianguo Hotel–they were not allowed to rent apartments. He write about his relations with Chinese people, including a funny story on how his assistant tried to get hair to grow on his bald head.
Beside helping orphans, Lighte hopes the stories will mean something to his two adopted Chinese daughters. A student of the “Book of Changes” (the “Yi Jing”), Lighte wants them to see that while the pace of change in China is rapid, it’s connected to a past that they shouldn’t forget. “In a funny way when you live in China it’s a unique period of time but it’s all a piece of the cloth.”
– Ian Johnson
Buy the book here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/pieces-of-china/6068378
From: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2009/12/07/memoirs-of-a-banker/
December 7, 2009, 7:41 AM ET
Memoirs of a Banker
For years, longtime China banker Peter Rupert Lighte has been diligently taking notes in the endless meetings that bankers have to sit through. Little did his colleagues realize that he wasn’t tallying profits and losses but jotting down ideas for his sideline profession of memoir writer.
Now the chairman of JP Morgan Chase Bank (China) Co. has published them in a book aimed at helping Chinese orphans. “Pieces of China” evokes an era of late 1970s, early 1980s Taiwan and China, when Lighte–a trained scholar of classical Chinese–was getting started in banking and both regions were in the midst of huge economic changes.
The book is available free online but Lighte hopes readers will buy the book for $18 with profits going to Half the Sky Foundation , one of the few foreign-run charities that has been licensed by the Chinese government.
Now 60 years old, Lighte has kept diaries for years but says the stories are drawn entirely from memory. Most striking is that they are replete with telling details, such as the time he was at a dinner table for U.S. Thanksgiving with President Ronald Reagan and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang. Zhao wondered why the holiday was celebrated with mere poultry and kept quizzing the president on the price of turkey in the U.S., while the president kept trying to talk about the pilgrims.
“In a funny way, only details are worth remembering,” Lighte said in an interview. “The beauty is in the detail of recollection–it’s the only thing that brings you into the present of the memory.”
Most evocative are the stories about the strange world of banking and business in the early 1980s. Lighte was living, like many foreign businessmen, in the Jianguo Hotel–they were not allowed to rent apartments. He write about his relations with Chinese people, including a funny story on how his assistant tried to get hair to grow on his bald head.
Beside helping orphans, Lighte hopes the stories will mean something to his two adopted Chinese daughters. A student of the “Book of Changes” (the “Yi Jing”), Lighte wants them to see that while the pace of change in China is rapid, it’s connected to a past that they shouldn’t forget. “In a funny way when you live in China it’s a unique period of time but it’s all a piece of the cloth.”
– Ian Johnson
Friday, November 13, 2009
Expanded Advisory Committee
The Chinese Language School of Connecticut Expands Advisory Committee
-- Professionals will work with local business leaders to expand CLSC’s programs and services --
“We’re very fortunate and extremely pleased to have such dynamic professionals working with us to expand our Chinese language learning and program services,” said New Canaan resident, CLSC president and board member, Susan Serven.
Riverside, CT, November 15, 2009 – The Chinese Language School of Connecticut (www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org), the non-profit Riverside, CT-based provider of Chinese language programs and services to students, schools and corporations, has announced the expansion of their Advisory Committee.
Former Greenwich First Selectman Jim Lash explained, "The dramatic growth of the Chinese Language School of Connecticut comes as no surprise given the high quality of their programs and the rise of the global economy. Every child will be better prepared for the new world of work by being exposed to the Chinese language and culture."
Former CLSC Board Chair, Greenwich resident Raymond E. Dunn, said, “We are very excited to gain the benefit of experience and guidance that these leaders and professionals will bring to our school. After seven years of operation we now service about 1,000 students through programs via our regular classes, tutoring, before and after school programs, workshops, special classes and summer camp. CLSC faculty or faculty alumni are now teaching at a number of private and public schools in Fairfield and Westchester counties. The interest we have found in our community for a continued strengthening and broadening of our programs is both exciting and challenging. We believe that CLSC will benefit significantly from the commitment the new Advisory Board has made to help us move our programs forward to better serve existing and future students and parents.
“We’re very fortunate and extremely pleased to have such dynamic professionals working with us to expand our Chinese language learning and program services,” said New Canaan resident, CLSC president and board member, Susan Serven. “Our expanded Advisory Committee will be instrumental in helping us expand our reach in order to allow more children to learn Chinese, and will work with us and local business leaders to broaden our services to the community,” she continued.
Advisory Committee members include:
Jeffay F. Chang, of Pelham, NY, serves as the East Coast Trust Strategist for the Goldman Sachs Trust Companies. He was named Executive Vice President with responsibility over national marketing and sales in 2008. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs in May 2004, Jeffay was a Corporate Vice President in the Private Wealth Services Group of UBS Financial Services where he provided counseling and planning services for ultra high net worth clients in such areas as wealth transfer and philanthropic planning, stock option exercise planning, and hedging and monetizing concentrated equity positions. Prior to UBS Financial Services, Jeffay was a Financial Planner in the Financial Planning Group of US Trust and before that was a Trust Officer in the Trust Settlement Department of US Trust. Jeffay obtained his B.A. from Brandeis University and J.D. from Fordham University School of Law. He is a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, New York State Bar Association, New York Bankers Association, Estate Planning Council of New York City and the Westchester Estate Planning Council.
Da Chen, of Highland Park, NY, the, NY Times bestselling author of “Colors of the Mountain”, “China’s Son”, “Sounds of the River”, “Wandering Warrior” and “Brothers” arrived in America at the age of 23 with $30 in his pocket, a bamboo flute, and a heart filled with hope. He attended Columbia University School of Law on a full scholarship, and upon graduating, worked for the Wall Street investment banking firm of Rothschilds, Inc.
His most recent book, “Brothers” was nominated for a 2007 Quill award. Please visit www.DaChen.org
Samantha Wu Connell, of Stamford, is currently CLSC Chinese New Year Chair. She was born in Taipei, Taiwan and emigrated to the US as a young child. Sam graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995 with a BA in English and Psychology. After four years in marketing, she enrolled in culinary school and graduated with honors from New York City's Institute of Culinary Education Pastry Arts Program. Sam was an Associate Food Editor at Martha Stewart Living Magazine and has worked as a Food Stylist and Cake Designer. She currently lives in Stamford with her husband, Dan, and their children Quincy and Tobin.
Raymond Dunn, of Greenwich, is a co-founding partner of New York based maritime investment banking and brokerage firm Shipping & Finance LLC. Prior to that, he was an investment banker with UBS Securities for 14 years. He was Vice President of the Asian Business Society while an MBA student at Columbia and following graduation and prior to joining UBS, he was a research consultant at the OECD as a member of the China research team. Subsequently at UBS for several years, Mr. Dunn was head of international equity capital markets in New York with responsibility for both Europe and Asia. He also spent time seconded to UBS' Hong Kong office and worked extensively with Taiwanese companies. Mr. Dunn’s four children have attended CLSC and he is a member of the China Institute.
Laurie Heiss, of Greenwich, brings a successful professional background in the private sector and a deep personal commitment to educational initiatives to CLSC. Her career included high-level sales and marketing positions at GE for over a decade, Gateway Computer and IBM.
Most recently she has served two years as the Co-President of the PTA at Greenwich High School representing those 1400 member families and leading the 300 volunteers who support the operations of this large school. As a middle school parent she helped lead the parent-student effort to offer Mandarin at the high school. Previously, she chaired the Arts-in-Education efforts in the Town of Greenwich, a joint body of public and private school representatives organized as a sub-committee of PTA Council; she also chaired the Fairfield County Performing Arts & Enrichment Council.
She is a founding member of the Redding Preservation Society, a trustee of the Land Trust in Redding, where she owns a farm, and she serves on the board of The Merritt Parkway Conservancy.
She is a graduate of Connecticut College, where she received the Fielding Award base on contributions to class, college and community. She majored in Field Biology and Anthropology.
Susan S. Huang, of Greenwich, is an independent consultant in the asset management business, and is a Trustee on the boards of HSBC Global Investor Funds, United Church of Christ Foundation and Huntington’s Disease Society. She also contributes her financial and fund-raising expertise for other charitable, educational and cultural organizations, and is currently a Director of the Music and Endowment Committees, and a member of the Second Congregational Church Council in Greenwich.
Susie spent much of her career in money management and in developing the investment business in the U.S., Middle East and Asia. Her latest assignment was with Schroder Investment Management, and her other selected clients have included The Beacon Group, Ashmore, Chase VISTA Board, Lend Lease, and State of Alaska Pension Fund. Prior to her retirement from Chase Asset Management where she was Managing Director and Head of Fixed Income, she held senior investment positions at Hyperion Capital, CS First Boston, and The Equitable where she began her career in 1978.
Susie was a concert pianist in Asia and was featured as a soloist with the Hong Kong Philharmonic before coming to the U.S. in 1972. She holds a piano degree with honors from the Juilliard School of Music, a BA cum laude from Princeton University and an MBA from Columbia University. She is fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese and Shanghainese, and lives in Greenwich with her husband, Tony Kane and daughter, Shelley. She also sings in the choir at the Second Congregational Church.
Jim Lash, of Greenwich, is currently Chairman of the private equity firm Manchester Principal LLC. He grew up in Pontiac, Michigan, graduated from MIT in 1966 with a degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, and earned his MBA from Tulane University in 1969. Jim has served as First Selectman of Greenwich, CT from 2003-2007.
Jim’s work has involved holding principal and senior operating positions in primarily the manufacturing sector including serving as Chairman and CEO of Reading Tube Corporation from 1982 to 1996. From 1970 to 1976 Jim was a consultant with Touche Ross & Co. where his clients included the government agencies such as the city of Boston, and the country of New Zealand.
Prior to his work in management consulting, Jim’s career included serving as Assistant Dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration at Tulane University where he also taught graduate level courses in information technology.
While a student at MIT, Jim joined the Apollo Space Program team working at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory and Lincoln Laboratory between 1962 and 1966. After graduating from MIT, Jim accepted an offer from the Boeing Company in New Orleans to continue his work on the Apollo Program and worked on this mission as an Astronautical Engineer until 1969.
Jim Lash has served the interests of literacy, higher education, performing arts, medical research and international commerce with current and recent Board memberships including the City Center in New York (Chair Finance Committee); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Member of the Corporation/Trustee, President of the Alumni/ae Association, Campaign Steering Committee); Baker Hughes, Inc. (Board member of Audit and Finance Committees), The East West Institute (Finance Committee); The American Cancer Society (Chairman of the Wayne County Detroit Unit) and the Greenwich Library Board (President).
Jim and his wife Debby Jones Lash moved to Greenwich in 1983. Debby has served the Greenwich community in numerous ways including being Chairman of the United Way Board of Greenwich and former President of the Greenwich Junior League. Jim and Debby are active in sailing and tennis and are members of several clubs including the Belle Haven Club, the New York Yacht Club and the Northeast Harbor Fleet (Commodore) here and in Maine where they have enjoyed many summer seasons.
Deborah Hsu Serianni, of Old Greenwich, is currently CLSC Parent Committee Chair, and was Vice President Global Marketing Personal Care & Wellness of Avon Products Inc., a leading beauty company and the world largest direct selling company. In this position, she was responsible for establishing global goals and strategies, new product development, advertising and print material for all regions around the world. Prior moving to the New York global headquarters, Mrs. Serianni was Regional Vice President Marketing of Asia Pacific, based in Hong Kong.
Previously, Mrs. Serianni worked for Johnson & Johnson Consumer Product Group where she most recently served as Vice President Skin Care, Asia Pacific-China. In that role, she established the successful skin care business with a multiple brand portfolio covering Japan, Korea, China, to Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and India.
Earlier in her career, Mrs. Serianni worked at Procter & Gamble Europe where she held increasingly responsible positions in marketing, covering a vast territory including Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, Middle East and Central America.
Mrs. Serianni graduated from Oberlin College, majoring in Chemistry and Economics. She holds a Master sof Management degree from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. She currently serves on the President ‘s Advisory Board of Oberlin College.
Robyn Wasserman, of Old Greenwich, worked in New York for ten years in real estate investment banking and in real estate finance at JPMorgan, Sonnenblick-Goldman and Prime Capital Management. She is a graduate of The London School of Economics where she earned her B.S. in Economics specializing in Accounting and Finance in 1996. She currently lives in Old Greenwich with her husband, Tom Wasserman, who is a Managing Director at Highbridge Capital Management, and her two daughters, Emilie and Sophia. Emilie and Sophia are learning to speak Mandarin.
For information on the Chinese Language School of Connecticut’s language and cultural programs for children and adults, their Before– and After- School programs, special workshops, private tutoring or corporate language programs, please visit www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org or email them at info@ChineseLanguageSchool.org.
* * *
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
New York Times Article on Growing Importance of Mandarin
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/nyregion/22chinese.html?scp=1&sq=rise%20of%20mandarin%20changes%20the%20sound%20of%20chinatown&st=cse
October 22, 2009
Rise of Mandarin Changes the Sound of Chinatown
By KIRK SEMPLE
He grew up playing in the narrow, crowded streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. He has lived and worked there for all his 61 years. But as Wee Wong walks the neighborhood these days, he cannot understand half the Chinese conversations he hears.
Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.
The change can be heard in the neighborhood’s lively restaurants and solemn church services, in parks, street markets and language schools. It has been accelerated by Chinese-American parents, including many who speak Cantonese at home, as they press their children to learn Mandarin for the advantages it may bring as China’s influence grows in the world.
But the eclipse of Cantonese — in New York, China and around the world — has become a challenge for older people who speak only that dialect and face increasing isolation unless they learn Mandarin or English. Though Cantonese and Mandarin share nearly all the same written characters, the pronunciations are vastly different; when spoken, Mandarin may be incomprehensible to a Cantonese speaker, and vice versa.
Mr. Wong, a retired sign maker who speaks English, can still get by with his Cantonese, which remains the preferred language in his circle of friends and in Chinatown’s historic core. A bit defiantly, he said that if he enters a shop and finds the staff does not speak his dialect, “I go to another store.”
Like many others, however, he is resigned to the likelihood that Cantonese — and the people who speak it — will soon become just another facet of a polyglot neighborhood. “In 10 years,” he said, “it will be totally different.”
With Mandarin’s ascent has come a realignment of power in Chinese-American communities, where the recent immigrants are gaining economic and political clout, said Peter Kwong, a professor of Asian-American studies at Hunter College.
“The fact of the matter is that you have a whole generation switch, with very few people speaking only Cantonese,” he said. The Cantonese-speaking populace, he added, “is not the player anymore.”
The switch mirrors a sea change under way in China, where Mandarin, as the official language, is becoming the default tongue everywhere.
In North America, its rise also reflects a major shift in immigration. For much of the last century, most Chinese living in the United States and Canada traced their ancestry to a region in the Pearl River Delta that included the district of Taishan. They spoke the Taishanese dialect, which is derived from and somewhat similar to Cantonese.
Immigration reform in 1965 opened the door to a huge influx of Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong, and Cantonese became the dominant tongue. But since the 1990s, the vast majority of new Chinese immigrants have come from mainland China, especially Fujian Province, and tend to speak Mandarin along with their regional dialects.
In New York, many Mandarin speakers have flocked to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Flushing, Queens, which now rivals Chinatown as a center of Chinese-American business and political might, as well as culture and cuisine. In Chinatown, most of the newer immigrants have settled outside the historic core west of the Bowery, clustering instead around East Broadway.
“I can’t even order food on East Broadway,” said Jan Lee, 44, a furniture designer who has lived all his life in Chinatown and speaks Cantonese. “They don’t speak English; I don’t speak Mandarin. I’m just as lost as everyone else.”
Now Mandarin is pushing into Chinatown’s heart.
For most of the 100 years that the New York Chinese School, on Mott Street, has offered language classes, nearly all have taught Cantonese. Last year, the numbers of Cantonese and Mandarin classes were roughly equal. And this year, Mandarin classes outnumber Cantonese 3 to 1, even though most students are from homes where Cantonese is spoken, said the principal, Kin S. Wong.
Some Cantonese-speaking parents are deciding it is more important to point their children toward the future than the past — their family’s native dialect — even if that leaves them unable to communicate well with relatives in China.
“I figure if they have to acquire a language, I wanted them to have Mandarin because it makes it easier when they go into the workplace,” said Jennifer Ng, whose 5-year-old daughter studies Mandarin at the language school of the Church of the Transfiguration, a Roman Catholic parish on Mott Street where nearly half the classes are devoted to Mandarin. Her 8-year-old son takes Cantonese, but only because there is no English-speaking Mandarin teacher for his age group.
“Can I tell you the truth?” she said. “They hate it! But it’s important for the future.” Until recently, Sunday Masses at Transfiguration were said in Cantonese. The church now offers two in Mandarin and only one in Cantonese. And as the recent arrivals from mainland China become old-timers, “we are beginning to have Mandarin funerals,” said the Rev. Raymond Nobiletti, the Cantonese-speaking pastor.
At the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, which has been the unofficial government of Chinatown for generations and conducts its business in Cantonese, the president, Justin Yu, said he is the first whose mother tongue is Mandarin to lead the 126-year-old organization. Though he has been taking Cantonese lessons in order to keep up at association meetings, his pronunciation is sometimes a source of hilarity for his colleagues, he said.
“No matter what,” he added, laughing, “you have to admire my courage.”
But even his association is being surpassed in influence by Fujianese organizations, said Professor Kwong of Hunter College.
Longtime residents seem less threatened than wistful. Though he is known around Chinatown for what he calls his “legendarily bad” Cantonese, Paul Lee, 59, said it pained him that the dialect was disappearing from the place where his family has lived for more than a century.
“It may be a dying language,” he acknowledged. “I just hate to say that.”
But he pointed out that the changes were a natural part of an evolving immigrant neighborhood: Just as Cantonese sidelined Taishanese, so, too, is Mandarin replacing Cantonese.
Mr. Wong, the principal of the New York Chinese School, said he had tried to adjust to the subtle shifts during his 40 years in Chinatown. When he arrived in 1969, he walked into a coffee shop and placed his order in Cantonese. Other patrons looked at him oddly.
“They said, ‘Where you from?’ ” he recalled. “ ‘Why you speak Cantonese?’ ” They were from Taishan, he said, so he switched to Taishanese and everyone was happy.
“And now I speak Mandarin better than Cantonese,” he added with a chuckle. “So, Chinatown — it’s always changing.”
October 22, 2009
Rise of Mandarin Changes the Sound of Chinatown
By KIRK SEMPLE
He grew up playing in the narrow, crowded streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. He has lived and worked there for all his 61 years. But as Wee Wong walks the neighborhood these days, he cannot understand half the Chinese conversations he hears.
Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.
The change can be heard in the neighborhood’s lively restaurants and solemn church services, in parks, street markets and language schools. It has been accelerated by Chinese-American parents, including many who speak Cantonese at home, as they press their children to learn Mandarin for the advantages it may bring as China’s influence grows in the world.
But the eclipse of Cantonese — in New York, China and around the world — has become a challenge for older people who speak only that dialect and face increasing isolation unless they learn Mandarin or English. Though Cantonese and Mandarin share nearly all the same written characters, the pronunciations are vastly different; when spoken, Mandarin may be incomprehensible to a Cantonese speaker, and vice versa.
Mr. Wong, a retired sign maker who speaks English, can still get by with his Cantonese, which remains the preferred language in his circle of friends and in Chinatown’s historic core. A bit defiantly, he said that if he enters a shop and finds the staff does not speak his dialect, “I go to another store.”
Like many others, however, he is resigned to the likelihood that Cantonese — and the people who speak it — will soon become just another facet of a polyglot neighborhood. “In 10 years,” he said, “it will be totally different.”
With Mandarin’s ascent has come a realignment of power in Chinese-American communities, where the recent immigrants are gaining economic and political clout, said Peter Kwong, a professor of Asian-American studies at Hunter College.
“The fact of the matter is that you have a whole generation switch, with very few people speaking only Cantonese,” he said. The Cantonese-speaking populace, he added, “is not the player anymore.”
The switch mirrors a sea change under way in China, where Mandarin, as the official language, is becoming the default tongue everywhere.
In North America, its rise also reflects a major shift in immigration. For much of the last century, most Chinese living in the United States and Canada traced their ancestry to a region in the Pearl River Delta that included the district of Taishan. They spoke the Taishanese dialect, which is derived from and somewhat similar to Cantonese.
Immigration reform in 1965 opened the door to a huge influx of Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong, and Cantonese became the dominant tongue. But since the 1990s, the vast majority of new Chinese immigrants have come from mainland China, especially Fujian Province, and tend to speak Mandarin along with their regional dialects.
In New York, many Mandarin speakers have flocked to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Flushing, Queens, which now rivals Chinatown as a center of Chinese-American business and political might, as well as culture and cuisine. In Chinatown, most of the newer immigrants have settled outside the historic core west of the Bowery, clustering instead around East Broadway.
“I can’t even order food on East Broadway,” said Jan Lee, 44, a furniture designer who has lived all his life in Chinatown and speaks Cantonese. “They don’t speak English; I don’t speak Mandarin. I’m just as lost as everyone else.”
Now Mandarin is pushing into Chinatown’s heart.
For most of the 100 years that the New York Chinese School, on Mott Street, has offered language classes, nearly all have taught Cantonese. Last year, the numbers of Cantonese and Mandarin classes were roughly equal. And this year, Mandarin classes outnumber Cantonese 3 to 1, even though most students are from homes where Cantonese is spoken, said the principal, Kin S. Wong.
Some Cantonese-speaking parents are deciding it is more important to point their children toward the future than the past — their family’s native dialect — even if that leaves them unable to communicate well with relatives in China.
“I figure if they have to acquire a language, I wanted them to have Mandarin because it makes it easier when they go into the workplace,” said Jennifer Ng, whose 5-year-old daughter studies Mandarin at the language school of the Church of the Transfiguration, a Roman Catholic parish on Mott Street where nearly half the classes are devoted to Mandarin. Her 8-year-old son takes Cantonese, but only because there is no English-speaking Mandarin teacher for his age group.
“Can I tell you the truth?” she said. “They hate it! But it’s important for the future.” Until recently, Sunday Masses at Transfiguration were said in Cantonese. The church now offers two in Mandarin and only one in Cantonese. And as the recent arrivals from mainland China become old-timers, “we are beginning to have Mandarin funerals,” said the Rev. Raymond Nobiletti, the Cantonese-speaking pastor.
At the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, which has been the unofficial government of Chinatown for generations and conducts its business in Cantonese, the president, Justin Yu, said he is the first whose mother tongue is Mandarin to lead the 126-year-old organization. Though he has been taking Cantonese lessons in order to keep up at association meetings, his pronunciation is sometimes a source of hilarity for his colleagues, he said.
“No matter what,” he added, laughing, “you have to admire my courage.”
But even his association is being surpassed in influence by Fujianese organizations, said Professor Kwong of Hunter College.
Longtime residents seem less threatened than wistful. Though he is known around Chinatown for what he calls his “legendarily bad” Cantonese, Paul Lee, 59, said it pained him that the dialect was disappearing from the place where his family has lived for more than a century.
“It may be a dying language,” he acknowledged. “I just hate to say that.”
But he pointed out that the changes were a natural part of an evolving immigrant neighborhood: Just as Cantonese sidelined Taishanese, so, too, is Mandarin replacing Cantonese.
Mr. Wong, the principal of the New York Chinese School, said he had tried to adjust to the subtle shifts during his 40 years in Chinatown. When he arrived in 1969, he walked into a coffee shop and placed his order in Cantonese. Other patrons looked at him oddly.
“They said, ‘Where you from?’ ” he recalled. “ ‘Why you speak Cantonese?’ ” They were from Taishan, he said, so he switched to Taishanese and everyone was happy.
“And now I speak Mandarin better than Cantonese,” he added with a chuckle. “So, Chinatown — it’s always changing.”
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