Via Wanbro, an old article from the “No Shit, Really?” section of the People’s Daily reports that “Esperanto’s spread in China faces challenges.” Apparently, there were roughly 400,000 Chinese speakers of the artificial language during the 1980s; that number shrank to 10,000 by 2004. Hou Zhiping, an Esperanto enthusiast and former editor of an Esperanto magazine, explains the decline in numbers by saying that there’s no demand for Esperanto speakers.
No demand? Tell that to the Jiangsu Esperanto Association, whose website is entirely in Chinese! Or the webmasters of “Oriental Esperanto,” whose website is…entirely in Chinese! Oh well. At least China.Org.Cn has an actively updated Esperanto version, for those who enjoy reading artificial news in an artificial language.
Back at the 2004 People’s Daily article, Yu Tao, secretary-general of the All-China Esperanto League, complains that Esperanto is far from a “universal language” in China. Indeed, it appears that the fad for Esperanto study is long-since over, but perhaps Yu can take solace in Klingon.