Stephen Colbert, one of the hosts of spoof American news program The Daily Show has been doing a series of segments about China. The first one defines China as a “frenemy” of the United States.
It’s funny despite the fortune cookie jokes. Watch it below or see the whole series at Comedy Central’s site.
The Times (of London) also has a China special going on this week. The special includes articles, interactive quiz widgets and a series of Mandarin lesson podcasts. The lessons are prefaced with a spoken introduction by the newspaper’s editor, Robert Thomson who helpfully explains that Mandarin is becoming “more important not only within Britain, but around the world”.
If you are actually trying to learn Mandarin as spoken by Chinese people, stay away from the Mandarin learning videos, especially the one in which some poor sod of a journalist tries to speak Chinese in a Chinese restaurant in London.
The video ends with the journalist saying “Zhin how hee … that means delicious”.
UPDATE: Part of the special is a summary of the whole situation of China in the last 30 years, commissioned no doubt in London by people who think of bicycles and Mao suits, and bravely attempted by Beijing correspondent Jane Macartney.
And then there is a story about three-year-old British kids learning Mandarin.