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Having conquered the world’s markets, China’s countless millions have now embarked on a new mission – to master the English language, the global language of art and commerce.

The New Yorker has an interesting piece on the Chinese’ obsession with English in the latest issue:

China has been in the grip of “English fever,” as the phenomenon is known in Chinese, for more than a decade. A vast national appetite has elevated English to something more than a language: it is not simply a tool but a defining measure of life’s potential. China today is divided by class, opportunity, and power, but one of its few unifying beliefs—something shared by waiters, politicians, intellectuals, tycoons—is the power of English. Every college freshman must meet a minimal level of English comprehension, and it’s the only foreign language tested. English has become an ideology, a force strong enough to remake your résumé, attract a spouse, or catapult you out of a village. Linguists estimate the number of Chinese now studying or speaking English at between two hundred million and three hundred and fifty million, a figure that’s on the order of the population of the United States. English private schools, study gadgets, and high-priced tutors vie for pieces of that market. The largest English school system, New Oriental, is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Having watched the relentless determination of the Chinese Continue reading »

Mumbai’s cattle cars a.k.a. commuter trains have killed over 20,000 people in the last five years, according to local railway officials in this teeming metropolis.

Worse than the Nazi era cattle cars, Mumbai’s commuter trains carry seven million people everyday with people clinging on to the sides and many sitting precariously atop the train during rush hour because there’s just no space inside the train.

These killer trains take the lives of at least 10 people a day, railway officials say.

And you whine that the New York subway is dirty and dangerous.