Language bridges cultural divide

Chinese graduate gains insight studying in South Africa, Cao Desheng reports.

When Huang Lizhi took her first class in African sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa in February, her professor, Raji Matshedisho, asked her and her classmates one question: When it comes to Africa, what impresses you the most?

Unexpectedly, Huang, 31, who came to the university to study Zulu - one of the most widely-spoken languages in Africa - found that words like "poverty", "disease" and "safari" that were often associated with the continent in media reports were precisely the kinds of terms her African classmates did not want to hear.