Learning English is not a betrayal of Chinese culture

Editor's note: In a post on his micro blog, Hua Qianfang, a writer and vice-chairman of the writers' association of Fushun, a city in Liaoning province, lamented the huge amounts of time and money Chinese people have "wasted" on learning English, saying that, for most children, who will unlikely use the language in their future life and work, it is more rational to rely on professional translators or translation software, if needed, than spending years studying a language they will seldom or never use. The argument has stirred a heated discussion online. China Daily reporter Li Yang comments:

The writer's concerns sound reasonable to some extent. But his views are based on two tenuous assumptions: that the children will not use English very much in the future, and they will not be able to master the language even after studying it for years.

Chinese tourists make more than 100 million trips abroad each year now, something that was unimaginable just a few years ago, let alone the millions of foreign trips made by students, workers and businesspeople every year.