I have been hearing a lot of the government’s imposition of a limit on foreigners studying Chinese to two years. High-level classes are starting to thin and there has been a number of students trying to flock to universities to study anything to keep them in the country.
Apparently the government’s thinking is that there were far too many Asians, such as Indonesians, studying and working illegally.
My sources say this is not a “coming thing”; it is already happening.
Anyone have a personal experience on this or concrete information?
What I heard was this: Learning to speak Chinese takes 1 year. Learning to write Chinese takes 5 years.
Does this mean anyone who wants to learn Chinese needs to study simple Chinese, or what??? How much can you really learn in 2 years?
My information, via the English secretary at the Shita language center, is that it is already the law/regulation/whatever. They wanted to make it one year, apparently, but some of the foreign representative offices kicked a bit. Obviously none of them ever studied Chinese. 
hey foreigners! come to taiwan! drop your cash and don’t even think of trying to gain anything ! naluwan!
I’m assuming this doesn’t apply to degree programs …
I was at TLI for one year (after studying at TaiDa for 2) and when I went to HK in Sept. they said that it was the last visa they would offer to study in Taiwan. But I think they were more concerned that I had not tried to get an ARC after being in the country for more than a year [not that you can get one from TLI anyway, so my earlier one had expired] and not the total time I spent here.
Luckily I have a job now…
Why is Taiwan shooting itself in the foot??
Because this is Taiwan. This banana republic has a wonderful knack for embarrassing itself. The exploding whale, whale penis watching, the gambling on the election, desalination plant that has never worked in Penghu islands, never getting the same answer twice from the same person on the same subject from the same gov’t office/company are all some of the charming things we get to live with and some of us enjoy about the island.
Personally, this is just talk and no action. I do believe that Hong Kong TECO would do this, but I doubt any of the other TECO offices in Asia would. I believe there is a Chinese saying that gov’t can change its mind up to 3 times in a day?
CYA
Okami
Not only that, I believe the Chinese government also makes outlaws out of those who mentione inciteful terms on their chat programs, such as yahoo… I can no longer use Chinese yahoo, because accidentally, I typed out “freedom” a few times.
Pearce
If you’re going to study Mandarin, maybe a good first step would be to figure out the difference between Taiwan and the PRC (aka the Mainland). Taiwan doesn’t block Web sites so far as I am aware. The PRC is well-known for doing so.
Hey,
Does anyone know if they persecute Buddhists for their beliefs and practices in China? From what I heard of Falong Gong practitioners here in Canada, they are mercilessly tracing them down, and extorting them through means of torture. I don’t want to enter the forray of political messaging, but I believe the inhospitable atmosphere should involve sanctions and such…
Pearce
P.S. is anyone interested in helping me out with my little conundrum, with trying to get online to get access to Chinese websites and such?
One other things besides my ending P.S. , on the subject of Chinese girlfriends, does anyone know if the Westerners here, who have become accustomed to our culture, still act as though they were in China? I was thinking, since, I’m not going to be able to make any trips to China in the next few years, because of completing high school and such, I might as well take a trip down to China Town!
The reason, as I said earlier, is that there are too many Asian “students” apparently (as far as the government’s thinking goes) abusing the studying Chinese visa here.
An interesting thing someone said to me years ago sticks in my mind:
“You’ve been studying Chinese for 10 years? Keep at it; you’ll get it one day!”
I think that this is a big step and I am wondering why I have not heard anything about it in the papers or anywhere? Aside from the alledged abuse, isn’t Taiwan trying to showcase itself as the bastion of freedom in the backyard of the terrible Chicoms?
Then again, to be fair, I know people who have studied hard for two years here and came away with a very good working knowledge of Chinese. My point is that you can achieve much in two (short?) years.
It seems to me to be another attempt to stop illegal teaching - but this time targeting those who are getting their ARC’s through Chinese language schools, and then doing a little moonlighting. If this is so, clearly they haven’t thought through the economic impact this would have upon the aforementioned schools. A large chunk of what is earned in this way goes straight back into those schools, and a healthy cut of the rest goes straight back into the local economy. Not to mention the bad taste it leaves in the mouths of people genuinely battling against the odds to learn the language to a decent standard.