The following NY Times article, “Non-Asians Show a Growing Interest in Chinese Courses” struck a chord with me. Be sure to also check out this related China Law Blog post, including its discussion thread.

Let me give you some context … I have a 5 year old daughter. We are in that “phase” where parents in SLO talk (obsess?) over where to send their kids to school. Lots of parents in SLO feel that dual immersion (Spanish-English) is the way to go. Clearly, in SLO and Cali, Spanish is the soup-du-jour. My wife speaks Spanish and our daughter now goes to such a school and she is loving it, and we are thrilled to have her there.

That said, during one of these dinner conversations with friends where topics like this are debated I threw out the question of whether ALL of our kids should be studying Mandarin instead of Spanish. People looked at me like I was nuts. I want a future for my daughter (both a personal and professional/business one). If she speaks Mandarin, I really believe the sky is the limit. If she speaks Spanish, well, that’s nice and it is one of the “romance languages” and sounds beautiful when spoken, but I am not so sure I can be convinced that it will open nearly as many doors for my daughter in 15 years as Mandarin would, even in California. Which language do you think your children or grandchildren will be studying in school? Be sure to check out this recent China Law Blog post relating to this topic.