Mandarin to become dominant language in Singapore?

A cacophony of Mandarin and English echo through the streets of Singapore's Chinatown as crowds of shoppers buy joss sticks and fruit as offerings to the spirits during the Seventh Month Ghost Festival.

English has long united the ethnically diverse island-state but Singapore's leaders now foresee a time when Chinese Mandarin will be the country's dominant language and they are aggressively encouraging their people to become fluent in Chinese.

"Both English and Mandarin are important because in different situations you use either language. But Mandarin has become more important," said Chinatown shopkeeper Eng Yee Lay.

Hit hard by the global slowdown, strengthening ties with China has taken on a strategic imperative in Singapore which seeks to leverage the bilingual skills of its ethnic Chinese majority to get a larger slice of China's fast expanding economic pie.

"With the growing importance of China on the world stage, Chinese Singaporeans who are competent in the language and familiar with the culture would have a distinct advantage when working and interacting with Chinese nationals," says Lim Sau Hoong, chairwoman of the Promote Mandarin Council.

The government-sponsored campaign to promote Mandarin began in 1979 to unite under one language Singapore's disparate Chinese communities that spoke a multitude of dialects passed on by their ancestors who came from China in the 19th and early 20th century.

Unifying the Chinese majority in a country with sizeable Malay and Indian minorities was a priority and in the early days the Speak Mandarin Campaign discouraged ethnic Chinese from speaking the dialects that prevailed such as Hokkien.

Now, with a majority of Singaporeans speaking Mandarin in their homes, according to government figures, the focus is on improving fluency in spoken and written Mandarin.

"In two generations, Mandarin will become our mother tongue," said Singapore's first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew at the launch of the 2009 Speak Mandarin Campaign earlier this year.

Grant gives Mandarin classes a shot in the arm..

The Southern Oregon Education Service District has become the latest US institution to offer Mandarin classes, establishing more links in educators' vision of a seamless Chinese language program from the third grade through college.

The district earlier this week was awarded a $600,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to provide a Mandarin program for third through eighth grades over a three-year period. Service district officials hope to continue the program after the grant has expired.

"Soon China will be the largest English-speaking country in the world, and look at how many people speak Chinese here," said Jay Matheson, the district's technology coordinator and the Mandarin project director. "We need to build that curiosity about China. If we are dealing with them on a world level, we need people who are curious about their culture and language. We need to get our heads out of the sand."

Instruction will be offered through two-way video conferencing, with much of the grant money going toward installing the necessary equipment at local schools.

Dedicating time to a Chinese program at the elementary level could be a hard sale at some elementary schools because of the national focus on bringing students' skills up to grade level in basic subjects, such as reading and math, and dwindling state financial support. But to reject the Mandarin program on that basis is short-sighted, Matheson said.

"Studying another language really enhances the study of your own language," Matheson said, "and it's a great motivator for students."

The district's vision is to eventually expand the Mandarin program so that students could attend classes without interruption from the third to 12th grades and then go on to Southern Oregon University in Ashland or another university and continue studying the language, Matheson said.

SOU recently announced it will launch a beginning Mandarin program Sept. 28 when classes resume.

Medford's St. Mary's School, which began the county's first Mandarin program in fall 2006, will lend one of its three Chinese instructors to both SOU and the service district.

Last year, the private Catholic secondary school became the first high school in the Americas to become a Confucius Classroom through the Hanban Chinese Language Council International's Confucius Institute program in China. The program provides instructors from China to teach Mandarin at the school and makes Chinese educational and travel activities available to students, often for free.

"Part of the mission of the Confucius Classroom is to spread Chinese culture and language studies," said Frank Phillips, St. Mary's head of school. "Part of (the decision to share the school's Chinese teachers) is a good neighbor policy. Funding is down for public education, and Chinese is an important language."

By the end of the three years, the service district hopes to have recruited 25 schools to offer the Mandarin classes and to have enrolled 1,875 pupils.

Chinese tycoon's assets frozen by Hong Kong court

A Hong Kong court Tuesday extended an order freezing $214 million of assets owned by one of China's richest men amid an ongoing corruption probe in mainland China.

The assets owned by Chinese tycoon Wong Kwong-yu and his wife have been frozen since early August after an application by Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission.

Wong, also known as Huang Guangyu, is founder and ex-chairman of China's leading home appliance chain, Gome Electrical Appliances. He is being investigated by mainland Chinese authorities in connection with a corruption probe that has already ensnared Chinese government officials. He is accused of stock price manipulation and other crimes.

His wife Du Juan, also under investigation, is reportedly being detained in China.

The court order in Hong Kong serves to prevent Wong, Du and the two companies through which Wong holds his stake in Gome from removing and dealing with the assets while SFC is investigating a share repurchase allegedly planned by Wong.

The regulator alleged that Wong had used the proceeds of the buyback of Gome shares worth 2.2 billion Hong Kong dollars ($284 million) between January and February 2008 to repay a personal loan of HK$2.4 billion ($310 million) to a financial institution.

Mona Lisa speaks Mandarin Chinese

What smile is more ubiquitous than that of the lovely Italian lady known to an adoring world as Mona Lisa? Probably none, but believe it or not, Miss Mona now speaks interactively to visitors and in Mandarin Chinese to boot.

Leonardo Da Vinci would probably be quite surprised to see his genteel aristocratic lady of another softer time and place transformed into a high tech, interactive art exhibit. Be that as it may, the lady with the enigmatic smile is only one of 61 high-tech replicas on display at the World Classic Interactive Arts Exhibition, which opened last week in Beijing.

Originally crafted by a South Korean art gallery to bring these incredible recreations of renowned masterpieces to a Chinese audience took two years of preparation not to mention a great deal of money.

Some other Chinese speaking masterpieces include Da Vinci’s "The Last Supper,” in which Jesus talks to the apostles and moves across the plasma canvas. There is also a multimedia play by life-size replicas of ancient statues of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, who brag about their virtues and beauty while striking poses.