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I can't disagree entirely. But I'm talking more in terms of the sheer number of overseas Chinese living in various countries all around the world. Statistically speaking it's much more probable to hear two or more Asians converse in Cantonese or Mandarin than to hear any of the other E.Asian languages say in remote places of Europe or Africa. But the Chinese diaspora is huge. The only other Asian group that rivals the Chinese is the Indians.
That's more my point.
So that brings me back to my question, given the more exposure of the Chinese languages (relatively), why do people not perceive as positively?
red flag, authoratarian government, occupation of tibet, language is tonal, characters are not roman, and hong kong cinema has been dead since 1995. Can't really use wushu, wing chun in the UFC.
I can't disagree entirely. But I'm talking more in terms of the sheer number of overseas Chinese living in various countries all around the world. Statistically speaking it's much more probable to hear two or more Asians converse in Cantonese or Mandarin than to hear any of the other E.Asian languages say in remote places of Europe or Africa. But the Chinese diaspora is huge. The only other Asian group that rivals the Chinese is the Indians.
They aren't even particularly popular in those countries.
Only cultural output gives a language the pretty reputation, diaspora doesn't. There's a reason why French and Italian are widely regarded as the fashionable and sexy languages and German is often tied to the Hitler rant from Der Untergang even though there are way more German descendants in America. Same goes for Japanese and Chinese languages. Chinese movies, music, and tv shows have been and will continue to be absolute crap (in the foreseeable future anyway). It's just the way things are.
I don't want to offend our German-speaking friends by quoting the old computer-room sign that starts (more or less) with "Nicht touchen das blinkenlighten ..." or something like that. I've read that some offended young German dudes came up with their own parody of English, which I'd be delighted to hear. All in the spirit of fair play.
I once had a boss who was a native German speaker. Upon hearing me say that I would like to learn German (which was an honest statement), he asked "why would you do that?". I was puzzled to hear that. Later, I heard that he had been forced to join the Hitler Youth as a teen.
Of course, alot of people are going to take issue with Chinese as being to harsh on the ears. But take a close look at Shanghainese. Strangely enough, it sounds more like Japanese than other Chinese dialects. It only has two tones (it's a pitch-tone system), similar to Japanese.
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