A video of a Beijing street cleaner speaking 'fluent' (not really, but definitely not bad) English recently went viral on the Chinese web, with many commenters bemoaning their comparative lack of language skills.
The man, Li Jingang says he has been learning English for almost 30 years and not only appreciates the language but also the "culture" of countries such as the UK, US, and Australia. He also spoke of using his language skills to help some monolingual English-speaking tourist:
There are many foreign tourists here. Previously, there was a laowai who was holding a slip of paper with some English written upon it; he was asking for directions. As other people couldn’t read it, I came over to give it a look myself. At a glance, I could see what was written down, and so I told him which way to go in English. Right then, the foreigner was completely stupefied; he didn’t think that an old fogey like myself would be able to speak English.
Some viewers have suggested that the video (startlingly ill shot as it is) could be a viral marketing campaign for an English school (Sinopathic certainly thinks so), which is a possibility. It's also a pretty damning indictment on snobbery and the general quality of English teaching in China that people would be so amazed that a working class person in the orange garb of the migrant proletariat would be able to speak a foreign language.
Right now, hundreds of millions of Chinese are studying English; most are doing it not because they’re interested in it, but because it will help them with their careers. This translates into hundreds of millions of Chinese who can’t speak it well.
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