Why is learning Mandarin symbolic of being submissive rather than being considerate/respectful to a person and people you have a close relationship with?
I wonder if it is their perspective too that learning English is subordination to the West. In many ways a validation of what Frantz Fanon was saying:
Every colonized people-in other words, every people in whose soul an inferiority complex has been created by the death and burial of its local cultural originality-finds itself face to face with the language of the civilizing nation; that is, with the culture of the mother country. The colonized is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother country’s cultural standards. Black Skin, White Masks
This is very interesting, thank you for sharing. I guess if we are using English as an example, since it is the best one due to how widespread it is. English wasn’t really learned in the way Mandarin is learned by Putin’s family members; by that I mean English was forced onto the colonized people, which would be a form of subordination. Criticizing the learning of Mandarin as submissive comes across as projection.
