Russian in Taiwan

Pavel   Sun Oct 25, 2009 12:43 pm GMT
Russian language contest a success

learning Russian The first Taiwan Russian Language Contest was held in Taipei yesterday, testing nine contestants from National Chengchi, Tamkang and Chinese Culture Universities on their Russian language abilities and knowledge of Russian literature, history and geography. Classmates of the contestants whistled and cheered as they used Russian to recite verse, answer questions and complete sentences. The winner, Chengchi University senior Liu Hsiao-fang (�B���), received a travel package to Russia donated by Long Way Travel Service Co valued at around NT$60,000. Contestants were chosen from the three universities because they currently have the largest Russian language departments in Taiwan, said Andrei Chatilov, an associate professor at Chinese Culture University. "The contest is good, because it promotes Russian learning and gives our students a target to work toward," he said. Vladislav Verchenko, the Moscow representative to Taipei, said that he hoped that the competition would increase local interest in Russia.//www.taipeitimes.com
Pavel   Sun Oct 25, 2009 12:45 pm GMT
Russian language contest a success

learning Russian The first Taiwan Russian Language Contest was held in Taipei yesterday, testing nine contestants from National Chengchi, Tamkang and Chinese Culture Universities on their Russian language abilities and knowledge of Russian literature, history and geography. Classmates of the contestants whistled and cheered as they used Russian to recite verse, answer questions and complete sentences. The winner, Chengchi University senior Liu Hsiao-fang (�B���), received a travel package to Russia donated by Long Way Travel Service Co valued at around NT$60,000. Contestants were chosen from the three universities because they currently have the largest Russian language departments in Taiwan, said Andrei Chatilov, an associate professor at Chinese Culture University. "The contest is good, because it promotes Russian learning and gives our students a target to work toward," he said. Vladislav Verchenko, the Moscow representative to Taipei, said that he hoped that the competition would increase local interest in Russia. http://www.taipeitimes.com

http://www.rlcentre.com/rln_eng/portal/porindex.htm#new14
Little Tadpole   Sun Oct 25, 2009 4:05 pm GMT
Last week, the Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama launched a new version of "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" 大東亞共榮圈 (a.k.a. "East Asian community"), both U.S. and Russia woke up shocked that they are being excluded.

All of a sudden the Russians must feel very lonely. Theoretically Russia is both East and West. In reality, it's neither East nor West. It now must feel like the Turks when they were rejected from joining European Union.

Russian intellectuals get worried to no end because their economy is still largely based on export of natural resources.

"Where do we belong?" will be the question the Russian intellectuals will be asking in the next 20 to 30 years. What's your answer?
Xie   Sun Oct 25, 2009 5:15 pm GMT
>>"Where do we belong?" will be the question the Russian intellectuals will be asking in the next 20 to 30 years. What's your answer?

Just as how China can't possibly claim a kind of union akin to that of Germany (EU), with a bunch of powers of its own size, Russia can just survive independently like China - in fact, China had pursued the same after its break-up with USSR.

There's no question that China is Asian/East Asian, but it can't deny being a regional power just like Russia. And worse still, China is still surrounded by a bunch of not so friendly neighbors. What can China do other than to survive on its own? Pretty much this is how these two powers came up with the idea of a mutual alliance and a lot of arms deals.
russo turisto   Mon Oct 26, 2009 2:31 pm GMT
that's right. My Russia is not East and not West, it is GREAT NORTH.
Little Tadpole   Mon Oct 26, 2009 3:02 pm GMT
Xie: "There's no question that China is Asian/East Asian, but it can't deny being a regional power just like Russia. "

That's all fine. But look at the reality on the ground: brain drain happens in one single direction. 楚才晋用. China still has zero Nobel prize winners, being a country of 1.3 billion people. And many Chinese/Taiwanese politicians still prefer to send their kids to America for them to grow up as average street Joe, instead of wanting them to become another Chinese politician.

It can't be good when intellectual elite flows only in one direction.

It's not that China and Russia are being isolated. It's because they choose to be isolated. At the very bottom is their insistence on certain values that are incompatible with Western values. Unfortunately, intellectual elites vote with their feet.
Xie   Mon Oct 26, 2009 4:53 pm GMT
>>
It's not that China and Russia are being isolated. It's because they choose to be isolated. At the very bottom is their insistence on certain values that are incompatible with Western values. Unfortunately, intellectual elites vote with their feet. <<

It doesn't need to be western. "Western" itself has little weight in talking about democracy, contrary to those China-Daily kind of news commentaries criticizing western democracies but after all subtly supporting the PRC-kind of "democracy". Such are pure newspeak. (your word western is alright here though)

You can well say that China still has no "Nobel prize winners", signifying its failure in almost everything, although I should remind you of 3 interesting facts:

1) Dalai Lama got the peace prize in 1989, who had been a PRC citizen before his exile, and the only laureate you *could* say to have been a PRC citizen.
2) A bunch of scientists such as Charles Kao are among the several laureates of Chinese descent. Kao still maintains a kind of Hong Kong identity, but, obviously, all the "Chinese" (ethnic) laureates got the prizes not because of any sort of effort made in a Chinese society. Not even Singapore, until now. Of course, you may also know most of them have foreign citizenship or have permanently settled abroad, like Kao.
3) Nobel prize is of course not the only criterion of telling whether a country has spectacular achievement in many aspects that Nobel attributes to. Conceivably there are still western democracies without any laureates. And conceivably a country's achievement doesn't entirely rely on prizes and money and so on.

But don't get me wrong, I concur with you for the entire last post.
Xie   Mon Oct 26, 2009 4:57 pm GMT
Something off-topic btw:

it's not just brain drain of scientists and writers, but also of the average school kids and college guys. If you ask me how I could have a good academic career (of course, for the sake of money and perhaps ideals, why not money?) or just have a good life, it's far more likely to realize such a life abroad, namely in any western democracy.

Hong Kong employers know this very well and they do two things. First, they admire overseas graduates for their foreign credentials. Second, though, they try to minimize their salary for the reason that "they don't know Hong Kong very well because they spent so much time abroad".

Many Chinese people just act in so many, countless, unscrupulous ways that I can call them ugly. Or I don't need to bash any of them in a forum like this. We just do it. While the bad thing about militarism is self-explanatory, the rise of China doesn't strike me as necessarily beneficial either, if that actually means a general export of its very bad cultural essences to elsewhere.