At 11:39 PM 5/1/2006, A Hutton wrote:
>Dear Glenn
>
>You point about China is very important.
>
>Some of the people in the School of Design in Hong Kong have for a 
>long time predicted that Design will shift to China.
>
>http://www.sd.polyu.edu.hk
>
>I note Lorraine Justice formally of Atlanta is now the head of school.
>
>Learning chinese is the rational thing to do.
>



Not only the learning of Chinese but also the learning of English, 
for the latter is still in great power. So I would say its the master 
of the two. The Chinese are hungry to pick up English while more 
Westerners are picking up Chinese. This reminds me of my former 
school principal who saw this coming many years ago and told us to 
always read the language and literature of both English and 
Chinese.  She also made a point that students who have the time to 
master another foreign language should do it too. But I was thinking 
no matter how one tries to master a foreign language, there will 
always be some imperfections. It will somehow never be totally equal 
to the native speaker with all factors being equal.


Glen wrote :

>How can design be disseminated and researched when it has moved 'en masse'
>to a part of the world that the researchers themselves cannot understand
>the language - in other words it is not just the manufacturing base, or
>the designers employment that is at risk - it is the associated study of
>design as well.....
>
>How can one argue anything about a subject with any validity - if one
>cannot even converse in the language in which it is transmitted?


the problem I find is that people seem to miss pointing out some 
facts in history. So
I wouldn't find it surprising to read off any information that is 
lack validity.
Just yesterday, I was reading an article in a book on the great 100 cities
in the world, there was this section on the Mother of China under the 
section for Shanghai-
seemingly quoting her native home town was from Shanghai when in 
historical fact that
she was Hainanese and her real hometown was in Wenchang on the island of Hainan
now called Hainan Province.

I also find it strange to read off lines from articles that sound 
like it was "amissed" and a few times it feels
wrong.  This problem seems to be more prominent for Anglo Chinese translations.

China's prominent cities like Nanjing, Beijing, Shanghai have 
developed to a point that I often think
it would be less than 50 years before they could beat anyone. They 
certainly do not need every province
in the country to be just as rich. The same design you could get here 
could cost only at least
half of what you would buy over there. What have they not achieved at 
this point of writing isn't very many.
The problems they have to sort out is their people's standard of 
living in this midst of rapid economical change.
It will definitely sacrifice a lot of people of their life time, 
typically those who live in towns and villages in China,  to try very 
hard just to survive.

... guess no one's perfect.....

Karen Fu