Universities across Latin America, from Mexico to Buenos Aires, are founding Asian studies programs and teaching Chinese. Institutions of all kinds—some are expensive one-on-one tutorials and others are fly-by-night language academies staffed by illegal Chinese immigrants—are being inundated with new students.

Start with people everywhere (as the article above makes clear) outside of China rushing to learn Chinese as fast as they can. Add to that the number of Chinese language students inside China increasing by the thousands each and every year (don’t believe me…then check out the Beijing Visa Office near Yonghegong on any given afternoon before summer vaction…lines of foreign students galore getting their return visas.) Mix in the fact that Chinese language schools are popping up both here and abroad quicker then Microsoft puts out software patches and what do you get? Continued stares of shock and awe (no pun intended) from the Chinese proprietor, when you walk into the neighborhood xiaomaibu, to buy a can of hong niu®, that you can communicate in that most “difficult” of languages…Chinese. Go figure!

Across Latin America, Mandarin Is in the Air