[talloaktrees]

I'm not ethnically Chinese but I studied Mandarin in college in the early 2000s then moved to Taiwan for almost a decade. I don't regret doing it, but it didn't provide me any sort of business or career advantage like everyone thought it would in the early 2000s

[porknubbins]

People never looked at the need for foreign language with enough granularity. For example there was never and real large demand for Westerners to communicate with mainland China. We send specs, they manufacture them. China doesn’t really do FDI here. Now there was a time language skills were a major plus in law or finance in Hong Kong, but I’m not sure about that anymore. The new US TSMC plants might have some needs but probably won’t have trouble filling them.