Mandarin is on the syllabus for many three- and four-year-olds starting school this September, but it is not mandatory across the system. Instead, it is an optional extra, and our local elementary school has opted in, with one hour a week of Mandarin tuition scheduled for the incoming class.

And yet, given the school landscape in New York, it still strikes me as faintly absurd. Our elementary school has low proficiency levels in maths and English. It has inadequate resources, almost zero fundraising capabilities, and a large minority of children who have Spanish as a first language (as does 18% of the city). And yet when the PTA meets, everyone is always on about Mandarin. It is unclear where the enthusiasm came from, other than some vague sense of emerging “Asian markets” and the fact that it’s fancier than French.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/15/children-learn-mandarin-new-york-school-literacy-numeracy-chinese

2018年通車，與國家高鐵網絡接軌。