English has been the dominant global language for a century, but is it
the language of the future? If Mandarin Chinese is to challenge English
globally, then it first has to conquer its own backyard, South East
Asia.
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| Vietnamese Ngoc Tu only listens to music in English |
In Malaysia's southernmost city of Johor Bahru, the desire to speak
good English has driven some children to make a remarkable two-hour
journey to school every day.
Nine-year-old Aw Yee Han hops on a yellow mini van at 04:30. His passport is tucked inside a small pouch hung around his neck.
This makes it easier for him to show it to immigration officials when he reaches the Malaysian border.
His school is located on the other side, in Singapore, where unlike in Malaysia, English is the main language.
It's not your typical school run, but his mother, Shirley Chua thinks it's worth it.
"Science and maths are all written in English so it's essential for my son to be fluent in the language," she says.
An estimated 15,000 students from southern
Johor state make the same bus journey across the border every day. It
may seem like a drastic measure, but some parents don't trust the
education system in Malaysia - they worry that the value of English is
declining in the country.
Since independence from the British in 1957, the country has
phased out schools that teach in English. By the early 1980s, most
students were learning in the national language of Malay.
As a result, analysts say Malaysian graduates became less employable in the IT sector.
"We've seen a drastic reduction in the standard of English in
our country, not just among the students but I think among the teachers
as well," says political commentator Ong Kian Ming.
Those who believe that English is important for their children's
future either send their kids to expensive private schools or to
Singapore, where the government has been credited as being far-sighted
for adopting the language of its former colonial master.
Nearly three-quarters of the population in Singapore are
ethnic Chinese but English is one of the national languages and very
widely-spoken.
Many believe that this has helped the city state earn the title of being the easiest place to do business, by the World Bank.
However, the dominance of English is now being challenged by the rise of China in Singapore.
The Singapore Chinese Chamber Institute of Business has added Chinese classes for business use in recent years.
Students are being taught in Mandarin rather than the Hokkien dialect spoken by the older Chinese immigrants.
These courses have proved popular, ever since the government
began providing subsidies for Singaporeans to learn Chinese in 2009
during the global financial crisis.
"The government pushed to provide them with an opportunity to
upgrade themselves so as to prepare themselves for the economic
upturn," says chamber spokesperson Alwyn Chia.
Some businesses are already desperate for Chinese speakers.
Lee Han Shih, who runs a multimedia company, says English is
becoming less important to him financially because he is taking western
clients to do business in China.
"So obviously you need to learn English but you also need to know Chinese," says Mr Lee.
As China's economic power grows, Mr Lee believes that
Mandarin will overtake English. In fact, he has already been seeing
hints of this.
"The decline of the English language probably follows the decline of the US dollar.
"If the renminbi is becoming the next reserve currency then you have to learn Chinese."
More and more, he says, places like Brazil and China are
doing business in the renminbi, not the US dollar, so there is less of a
need to use English.
Bilingualism
Indeed, China's clout is growing in South East Asia, becoming the region's top trading partner.
But to say that Mandarin will rival English is a "bit of a
stretch", says Manoj Vohra, Asia director at the Economist Intelligence
Unit.
"They tend to act as their bridges."
So the future of English is not a question of whether it will
be overtaken by Mandarin, but whether it will co-exist with Chinese,
says Vohra.
He believes bilingualism will triumph in South East Asia.
It is a sound economic argument, but in Vietnam's case, there is resistance to learning Mandarin.
The country may share a border with China, but the Vietnamese
government's choice to not emphasise Mandarin is an emotional one, says
leading economist Le Dang Doanh.
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| Shirley Chua fears her son's English will suffer in the Malaysian school system |
"All the streets in Vietnam are named according to generals and
emperors that have been fighting against the Chinese invasion for 2000
years," he says.
Tensions flared up again last May over the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
Anti-Chinese sentiment means that young Vietnamese are
choosing to embrace English - the language of a defeated enemy. Many
families still bear the psychological scars from the Vietnam War with
the United States.
Yet there is no animosity towards English because the founding father
of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, made a clear distinction between the so-called
American imperialists who were bombarding Vietnam and the American
people, says Le Dang Doanh.
Many Vietnamese who have lost family members during the war are now studying in America, he says.
"We never forget any victim in the past but in order to industrialise and normalise a country, Vietnam needs to speak English."
The Vietnamese government has an ambitious goal to ensure all
young people leaving school by 2020 will have a good grasp of the
English language.
But it's not hard for young Vietnamese to accept English. For some,
the language offers a sense of freedom in Vietnam, where the one-party
communist state retains a tight grip on all media.
In a public square in central Hanoi, a group of young men are
break-dancing to the pulsing beats of western hip hop. Ngoc Tu, 20,
says he only listens to English music.
"The Ministry of Culture has banned a lot of [Vietnamese]
songs and any cultural publications that refer to freedom or rebellion
but... English songs are not censored."
It is debatable whether English or Mandarin will dominate in
South East Asia in the future. There are arguments for both on the
economic front.
But culturally, there is no dispute.
Even Mandarin language enthusiasts like Singaporean
businessman Mr Lee, says that English will remain popular so long as
Hollywood exists.
The success of movies such as Kung Fu Panda, an American
production about a Chinese animal, has caused a lot of anxiety in China,
he says.
There have been many cartoons in China about pandas before, but none had reached commercial success, says Mr Lee.
"The moment Kung Fu Panda hit the cinemas everybody watched it. They bought the merchandise and they learned English."
Spanish was the top foreign language studied in U.S.
college classrooms in 2009, according to research from the
Modern Language Association in New York. Chinese tallied seventh
by the number of U.S. students enrolled in classes that year,
after Spanish, French, German, American Sign Language, Italian
and Japanese, according to a December 2010 report by the
association. Arabic was eighth. 
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