Why understanding China starts with language

Last month, China’s top livestreaming celebrity, Viya, descended on New Zealand with a small army of handlers and amid a whirlwind of publicity. From a hotel room in Auckland, she promoted Kiwi products to her online fans for four hours, generating almost $30 million in sales.

Remarkably, this wasn’t even half of Viya’s record-breaking $66 million of sales in a single day.

To put this in perspective, it’s about the same as what all Kiwis combined spent on Boxing Day sales last year.

It’s something that could only happen in 21st-century China.

We’re simply not making the step change needed to prepare for a world where understanding Chinese cultural traits, consumer tastes, technology trends, innovations, social media and more is the key to success.

Understanding the world Viya lives in, along with her millions of followers and the booming online ecommerce platforms they sell from, is something that every company, organisation and government that engages with China needs to do better.

For the pharmacy owner, it’s understanding why installing an Alipay terminal makes good business sense. For the tourism operator, it’s understanding why social media app Tik Tok is such a phenomenon among Chinese tourists and millennials.

For the craft beer brewer, it’s understanding why strong, dark and hoppy brews are proving so popular in China.

For New Zealanders more broadly, however, it means taking the time to learn how to speak and communicate in Chinese. More than anything, learning Mandarin will help us understand the cultural nuances of China, leading to deeper connections, common ground and greater economic opportunities.

Andy Boreham, a Wellington-born Kiwi who now lives and works in Shanghai as a freelance journalist, puts it another way: “Language is a golden key into the feelings and dreams and thoughts of a nation. Just as importantly, it is a means of communication, a way to share ideas and struggles.”

But here’s the problem. We’re just not learning Chinese in anything like the numbers needed for better understanding between China and New Zealand.

New Zealand Chinese Language Week was first held in 2014. Its aim is simple but ambitious — to increase Chinese language learning in New Zealand. The initiative has done a huge amount of heavy lifting to make Kiwis aware of the benefits of learning Chinese and getting programmes and resources into schools.

In the six years that have followed, however, the number of secondary students learning Chinese has increased by little more than 1500. The number of formal tertiary learners has actually dropped by a third over the same period.

We’re simply not making the step change needed to prepare for a world where understanding Chinese cultural traits, consumer tastes, technology trends, innovations, social media and more is the key to success, whether you measure that by trade, investment or otherwise.

There are many reasons for the lack of uptake in Chinese language learning at schools.

It’s a very difficult language to master, requiring a lifetime of commitment to ongoing study. We also struggle to shake off our attachment to European languages at the expense of Asian tongues.

But in 2019, with China our top trading partner and now our second highest source of foreign investment, we cannot shy away from the challenge of building our pool of proficient Chinese speakers.

It will be these New Zealanders — whether public servants, entrepreneurs, students, journalists and even live streamers, who will truly understand China and its people and continue to carry our relationship forward.