India is considering introducing the teaching of Mandarin in state schools... According to Chinese diplomats, India responded tepidly to a proposal by Beijing to establish Confucius Institutes, which teach Chinese, in the country’s main centres of learning.

This year is the year of the Chinese language in Russia. It is quite natural that numerous events dedicated to the Chinese language and culture inspire the interest of Russians to China. How can you stay indifferent to that country after watching a slide show with beautiful nature, architectural monuments, attending a show of the Chinese circus and getting familiar with Chinese art?

While tens of thousands of Chinese can sing the Russian song Katyusha, thousands of Russian families regularly watch a Chinese teaching TV program named "Hello, China."

The classroom walls at the Hungarian-Chinese bilingual primary school here are decorated with Chinese calendars and banners. Chinese lanterns hang from the ceilings of the main entrance hall. There are stacks of new Chinese language books in the staff room, provided by the Chinese authorities, who also send two teachers a year, depending on the school’s needs.

Chinese International School (Singapore), after more than three years of exploration, innovation, construction and harvesting, has gained achievements and success. This shows that China's education, not only can go to the world, but also can contribute to upgrading of China's soft power, a school principal has said.

It was in the book of Exodus, in the King James Version of the Bible, that Moses first called himself a “stranger in a strange land.” From then on up through Robert A. Heinlein’s 1961 novel of the same phrase, the “stranger in a strange land” genre has been (and remains) a staple of song, film, and literature. It seems that a sense of cultural disconnect has long plagued – and fascinated – humankind.

Over 40 million people are learning the Chinese language and interest keeps growing as Beijing’s international influence expands world wide according to Xu Lin, Director of the Institute to promote the language overseas and head of the Confucius Institute.

Education officials from China and the directors of Confucius Institutes in the Ibero-American countries have opened a conference to consider ways of boosting the overseas teaching of the Chinese language.