Feature: A hard but sweet journey: Afghan youth proud of learning Chinese

by Abdul Haleem

KABUL, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- Despite learning Chinese language is difficult for many elsewhere in the world, but learning the hard and not still alphabetized Asian language is becoming more common among Afghan youths recently.

Unlike other languages, while learning Chinese, the learner needs to draw characters, rather than to write alphabets, as an Afghan female teacher, Farzana Khashie said that despite being a little hard to learn, she found Chinese language too sweet to speak and now too easy to teach.

Farzana Khashie who is teaching Chinese language at the Avicenna private University and feels proud of teaching the language, in an interview with Xinhua recently, narrated how she could learn the bewilderingly complex language well and how she can easily teach it now.

"I have found that Chinese language is a very interesting language," she whispered and said. "After I started learning it at the university, I was not interested in but gradually it became my daily habit to learn Chinese even at the cost of my eye-surgery".

Recalling her hard study, she said that one of her eyes even got problem due to hard study of the language and she had to have eye surgery.

The unexpected blow took Farzana at least one month to decide whether she should attend Chinese Language Department, but, she eventually decided to carry on.

Farzana was proud of not only being a Chinese language educated girl, but also a teacher at the university.

Three of her students have succeeded in gaining scholarship eligibility, after successfully passing an exam held at the Kabul University.

"I am proud of being a Chinese language teacher, as three of my students -- one in economics and the other two in Chinese language, managed to gain scholarship eligibility provided by Confucius Institute."

Farzana has not still visited China, but she is glad to see in her own country that learning Chinese has become pervasive as the two countries' relations are getting closer.

"Globalization of China's economy, is not only what the Chinese people hoped for, but it has also turned into a worldwide undeniable fact," Farzana said. She also believes that the Chinese language would become more popular to learn in the near future in her country and in the world at large.

"As I know, the 21 century is the era of China and China will become the world's top economic power, so learning Chinese language is very important nowadays," she said.

By the rapid expansion of business and cultural relations between Afghanistan and China, many Afghan youths believe that learning Chinese language is very important.

Unlike Farzana who believed the language is, however, a little difficult to learn, Mohammad Reza, a student of the Chinese Language Department at Kabul University, told Xinhua that it was too easy to learn the language.

"I think that Chinese language is too sweet to speak and too easy to learn and I am really interested in learning it," said Reza.

The young man who has now spent seven months at the university to learn Chinese, believes he could advance with his higher education in China and can resolve his economic problems as well as serve his country through learning the language.

China is currently, training about 1,000 professionals and provides 150 scholarships for Afghanistan annually, with the aim of strengthening mutual understanding and trust between the two nations. Enditem