Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: elmatador who wrote (2818)	12/23/2005 10:52:47 AM
From: critical_mass	Respond to of 217737

During 2004 and early 2005, I lived in Milwaukee, hardly a cutting edge city, but with about 600k inhabitants and a metro area of 1.5m. There were three Chinese language academies, all of them privately run for ages 4 and up. I think this quote from former German chancellor Willy Brandt is relevant if countries plan to act in the role commodity providers for China: “If I'm selling to you, I speak your language. If I'm buying, dann muessen Sie Deutsch sprechen." Italicized == "then you must speak German."

To: elmatador who wrote (2818)	12/25/2005 12:32:07 AM
From: energyplay	Respond to of 217737

Teaching English has been a large worldwide industry. US and UK college graduates get to travel and live in 'exotic' parts of the world while being paid relatively low salaries. The local students, often local business people, older students, and those planning to travel or work in the English speaking world get to learn from a fluent speaker, including various useful idioms like 'Dude, what's up ?' and 'Whatever' .... The organizers of these courses usually make reasonable money, the student teacher ratios tend to drive the margin in a favorable direction. This compensates having to pay the teachers soem fraction developed world salaries and some compensation for travel costs, while the students ability to pay is limited by the the local economy. Not a constraint in Japan, but would tend to limit profit in say Malaysia. The other limitation is competition, native English speakers in Singapore, US military in Korea, Germany, etc. The same business could occur with the teaching of Mandarin. However, much of the teaching would occur in more developed countries, where the students could pay more. The salaries are likely to appear good to recent Chinese graduates, at least for a few more years until salaries rise. Prehaps even people with a few years experience in industry, and some knownledge of specialized terms and practices.