Foreign students in China - some stats info

[atitarev]

Top 10 countries of Origin for international students in China

1. Republic of Korea ...........64,232

2. The United States............18,650

3. Japan........................15,409

4. Vietnam......................12,247

5. Thailand.....................11,379

6. Russia.......................10,596

7. India........................8,468

8. Indonesia....................7,926

9. Kazakhstan...................6,497

10. Pakistan....................5,738

The number of international students in China increased by 6.57 percent to 238,184 in 2009 (an increase of 14,685 over the previous year).

Source: Stretching our wings to China (an Indonesian article in English)

This info is interesting too. (China and U.S. study abroad programs)

[natra]

Woah. That is way more students from the US than I had thought.

[Meng Lelan]

The numbers of Koreans = staggering

[atitarev]

The numbers of Koreans = staggering

It doesn't surprise me actually, I was expecting the number of all East Asian students (except India, Kazakhstan and Pakistan) to be higher than that of westerners because of the harder language barrier. The number of American, Russian, Indian and Kazakh students is very interesting news.

Among Indonesians there are many ethnic Chinese but far from all. Here in Melbourne Chinese and Japanese classes are very popular with Indonesian immigrants, I don't know why.

It also surprises me that China has so good relations with South Korea and so many students study in China but they keep supporting North Korea, they really should change their preferences.

[wushijiao]

It doesn't surprise me actually, I was expecting the number of all East Asian students (except India, Kazakhstan and Pakistan) to be higher than that of westerners because of the harder language barrier. The number of American, Russian, Indian and Kazakh students is very interesting news.

Also, it's my understanding that for many Koreans who didn't get into a Korean university and don't have the English skills (or money) to go abroad, going to study in China and learn Chinese is a decent Plan B career move. This, in part, could be one reason for the huge numbers.

Also, the incentive to learn Chinese is probably higher for Koreans, because using English as a business lingua franca (between Chinese and Korean companies) is probably less likely to occur, and obviously, there's a huge amount of trade between the two countries.

[chrix]

Among Indonesians there are many ethnic Chinese but far from all.

Most of them no longer speak any Chinese language though, especially not those from the metropolitan areas of Jakarta and Java...

[atitarev]

Yes, that's true, their Chinese language knowledge is far behind Malaysian Chinese and many didn't have a chance to learn Mandarin at schools in Indonesia but now they start using this opportunity and the article above is just one piece of evidence.

I have a few Indonesian Chinese among my former and current classmates, some are older people, I am encouraged by their enthusiasm to master Mandarin.

[99145050]

the incentive to learn Chinese is probably higher for Koreans, because using English as a business lingua franca :clapis probably less likely to occur, and obviously

[Guest realmayo]

But it's not clear if these stats include exchange students. I know that loads of Koreans who are studying Chinese as a major in Korean spend a year in China as exchange students. I believe quite a few Koreans studying unrelated subjects can also spend a year doing the same thing, to get a basic knowledge of the language (and an HSK6).

EDIT: Yes, just looked up what I guess is the original (well, in English) document here. The site says that there were over 230,000 international students, of which 75,000 were doing undergraduate degrees.

I'm not exactly sure what my point was though, because I guess on reflection it's obvious most students would not be doing full degrees here.

[atitarev]

From your link:

For breakdowns by continent, Asian students comprise the largest group of international students studying in China (161,605, comprising 67.84% of the total), followed by Europeans (35,876, comprising 15.06% of the total), Americans (25,557, comprising 10.73% of the total), Africans (12,436, comprising 5.22% of the total), and Oceanians (2,710, comprising 1.14% of the total).

The countries sending more than 4,000 international students also include Mongolia (5,684), France (5,422) and Germany (4,239).

Wow, Mongolia with a population of less than 3 mln. Are they switching from Russian?

[doraemon]

Well, it's good to know that it's not only the developed nations that can attract foreign students.

The numbers of Koreans = staggering

Not too surprising for me either. I remember when I was studying Chinese at BCLU for a month on an HSK scholarship 2 years ago, more than half the class (of more than 20 people) was Korean and they were pretty amazing being able to speak accent free Mandarin and read articles targeted at native Chinese speakers. Apart from them, I also remember there were 3 or 4 Americans, 2 Australians (including me), 2 from HK, 1 Russian, 1 Bulgarian and 1 Mongolian (pretty much the expected countries). It's probably just really easy for Koreans to learn another Asian language I suppose. One Korean classmate there told me that something like over 30% of Koreans know Chinese to some extent. Is that actually true?

However, the lower level classes were pretty much all American students. There were virtually no Koreans there.

Anyway, it's pretty interesting to note that only 2 (or 3 if count Russia) of the countries on the list are western countries. I've always considered Japan a western country despite the fact that it's located in Asia since it's level of modernisation and standard of living is pretty much on par with the west. Russia, I'm not so sure. To me, Russia's somewhere in between east and west but I'm probably wrong since it's capital's in Europe. Or am I?

Are they switching from Russian?

Do a lot of Mongolians learn Russian?

[Meng Lelan]

me that something like over 30% of Koreans know Chinese to some extent.

It's not unreasonable to me. Here in the US, if I encounter a Korean we usually end up speaking Chinese to each other instead of English.

[renzhe]

more than half the class ... was Korean and they were pretty amazing being able to ... read articles targeted at native Chinese speakers

Many high-school graduates will be able to read 2000 hanja (hanzi). It used to be mandatory, now it's optional, but despite hangul essentially winning the "alphabet war", hanja still plays a large enough part in Korean society (for example: advertising) that many people are quite familiar with it.

I don't believe the 30% figure, though. Something probably got lost in translation. I think it's a reference to a huge number of Korean words which were loans from Chinese (I don't remember the number, but it was very large) and to the writing system, which most Koreans are familiar with, to some extent.

[doraemon]

I don't believe the 30% figure, though.

Neither do I (well, not that much...)

[abcdefg]

If the stats given in the original post are based on the numbers of student visas issued by China, they actually under-represent the number of foreign students here (in China) since many of us are using other types of visas while we study.

[gerri]

I rather wonder why you guys see it as large numbers of students... I mean, okay, considering China as a developing country, it's a rather large number (developing countries aren't exactly the first choice for exchange students, after all).

Of course, comparing ratios is also always a problem, since China simply has such a large population.

Still, if you compare student population...

"Currently in Germany there are about two million enrolled students, 250000 of them are international students. With over 10 % international students Germany ..."

China thus has a long way to go, and would have space for tons more international students - but first, would need to modernize their own university system...

[atitarev]

Anyway, it's pretty interesting to note that only 2 (or 3 if count Russia) of the countries on the list are western countries. I've always considered Japan a western country despite the fact that it's located in Asia since it's level of modernisation and standard of living is pretty much on par with the west. Russia, I'm not so sure. To me, Russia's somewhere in between east and west but I'm probably wrong since it's capital's in Europe. Or am I?

Culturally we are Europeans. We look Caucasian too, don't we? A Russian, even if he lives in Siberia (Asia) would use the terms "Asian" not meaning Russians. It's nothing racist about this, well, Europeans in Africa don't call themselves Africans, do they?

I don't agree about Japan either, it's an Asian culture, so they do call themselves too. Are you thinking about Western vs Eastern (Occidental vs Oriental), not European vs Asian? They are not the same. Russia is still sometimes considered "East" (as in Eastern bloc) but not the same "East" (Orient), as used to refer to Asian cultures.

Do a lot of Mongolians learn Russian?

They study in Russia and many are fluent. Half of engineers got the education in Russia. We use the same script, hence many words are borrowed from Russian, most place name are spelled the same way, even if they don't use all letters as in Russian and have a couple of extra letters, which are not used in Russian.

Sorry about the offtopic subject.

Edited April 13, 2010 at 01:31 PM by atitarev

[skylee]

Europeans in Africa don't call themselves Africans, do they?

kind of strange, isn't it? I blogged my trip to Libya with this comment -

從不同的導遊口中聽到，利比亞和突尼西亞的羅馬/拜占庭古城靠非洲奴隸建成，他們說："Slaves from Africa"，彷彿自己不是非洲人，讓我有點驚訝。

可能我並不完全理解他們話中的含意，不過他們的樣貌也確實不似寬鼻子、厚嘴唇、皮膚黝黑的非洲人。當地人多是高鼻深目的阿拉伯人模樣，膚色較淺，有些更白皙得像白人一般。書上說他們本是隨伊斯蘭教的傳播而來的阿拉伯人後裔，而兩國引以為榮的腓尼基文化、羅馬文化也確實是源自中東、歐洲，但是他們已世代居於非洲，口氣卻像自己不是非洲人一般，總是有點奇怪。

I too am sorry that this is off-topic.

[adrianlondon]

Are they all language students?

[xueshengDan]

It would be interesting to see what the foreign teacher ratio is. I am still surprised by the amount of Korean students in China, it is very interesting.