Teaching Mandarin overseas a booming market

Rising demand to learn Chinese overseas is bringing opportunities and opening the door for Giant-Whale Future Technology Co Ltd, an emerging Chinese startup that offers online Mandarin learning.

"It has been a trend in recent years that more and more people overseas take learning Chinese as an investment, an asset and a skill that is very likely to help them get higher salaries and better career choices or a better future," said Kevin Cai Kewen, chief operating officer of Giant-Whale Future Technology.

"It is a sharp contrast to previous years when many of them thought that learning Chinese was an emotional appeal to trace origins, or simply to learn Chinese as an interest," he said.

A Chinese Academy of Sciences report showed that more than 200 million people are learning Chinese overseas as of the end of last year. Among those surveyed, children from North America and Europe had the greatest passion to learn Chinese, with nearly 60 percent of the children surveyed learning the language in the two regions.

Cai said a prime reason behind the trend is China's rising social and economic power and its increasing role on the global stage, leading overseas Chinese to pay closer attention to Chinese education.

"Such demand may lead to the Chinese education market in foreign countries seeing a rapid growth period in the coming years, which has brought us huge opportunities," he said.

The Chengdu, Sichuan province-based Giant-Whale Future Technology, which was founded in 2020, mainly offers online Mandarin tutoring to overseas Chinese in small classes. Its lessons include a livestreaming class and artificial intelligence-enabled cartoons.

"One of our biggest differences from other Chinese tutoring platforms is that we aim to teach practical Chinese to help students to be able to really understand Chinese culture better and at the same time apply it into real life scenarios," Cai noted.

As key founding members are from well-known domestic gaming companies, Cai said the company is the first to obtain the world-renowned IP animation The Octonauts, a well-known overseas cartoon IP.

"It is through such IP that the company's lessons quickly attracted the interest of a large group of foreign users," Cai said. "More renowned IPs are also on the way."

Some 50 countries and regions have closed schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic. UNESCO estimated at the end of last year that some 850 million young students around the world have had their academic schedules disrupted due to the impact of the disease.

"We find ourselves well positioned to be able to deliver online learning of Mandarin for young learners. It has helped us directly save on advertising fees in many countries, and we plan on continuing this momentum in the upcoming years," he said.

Currently, the largest user group of Giant-Whale Future Technology is from North America, but Cai said the company expects to rapidly expand its overseas presence.

In regard to the latest reform by China in the education sector, Cai said its business is not within the range of those reforms. But he said the firm will face more challenges as more education companies turn to overseas markets.

The guideline, jointly issued by the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council in July, said all institutions offering tutoring in curricula to primary and middle school students will be registered as nonprofit organizations.

"Despite future competition, the company can also absorb some of the experiences that domestic companies have had during their expansion, especially as a slew of local online education firms have been faced with bottlenecks in boosting profits," he said.

Lyu Senlin, founder of Guiding Light Think Tank, said: "There is rising demand for people to learn Chinese in overseas markets. It is sure to be a promising market given China's growing influence as a major nation."