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How important is the ability to write an English toast?

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Information Times
September 8, 2008

Thousands of people took an exam yesterday in Guangzhou hoping to be selected as for positions in the provincial goverment, today's Information Times reported.

Most of the candidates are already government officials and saw the exam as a great opportunity for promotion. But, according to the newspaper, seventeen of the candidates were from "overseas" (境外). "Foreigners" competing for Chinese office seems highly unusual, even in Guangdong, a province which sees itself as the pioneer of "liberation of thought." The newspaper didn't give the identities of the "overseas" candidates.

Many officials found the English test too difficult, to the point that many gave up and left shortly after the exam started.

"It was very unexpected, I don't think a lot of people can write anything," said a woman who gave her last name as Pan. She was speaking about the composition section, which required the test-taker to write a toast in English. Another candidate, a man named Huang said, "Most government offices just have no use for English skills, nor do our daily jobs have anything to do with it. I think English is just a fad, and I hope it will be cut out from the exam."

But these are the rules: anyone who fails the English test will not be considered for the jobs they were competing for. Among the 3,828 candidates who sat for the test, only 100 will be selected.

According to the newspaper, 56.2% of the government officials taking the test hold a master's degree or higher. The vast majority of them have at least a college degree. It is hard to imagine so many educated people racking their brains trying to come up with the "English toast" that is so vital to their career.

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There are currently 10 Comments for How important is the ability to write an English toast?.

Comments on How important is the ability to write an English toast?

One thing's for sure: when the doors open at the start of the next exam, there will be over three thousand test-takers sitting outside the test center nervously memorizing an English toast.

"56.2% of the government officials taking the test hold a master's degree or higher. The vast majority of them have at least a college degree. It is hard to imagine so many educated people racking their brains trying to come up with the 'English toast' that is so vital to their career."

Actually, it is not hard to imagine if you know anything about the Chinese upper education system.

It'd be really interesting to find out more about the 17 candidates from 境外.

My Chinese bureaucrat brothers:

Here is a good toast for state dinners with capitalist Westerners.

"Here's to honor. Get on her and stay on her."

Then pound your drink. You will earn mad respect.

Being able to write a celebrity roast might be more useful.

"jing wai" includes HK and Macau.

This is crap, and its getting crappier, English is out of hand in China, most students don't give a first thought on whether they really need it or not, and employers don't too, they just worship the language for no reason.
I frequently see idiots taking vocabulary lessons on public bus, some would murmur like a sissy girl, and they seem to be quite happy about what they are doing, until they find out they forget more than they can remember. And many who were hardcore on it never actually use the language in their career.
Our education system needs a complete overhaul, in which the English learning needs to be downgraded, now don't get me wrong, its perfectly ok to learn the language, but schools need to do some research and re-exam the necessity.
/rant over

Jingwai also refers to Chinese citizen who hold a permanent resident card in a foreign country (US green card, EU 10 year card…) and are no longer registered in a local Chinese Hukou.

Why do Chinese media always give ridiculous degress of precision on statistics? (like 56.2%) It's meaningless and wrong. 56.2% of the 3828 candidates works out at 2151.336 officials holding a degree ... Duhhh?

Theo: it's not just the media, I think they teach it in the schools. The Chinese staff at my old company didn't even see what the problem was - they eventually stopped doing it for reports that I would see, but anything in Chinese invariably had 4 significant digits of precision, even when the numbers were based on something much less accurate (if you estimated a value of 3 million dollars, that would become 20.514 million RMB).

I realise this is completely off topic, but it's a real pet peeve of mine, only rivalled by the bizzare choice of powers of ten that often turns figures like the previous example into 0.0205 billion.

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