China will encourage learning of Chinese in India: Ma Zhanwu

KOLKATA: China will encourage learning of Chinese in India and provide assistance to institutions imparting courses for it, Chinese Consul General to India Ma Zhanwu said today.

Zhanwu inaugurated the first 'Confucius Classroom' in the eastern region which is being run by the School of Chinese Language in its new state-of-the art premises here.

"Many people are going to China to do business as Indian companies have partners in business with various Chinese companies. So there can be more people to people exchanges," he told PTI.

Zhanwu said the Yunnan Normal University, Kumming is the partner university of the Confucius Classroom imparting training in teaching and culture.

"In other parts of the world it is Confucius Institute but here it is called a classroom as being smaller in scale. If it is bigger it can be developed at many more levels," he said.

Asked about the Confucius Classroom concept, he said apart from language it is aimed at introducing students to everything related to the culture in China.

A spokesperson from the School of Chinese Language said eight to ten teachers from Yunnan University would come here to give lessons to students of leading high schools, colleges and universities on Mandarin language and everything related to culture from dancing, cooking to martial arts.

The class room will accomodate 60 students at a time.

"We had already successfully developed and implemented 20 student exchange programmes between high schools of India and China," the spokesperson said.