“Mandarin Fever” and Chinese Language-learning in Brunei’s Middle Schools: Discrepant Discourses, Multifaceted Realities and Institutional Barriers

ABSTRACT

China’s rise as a global economic powerhouse has led to a surge in Chinese language-learning worldwide, including in Southeast Asia. This article examines how this phenomenon has unfolded in Brunei, a Muslim and English–Malay bilingual majority country. Drawing on participant observations at two private Chinese middle schools, 19 interviews with teachers and parents, and 10 focus group discussions with students conducted in 2018, we find that there are discrepant discourses and multifaceted realities within and between different groups. While parents and teachers articulate the economic and cultural benefits of learning Chinese, students struggle to understand these and instead articulate banal motivations (e.g. being able to communicate with non-English-conversant family members and foreigners). Contextualising our findings to the historic marginalisation of the ethnic Chinese diasporic minority community in Brunei, we argue that the cumulative effects of educational and non-educational institutional barriers (e.g. lack of teaching materials relevant to the local context, and reliance on foreign teachers) hamper the development of effective and comprehensive Chinese language-learning in Brunei. Our findings suggest that, to date, the rise of China has had limited impact on Chinese language-learning among Chinese students and their parents in Brunei.

作为全球经济强国, 中国带动了东南亚及世界各地的汉语学习热潮. 本文检视这一现象如何在文莱 (一个以穆斯林和英-马来双语为主的国家) 体现. 在2018年, 我们就两所私立中华中学进行参与观察, 与教师和家长进行19次访谈, 并与学生进行10次小组主题讨论. 我们的研究发现不同的群体对汉语学习采取截然不同的理解及诠释. 父母和老师阐明学习汉语所能带来的经济和文化利益. 学生却认为学习汉语的主要动机是为了方便与不识英语的家庭成员和外国人交流. 我们的研究显示, 文莱的教育性和非教育性制度障碍的累积 (如本地汉语教材的匮乏和对外籍教源的依赖) 阻碍了其汉语学习的全面性的发展. 我们的研究结果表明, 至今为止, 中国的经济与文化崛起对文莱的汉语学习热潮影响有限.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese language-learning
• Mandarin fever
• Mandarin
• ethnic minorities
• ethno-politics
• Chinese diaspora
• education system
• Brunei

关键词:

• 汉语学习热潮
• 海外华人
• 文莱

Notes

1. For example, in 2002 the Indonesian government declared its support for Chinese language education and for Sinology departments to be established in Indonesian universities, triggering a proliferation of after-school and after-work Mandarin courses (Hoon & Kuntjara, 2019); in 2011, Thailand’s Ministry of Education was reported to have adopted a policy encouraging schools to offer the Chinese language (Asia News Monitor, 2011); and schools in Vietnam started offering the Chinese language to students from Grades 3 to 12 in the 2017 school year (Xinhua, 2016).

2. The Malay population includes seven sub-ethnic groups (Brunei, Kedayan, Murut, Tutong, Belait, Dusun and Bisaya) who are constitutionally recognised as the Puak Jati (indigenous groups) in the Brunei Nationality Act of 1961 – generally understood to mean “rightful heirs” of the country. “Other” groups include the Iban and Penan ethnicities, who are indigenous to Borneo but not to Brunei.

3. PRs can own land leases for up to 60 years.

4. Public education is free for Brunei citizens and PRs at the primary and secondary levels, but not at the tertiary level. Brunei citizens who enrol in local public universities enjoy a full fee waiver and a monthly allowance.

5. Although this is a compulsory subject, schools offer two to three levels of proficiency to suit students’ needs.

6. In this article, we use “Mandarin” interchangeably with “the Chinese language”.

7. Switched to Malay medium in 1995.

8. Those holding committee positions in Chinese associations, guilds and chambers of commerce may require a more advanced command of Mandarin.

9. As we show later, the phrase “at least” is often repeated in students’ articulations of the reasons to learn Mandarin.

10. Some teachers came to Brunei as fresh graduates without any teaching experience. Some mainland Chinese teachers came through overseas teaching programmes under the Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban) or the Chinese Overseas Affairs Office.

11. Foreign teachers hold renewable fixed-term employment visas. As explained earlier, given Brunei’s stringent citizenship and PR policies, it is highly unlikely that they could attain permanent residence in Brunei.

12. We are aware that there are alternative and more recent theories on second or heritage language-learning motivations (see Comanaru & Noels, 2009, p. 133–135). Nevertheless, we find the instrumental-integrative model useful in the context of this case study.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by Universiti Brunei Darussalam under Grant UBD/RSCH/1.2/RG/2018/001.