When Xu Jie came across a book introducing Esperanto while browsing in his university library years ago, he had no idea of the exciting journey that lay ahead.
Esperanto was introduced into China more than a century ago and once enjoyed great popularity in the circle of cultural professionals, with people like 20th-century Chinese writers Lu Xun and Ba Jin leading the trend.
Many people speak Esperanto in Chengdu, and they are from all walks of life, including company managers, educators and language lovers.
For example, he met a Swiss family who traveled around the world in a motor home and communicated with people they met along the journey using Esperanto, a Briton who promotes vegetarianism in Europe, and made friends with a Nepali who travels around Chengdu.
That's not really "all walks of life" to me.
Esperanto allows us to interact with the world without being brainwashed, not like English," he said. "It is neutral and equal, and it doesn't have any Western mainstream cultural value attached to it, and I think that's a part of the reason East Asian people like it.
That's the promise, but just read the wikipedia page and you will see that Esperanto is basically an somewhat simplified Average European language. It's strange that a Chinese speaker consider it "easy to learn". It may have less anglo baggage though, whatever difference that makes. All modern languages are constructed languages.
That's not really "all walks of life" to me.
That's the promise, but just read the wikipedia page and you will see that Esperanto is basically an somewhat simplified Average European language. It's strange that a Chinese speaker consider it "easy to learn". It may have less anglo baggage though, whatever difference that makes. All modern languages are constructed languages.