Far fewer Americans are taught Mandarin, and even fewer from an early enough age that they can master tones easily (I suspect that like Danish vowels you almost need to be born into it)
What does that have to do with Wu? Presumably she never went through any similar experience, and her language skills have been largely driven by her own personal desire to communicate with foreigners rather than any structured program or religious duty. (I don’t know much about her, so maybe that’s wrong.)
I think the OP is correct that it is far more likely to find white collar mainland Chinese with a good command of English than it is to find a Westerner with a good command of Mandarin.
The reasons are really simple:
1) English is taught in school from a early age. In US schools, Mandarin usually wasn't an option until very recently, mostly Spanish, French, German, and Japanese were the standard choices.
2) English is the defacto international lingua franca. English speakers can live their whole life and not really have to learn another language to consume most of the world's published information and trade. However, Chinese speakers often need to know English to consume the output of other countries. If you need to need read an AI paper, it's most likely published in English, and unless the original authors were Chinese, they're not likely to have published a good translation.
Given the importance of the Chinese economy, I expect the next generation will change this asymmetry somewhat. Already many schools in California offer Mandarin immersion, and it seems even more common these days to see Australians who can speak good Mandarin.
In the grand scheme of things, being able to learn another language well does not beggar belief. In the context of this discussion, your comments are leaving a sour taste in my mouth. She's been questioned enough already.
I’m just saying her English seems quite a bit better than average.
(My wife is Chinese and has very good English, as do many of her friends. I by no means think Chinese people are generally incapable of learning English or anything.)
I thought my point was pretty obvious and simple.
There are sure a lot of people here with sticks up their butts.
She has better English than many foreigners I know who have been living in the US for >5 years, and better than the foreign language skills of many Americans I know who have lived overseas for that long.
I'm pretty sure you know this. Yes, in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, it is not uncommon. But go to a smaller city, and some people will treat you like a rare Panda. I was in 九寨沟 one time during 清明节 and a lot of out of town people were there on vacation, some of who had never met a 外国人 in person before, but after they heard me speaking, a lot of people kept coming up and asking to have a photo with me, offering too much praise for my terrible Mandarin, and intensely curious how I learned.
I'm glad to see so many people following in the footsteps of 大山， but we have a ways to go before the asymmetry is more balanced and a Westerner speaking Chinese is no longer surprising enough to be on a talent show.
China has no problem finding foreigners who speak good Chinese like they did in the 90s. Likewise, they are a bit unnerved when the American ambassador speaks fluent mandarin like Huntsman did, or like various prime ministers of austrailia are ought to these days. They definitely exist, and if some random white (or black or Indian, etc...) guy/gal breaks out mandarin in some random context, well, it really isn’t amazing anymore.
If you visit a tier 88 city in china, the fact that you are a foreigner at all is amazing, this has little to do with your mandarin skills. Now hit the bath house with them and it’s double amazing.