Re:Why China is losing interest in English
by seanmcdirmid on Sunday January 12, 2025 @02:32AM
(#42671904)
It’s weird, but in 2002 I could always find one person working at a McDonald’s in Haidian who spoke English, but come back in 2007, that was no longer the case. Starbucks was the same, I think those places just decided that English wasn’t important anymore. Now, Shanghai is much better than Beijing, I was shocked when even a taxi driver spoke English to me, and even the no name corner store they could often converse a bit, something that just would never happen in Beijing.
I suspect this is a form of selection bias: Are you interacting with them on websites or services targeting a predominantly western audience?
As a personal anecdote: I spent two weeks in China last December, and was shocked how little English people spoke, even when interacting e.g. with staff at Beijing airport, train stations, or hotel receptions.