Many of my friends expect me to oppose the change in policy because they perceive it as the downgrading of English in the nation's testing system. They were shocked when I said I actually endorse it. Sure, I benefited from the system and have been using the language as a crucial part of my day job. But I don't believe people will, or should, love English or any other subject with equal zeal.
We all have different preferences and hobbies. When I read of Chen Danqing, the painter-educator who quit Tsinghua University, talking about some of his best fine-arts students being rejected simply because they flunked their English test, I realized that English had morphed into a stumbling block for a significant section of the nation's student community.
If you look at China's top 100 artists and writers, such as Zhang Yimou and Mo Yan, you would realize that had English testing been rigorously applied to their college examination, the majority of them would have been denied advanced education, and by extension, the chance to excel in their fields.
Of course, nowadays, college education itself is not as crucial as it was 30 years ago in striving for excellence even as it becomes increasingly available to the nation's youth. If you write a book that sells a million copies or make a movie that grosses hundreds of millions of yuan, your college degree or the lack of one doesn't matter. Neither does your ability to ace the English test.
The way I see it, the need for all college students to pass the same English test has not raised English proficiency per se. For most people, hundreds of hours of rote learning has fostered a culture of using English to create Chinglish. A hundred or so words in a vocabulary are not enough for any real-life use of the language. Such a limited vocabulary is good enough only for what I call "decorative English".
Decorative English is designed to show goodwill or other attitudes. When you speak a few words of English to your English-speaking host, you are essentially saying you have made an effort to be a good guest. In China, you'll see the flip side of the coin every day when you attend international events.
"Ni hao" or "dajia hao" has almost replaced "good morning" or "good evening" as the opening remark when business executives who have just descended from their chartered planes flood you with their newly memorized Chinese words. The tactic never fails to warm the atmosphere.
How can you not smile when your foreign guests overcome their jet lag and talk in a funny accent but in your language? Sometimes when I'm in a cynical mood, I even equate it with the ancient kowtow ritual.
Multinational managers probably take an hour or less to phonetically learn a few words of Chinese, but Chinese students have to spend the best years of their lives to achieve the same result. How pathetic! Other than the linguistic effect of manifesting hospitality or goodwill, there is a downside to peppering one's mother tongue with a smattering of English. It can be a subtle or not so subtle way to be snobbish - as if to say, "I know English and if you're not up to my level you'd better not join my conversation."
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