281: Quantifying China’s Appeal to the Next Generation of Talent with Andrea Myles, the #ChinaGeek (Asia Matters)

Podcast highlights:

• 06:35 According to data from the Modern Language Association (MLA) in the United States, since 2016 the number of students at US universities studying Chinese in any form has gone down. How can we explain this given the relevance of China at the moment? -- In Australia the pattern is similar. Historical legacy is part of the reason, there is a shortage of qualified Mandarin teachers. This helps explain the lag in students studying Mandarin. So there are systemic factors at play too and not just purely political ones.
• 25:48 Tell us a bit about your day job focusing on millennials in China. What's that about? -- CEO and co-found of the China Australia Millennial Project (CAMP). We try to bridge the gap between Chinese and Australian innovators by running an incubator of sorts which puts 50 Chinese and 50 Australians into a 100 day learning program. We challenge them to build the next Uber, or the next Didi. We've had 300 people come through the program so far. It's really cool to see how diversity powers new insights. Each cohort is completely different; but you see commonalities in they all have a curious mindset and a desire to engage digitally.
• 40:00 In China right now how are young people approaching entrepreneurialism? -- It's important to remember there is not simply one type of Chinese millennial, and things differ a lot depending on geography, class, and even gender. Overall there is a shift where people no longer see government jobs as the ticket. There is still a long way to go before things really change, but you see signs it's beginning.

Podcast notes:

• 00:05 Welcome Andrea Myles, the #ChinaGeek, also co-founder and CEO of the China Australia Millennial Project to Asia Matters with host Graham Brown.
• 01:00 How did you earn the moniker #ChinaGeek? -- It's completely self-titled. The story starts in 2002 in New South Wales, Australia. Had never been overseas, so went off to China and backpacked across the country for three months...Beijing to Kashgar. Before this had very little China exposure; didn't speak Mandarin at all. This ended up being the trip of a lifetime considering that since then have gotten two Master's Degrees in Mandarin studies.
• 06:35 According to data from the Modern Language Association (MLA) in the United States, since 2016 the number of students at US universities studying Chinese in any form has gone down. How can we explain this given the relevance of China at the moment? -- In Australia the pattern is similar. Historical legacy is part of the reason, there is a shortage of qualified Mandarin teachers. This helps explain the lag in students studying Mandarin. So there are systemic factors at play too and not just purely political ones.
• 09:50 Are universities prepared today to nurture the talent of students who are China-curious? -- Universities are academic institutions and they often miss the practical element of studying a language. Take textbooks as an example, these tend to be extremely boring and fail to truly show what it's like to use Chinese in China. What's needed is to find ways to blend the experiences of Chinese international students with language learners on campus so everyone can benefit from the exposure this generates.
• 15:15 What's it like talking to people in Australia about your experiences in China? -- Mostly people's reaction when you try to explain modern China and what's going on is they say they didn't realize it was like that. China is endlessly fascinating. Consider there are 415 million millennials in China, if they were a nation unto themselves, they would be the world's third largest and they would be the most digitally engaged. In the next ten years the impact of this will be felt in the West.