Mandarin Cool: A Footnote to the UAE’s Nation Branding
On 15 December 2018, then UAE president Sheikh Khalifa declared 2019 as the Year of Tolerance, in the hope that his country would present itself to the world as “a communication bridge between countries and different cultures of the world”. Throughout the Year, a wide range of initiatives and events were held to “cement the values of tolerance and openness to cultures and peoples as a general community approach involving all segments of society and to establish a sustainable institutional framework across the country”. To list just a few, these included the AFC Asian Cup in January, Pope Francis’s first visit to the country (as well as the GCC region) in February, the Special Olympics World Summer Games in March, the Abba Reunion show in June, the second China Film Week in September, and the Korea Festival in October and November.
In contrast to those arrangements across different spheres, the UAE’s efforts to promote multilingualism seemed modest, or at least not in an organized fashion. Yet, as Sarah Hopkyns and Melanie van de Hoven noted, “While linguistic equality has not been at the forefront of the Year of Tolerance initiative, the emphasis on communication as part of its objective implied an indirect commitment to linguistic diversity and inclusion”(2020, p202). In fact, one of the arenas where this “commitment” is implemented – not solely in 2019, but before and since then – is language education.
In 2010, Abu Dhabi introduced bilingual Arabic-English education in state schools, with mathematics and science taught in English (Abu Dhabi Education Council, 2010). Nearly a decade later, in 2019, Mandarin Chinese was incorporated into state schools through the “Hundred Schools Project,” as part of the growing cooperation in various fields between the UAE and China.
In this piece, I would like to use the “Hundred Schools Project” as a starting point to explore how and why a focus on Mandarin education among children in the UAE could enrich our understanding of the UAE’s national branding. By nation branding, I refer to a nation’s strategy to build a distinctive image among the public through its soft power. The UAE’s effort to promote the Chinese language as part of its nation branding illustrates its development goals and an ambition for a cosmopolitan landscape via multilingualism.
The Hundred Schools Project
The China and the UAE signed the memorandum to launch the Hundred Schools Project in Beijing in July 2019, with the goal of promoting Chinese language education in the UAE from September 2019. The UAE Ministry of Education then developed the “Chinese Language Programme: Current Status and Future Plan”, a holistic teaching plan for the language curriculum in the UAE. This made the UAE the first Arab country to incorporate Mandarin into its national curriculum from public kindergarten to state high school. Such a multilingual curriculum represents a significant advancement, transitioning the UAE from its traditional bilingual Arabic-English education system to a more comprehensive multilingual approach in the public state curriculum. Up to now, according to the Chinese news agency Xinhua in the UAE offering Chinese language courses, with 71,000 students involved. Beyond public schools, private institutions teaching Mandarin are flourishing as well.
As a state-driven initiative, Mandarin education in the UAE stands out globally in terms of its localized resources. It allows UAE students to engage with Chinese through accessible and culturally relevant references, and this provides a combination of both knowledge and interest. The UAE’s national curriculum now offers textbook series in both Chinese and Arabic, designed specifically for the Emirati cultural context for different educational levels, these include the Hand in Hand series for kindergarten children, You’re Wonderful series for primary schools, and the Crossing the Silk Road series for secondary schools. These textbooks feature local vocabularies such as “Dates,” “Desert,” “Mosque,” “Gandoura,” “Abaya,” “Ghazal” in Chinese. The cover of the textbooks features two Emirati students dressed in tradition attire: the Abaya and Gandoura. (See Figure 1) Language teachers create teaching slides and worksheets based on these textbooks. The topics, vocabulary, sentence complexity and illustrations are all adapted to reflect their local Arab culture. This textbook series is a collaborative effort between the UAE Ministry of Education and the Center for Language and Cooperation of the Chinese Ministry of Education. It aims to provide children in the UAE, especially the children of Emirati nationality, with a more culturally and linguistically tailored learning experience. Today, public schools offering Chinese language courses, as well as private Mandarin teaching institutions, celebrate key Chinese cultural events such as the Chinese Spring Festival, Chinese Lantern Festival, and also China’s National Day, thereby immersing students in Chinese culture.
Figure 1: the Crossing the Silk Road textbook series introduced to the UAE for secondary school students,
Source: the author’s collection
Through this pedagogical approach, Emirati children have gained a growing fascination with Mandarin learning, and experience an enjoyable and relaxed learning environment. For instance, we can see one Emirati pupil, dressed in traditional Chinese attire, introduce herself and sing in Mandarin to express her passion for the language; an increasing number of Emirati students are also enthusiastic about participating in the “Chinese Bridge” Competition. Moreover, the “Hundred Schools Project” has sparked young learners’ curiosity, encouraging them to reach beyond their curricular activities to correspond by letters and postcards with Chinese President Xi Jinping, drawing the bamboos, dragons and the Great Wall, and sharing their dreams of visiting China.
These elements are central to what I describe as “Mandarin Cool” in my ongoing research. I aim to show how the coolness is being constructed as a strategy of the UAE’s nation branding, in which cosmopolitanism – and ties to China – are an important and understudied dimension.
The author would like to thank Jie Wang for her feedback on earlier drafts of this blog.
References:
Sarah Hopkyns and Melanie van der Hoven, “Linguistic diversity and inclusion in Abu Dhabi’s linguistic landscape during the COVID-19 period”, Multilingua, Vol.41, Issue 2.
Xinyu Lin is a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at the University of Shanghai International Studies University, and a visiting PhD member in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. This blog was developed through discussions at the Mapping Connections Institute, held in Beirut between 27th – 30th May 2024 as part of the ‘Inter-Asia Week’ (Inter-Asia Partnership). The views expressed are the personal perspectives of the writer and not attributable to the Mapping Connections partner institutions.