The troubles of the British son-in-law were asked by the children, "Why are the Chinese not making progress?"

It is no news that foreigners learn Chinese. For example, some time ago, a reporter from the Global Times met the British Foreign Secretary in a workplace learn chinese online. During the conversation, he mentioned that his daughter had gone to China for a summer camp.

However, the reasons we often see in media reports for foreigners to learn Chinese in daily life may not necessarily be what all foreigners in the company think. Recently, the reporter met some British people in different workplaces, and they developed many similarities with China’s problems—both are fathers, and their children are learning Chinese, and they are also learning through themselves online chinese class. Why learn Chinese? The reason given by their population sounds interesting.

During the children's Chinese competition held by the Chinese community in London, the reporter got acquainted with this Englishman from Windsor, a small town outside of London. He is about 40 years old and has two children with his Chinese wife. That day, he took the children who were still in elementary school to participate in the competition. He told reporters that at home, his Chinese level has always been at the bottom, and his wife can definitely communicate in English, but communicating with the children's grandparents is a problem. He is a man with strong family values. He said he had to pass this test, otherwise there would always be misunderstandings among family members.

Other Britons with similar marriage backgrounds also told the Global Times reporter similar experiences. They will always pay attention to the progress of the "Belt and Road" construction, especially the impact on the UK. However, these Chinese "foreign sons-in-law" believe that economic factors do not make them feel the necessity of learning Chinese, after all, they do not need to live in China for a long time. But in their own family, it is a big challenge for them to visit their Chinese parents-in-law regularly. These British people admit that the good impression they left at the beginning was polished by the trivial things in life. Communication with parents-in-law often ends in silence, or even breaks up, which annoys the British son-in-law very much.

International marriages with Chinese couples often focus on providing Chinese language education for their children. But as a British father, he has little time to learn Chinese in his busy work and life. People living in Surrey told the Global Times that the embarrassment of not knowing Chinese in family life is incomprehensible to outsiders. He also has a Chinese wife. Their 8-year-old son often pesters him to read Chinese story books that his mother has not finished, and asks him questions such as "Xi'an and Rome are ancient cities". What's the difference?". The son also asked him why his mother could go to his school to tell everyone about the culture of the Spring Festival, but he couldn't. When he heard his explanation that his Chinese is not good, the child asked innocently again : "You live with me and my mother every day. Why hasn't your Chinese improved?" He said his son's explanation made him laugh and cry, but when he thought about it, it was not unreasonable.

In fact, the UK is already one of the countries in Europe that promotes Chinese learning the most. But for the "Chinese son-in-law" in the UK, there are not many opportunities to learn Chinese culture in mainstream social places in the UK. Nowadays, they rely more on taking long vacations to go to China for a period of "immersion" learning.