Read more Chinese

I read an article recently on how Chinese language is slowly becoming the second most learned language after English. There are Chinese Toefl and Chinese Language Proficiency Test that are popular among foreigners that I have never heard of.

Growing up in Hong Kong, we have a bad reputation of sprinkling English in our daily conversations in Cantonese. It's sort of inevitatble as it is often easier to express what we want to say in those English words along with the speed of Cantonese we are accustomed to, which is pretty fast. But come to think of it, it really makes us look bad in terms of our literacy and cultural level as compare to Taiwan or China. This is especially true these days when I am reading some Hong Kong Cantonese blogs. The Chinese language used is not something a Mandarin speaker could understand and it's often very poorly written and full of crude slangs.

I can read, write, speak in Cantonese and Mandarin (and some Shanghainese and some Taiwanese) but I could not write at the same expressive level as someone who grew up in Taiwan. I could not even express to someone "I am preparing a presentation for this Wednesday." How to say 'presentation' in Chinese?? My friend from Taiwan thinks I am too harsh on myself because he thinks my Chinese is already very good (as I helped him spotted some Chinese typos in the GUI). But I think it's time I read more well written Chinese and learn to speak the language better without mixing in any English. One good way will be to work with our counterparts in Taiwan or China but unfortunately I am not working on those projects. I really would not mind transferring to Beijing or somewhere similar for 6 months to a year.