The population of China is 1,324,655,000. That's not 1 million people, but 1.3 BILLION people (and this was in the year 2008). The amount of people in China is over 20% of the world's population. Compared to the US, which has 300 million people, that's a HUGE market.
People always joke about that if you just collect one cent from everyone in China, you would have $13000000 - or $13 million - in the bank.
If that doesn't start to convince you that China is a market to be reckoned with, then I don't really know what else will. However, there was one major problem. The amount of English speaking people in China is exceedingly rare.
So my first few days in China were spent rather aimlessly. I kept to the major shopping districts and developed areas, and stuck to the English-speaking crowd. As for business opportunities, you can imagine that it was absolutely impossible. It was rough, and it wasn't long before I decided that it couldn't continue any further. I decided that I had to learn Chinese, somehow.
For the next few days in China, I went around, looking for a Chinese class. Most of the classes were taught by Chinese, and I had trouble even registering myself. Thankfully, I found one geared towards Americans. It was a very difficult 3 weeks, and expensive too. The Chinese teacher had a basic grasp of English, and I found my learning of the language slow and tedious. After three weeks, I felt like I wasn't any much better than from when I started.
So I had to look for other methods - and I found it in the form of a college friend who had picked up Chinese. Turns out she was in love with the Chinese culture, and even had a bachelors in Chinese. She recommended me to try Chinese language software instead of a class, and said that it was more popular with language learners. After trying out one of the Chinese language software that they recommended, I now have a pretty good grasp of conversational Chinese. Next up - a few more lessons, and I'll be having another business trip to China!
Learn more about language software. Stop by this site where you can find out all about Chinese language software and what it can do for you.
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