Selected by the Chinese Ministry of Education to teach Chinese as a volunteer on Indonesia's Sumatra Island in 2008, Xi Hecan underwent several months of training to familiarize herself with the country's national conditions, culture and customs.
When she started working in the Southeast Asian country that same year, Xi found very few opportunities to speak Chinese, as most locals could barely speak Mandarin.
"But now there are many opportunities to speak Chinese in Indonesia," Xi said, attributing this to the nationwide expansion of Chinese language education.
"When we visited a car repair shop last week, a worker immediately spoke to us in Chinese," said Xi, who hails from northern China.
Since 2013, Xi has worked as a Chinese language coordinator at Sekolah Terpadu Pahoa, a trilingual school with more than 4,000 students in Gading Serpong on the southern outskirts of Jakarta. At the school, which traces its origins to a Chinese school founded in 1901, Xi communicates in Chinese with colleagues from different islands in Indonesia. Pahoa School teaches Indonesian, Mandarin and English.
Xi said she was delighted to see Indonesian staff on the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway speaking Chinese. Better known as "Whoosh," Southeast Asia's first high-speed rail line symbolizes Indonesia's modern infrastructure development under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.
Xi said she is proud of Pahoa School graduates who go on to study in China, Malaysia and Singapore and successfully pass university Chinese language assessments.
Ye Lu, founder and head of the Bali Mandarin Center, said that if Chinese is spelled using ABCs, three to six months of intensive training can help a learner master basic communication.
"However, to improve in writing and listening, it would take at least one to two years of study, ideally with the opportunity to study intensively and systematically in China," Ye told China Daily.
Founded in 2009, Bali Mandarin Center provides Mandarin education, training locals for the hospitality industry and tourism sector.
Bernadia Irawati Tjandradewi, secretary-general of United Cities and Local Governments in Asia-Pacific, or UCLG ASPAC, said learning Mandarin poses a challenge for Indonesians, particularly in terms of tones and written characters.
"Similarly, Chinese learners of Indonesian may face challenges due to differences in structure and pronunciation," she said. "The key is perseverance."
Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, director of the China-Indonesia Desk at CELIOS, said that in Indonesia, Mandarin is no longer identified with a particular ethnic or cultural group. Instead, most Indonesians see Mandarin as a "language of opportunity," Rakhmat said.
"In the future, Mandarin language learning in Indonesia must not only focus on the linguistic aspect but also cover learners' understanding of Chinese culture," Rakhmat said.
