For context, Victor Mair is one of the foremost Sinologists in the English speaking world. > An impressive amount of traffic on the internet in these areas is

For context, Victor Mair is one of the foremost Sinologists in the English speaking world. > An impressive amount of traffic on the internet in these areas is being carried out in English, and parents are eager to have their children start learning English at younger and younger ages. This was also true in the 1920's. Lin Yu Tang is probably the best known example: a Chinese author, living in China, who wrote his essays and novels in English. He was also heavily involved in the Romanization projects of the day. Like modern attempts, it foundered because of the forces that wanted one Chinese language in spite of reality (I had a good citation for this that I cannot find right now, I apologize). You either a) accept that there are lots of languages that have a place at the table in such an endeavor, b) bar everyone from the table except for a specific language and impose that everywhere, or c) give up and continue the ruse hidden behind the ideograms. What's really weird is that the Japanese continue to use the kanji, hiragana, and katakana when they do have one language, most of their population knows the Roman alphabet, and the language fits better in the Roman alphabet than in the native syllabaries. But then, who am I to talk? English's spelling hasn't made sense for centuries.