Arion Thiboumery

Crazy English: an Ethnography Examining the Fascination with English in Contemporary China Arion Thiboumery

"Everybody Learns English" has become a national movement in China. From TV to teashops, English has thickly infiltrated the everyday lives of the Chinese populous and they are crazy about it. Through ethnography this book examines how this cultural appropriation of the foreign - English language - in the names of ?Nationalism? and ?modernization? is affecting the younger urban people (ages 18-25) of contemporary China. The book unfolds as a series of vignettes on English-speaking urban residents from either Sichuan province or Chongqing municipality during 2001-2002. More than just amusing, this book should be insightful for those interested in contemporary Chinese culture, development, and globalization.