Selling the sage of Qufu

　　推銷孔圣人(陳繼龍 編譯)

　　Jul 6th 2006 | TOKYO

　　From The Economist print edition

　　THE old man would surely be proud. This week some 300 representatives, from 35 different countries, gathered in Beijing's Great Hall of the People for the first-ever Confucius Institute conference. (1)This was no philosophical pow-wow[1], but the world's largest-ever conference on teaching Chinese as a foreign language. Confucius Institutes are China's answer _______① the Alliance Fran aise, Germany's Goethe Institut and the British Council, and officials hope they will help meet a growing global demand for Chinese-language education.

　　孔老夫子肯定會感到自豪。本周，來自35個國家的近300名代表在北京人民大會堂召開了首屆孔子學院大會。這不是一次討論哲學思想的會議，而是迄今為止最大的一次研究對外漢語教學的大會�？鬃訉W院的意義如同法蘭西聯(lián)誼會、德國歌德學院和英國文化協(xié)會，中國官員希望它將有助于滿足全球?qū)�漢語教學日益增長的需求。