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South China Morning Post
23-07-2025
- South China Morning Post
Meet the Chinese baristas keeping Italian cafe culture alive
At around 9:30 nearly every morning, 81-year-old Claudio Gatta passes the famous Accademia Bridge on the Grand Canal in Venice and steps into Bar Foscarini, ordering an espresso and a tuna sandwich for breakfast. He will have two more espressos there in the afternoon. True to his Italian roots, he has stuck to this coffee routine for as long as he can remember. Equally unmoving, Bar Foscarini has been around for more than 70 years, a quintessential Italian coffee bar, with a long, dark marble counter upon which sits an espresso machine polished to a mirror shine. The menu features what you would expect: coffee and sandwiches for the morning, aperitivo, pasta and pizza for later. Gatta takes a sip of the espresso and teases Sophia, the young barista. 'Hey, you went back to China last month to visit your family. How come you didn't bring back a husband?' Barista Sophia serves coffee on the terrace of Bar Foscarini, which sits beside the Grand Canal in Venice. Photo: Federico Sutera Sophia flushes and continues the banter like old friends, part of the well-worn rapport between local regulars and counter staff. 'Come on! I'm only 20 years old!' she replies in Italian. Born Li Jiayi, Sophia migrated to Italy from Putian, in Fujian province, when she was 11. The other counter staff and the owner of this Venetian establishment are all Chinese, too. Next to Sophia stands Zia, née Weng Qinglan, also from Fujian, prepping ingredients for the day's food service. The 47-year-old chef has worked in the food and beverage industry since she arrived 17 years ago. 'When I first came to Italy, there were hardly any Chinese people running cafes,' says Zia. 'Now there are more and more. Around St Mark's Square , most of the cafes are run by Chinese.'
South China Morning Post
19-07-2025
- South China Morning Post
‘Huge shift': why learning Mandarin is losing its appeal in the West
When Colby Porter began Mandarin classes in sixth grade in Syracuse, New York, he was studying alongside 20 of his peers. By his final year of high school, only two other students remained, and the school had fewer than 25 Mandarin learners in total. Soon after he graduated in 2020, the programme was shut down entirely due to dwindling enrolments and budget cuts during the Covid-19 pandemic The situation at Porter's school is not unusual in the United States and other countries in the Global North. While data is scarce, the available figures suggest that interest in learning Mandarin – once globally hailed as the language of the future – is waning after years of rapid growth. In the US, Mandarin language enrolments in universities were down by 25 per cent in 2021 from their 2013 peak, according to the Modern Language Association's most recent report. Across New Zealand, official data shows a decline in the number of Mandarin learners at secondary school level since 2020. Meanwhile, university students in Britain pursuing Chinese language studies saw a 35 per cent drop in 2023 compared to their 2016 high, according to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency. And even in some European countries like Germany and France where Mandarin learning continues to grow, its expansion is modest compared to other more popular languages.
The Standard
15-07-2025
- The Standard
You're a TV star, Harry: Potter series to debut in 2027
A child holds a copy of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," at Waterstone's bookshop in central London 21 June, 2003 REUTERS/Sinead Lynch
