Selling the sage of Qufu

　　推销孔圣人(陈继龙 编译)

　　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.

　　孔老夫子肯定会感到自豪。本周，来自35个国家的近300名代表在北京人民大会堂召开了首届孔子学院大会。这不是一次讨论哲学思想的会议，而是迄今为止最大的一次研究对外汉语教学的大会。孔子学院的意义如同法兰西联谊会、德国歌德学院和英国文化协会，中国官员希望它将有助于满足全球对汉语教学日益增长的需求。