Learning Mandarin widens job opportunities for many

Gieniung Pratidina Bafrazaki takes pride in her Chinese language skills that prompted her to apply for a job that would utilize her language competence.

"Working for a business company is my number one priority," the 24-year-old woman told China Daily in early August.

Bafrazaki was among dozens of young people who attended a career expo at Jakarta's Al Azhar University. The privately owned university's Pusat Bahasa Mandarin, or Mandarin Language Center, the equivalent of the Confucius Institute, held the one-day job fair.

Having graduated two years ago from Al Azhar's Mandarin Study Program, Bafrazaki last year resigned from a business firm in Jakarta after finding that her job as a finance professional hardly required any Mandarin skills.

She took part in Al Azhar's career expo, where about 20 business firms, mostly Chinese joint ventures, offered job opportunities.

Murni Djamal, vice-president of Al Azhar's Mandarin Language Center, said graduates from the university's Mandarin Language Program got jobs easily after graduation. The program was established in 2005 with support from the government.

"Our graduates have never been jobless. There are always companies that need them, especially Chinese companies," Djamal told China Daily on the sidelines of the career expo.

Demand for workers with Mandarin skills is on the rise in Indonesia following increased trade with China and increased Chinese investment.

China is currently Indonesia's biggest trading partner, and investments from the Chinese mainland are the third largest in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

Along with the strengthening of bilateral trade and increasing flow of Chinese investment in Indonesia, the Confucius Institutes in the country have continued to facilitate Chinese language and Chinese cultural courses. Their activities include cultural exchange programs between local universities and those in the Chinese mainland, all under a program co-sponsored by the Indonesian and Chinese governments.

Besides Al Alzhar, the Confucius Institutes are also located at eight universities in Indonesia, most of which are state owned. They include Ganesha University of Education in Banten; Maranatha University in Bandung, West Java; Surabaya State University in East Java; Udayana University in Bali; Hasanuddin University in Sulawesi; and Tanjungpura University in West Kalimantan. These institutes facilitate Chinese language instruction at their universities in partnership with leading universities in China.

Meanwhile, Chinese language courses offered by other institutions are flourishing in various provinces across the archipelago, including in Papua, the country's easternmost region, and in Aceh, its westernmost province.

Niu Haitao, co-director of Al Azhar's Confucius Institute, said, "It is very easy for our graduates to get employment. With Chinese language, they can earn more money and easily get higher positions."

Niu told China Daily that he had developed close relations with more than 300 managers at the business companies, and this enables him and his Al Azhar colleagues to better assess the performance of their Confucius Institute and the faculty of letters and culture at different universities.

Al Azhar is the only university in Jakarta that has a Confucius Institute, whose partner in China is Fujian Normal University. It facilitates Chinese language courses at other universities and senior high schools in the capital city and the surrounding areas.

Officials, vendors

Meanwhile, in the Bali provincial capital of Denpasar, state-owned Udayana University's Tourism Confucius Institute has become popular following an increase in the number of Chinese visitors to one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.

The institutes also teach the Chinese language to people in offices such as the customs & excise, the immigration department and the police department. Tourist guides and souvenir sellers are also taught Mandarin.

I Made Sendra, director of the Tourism Confucius Institute, was optimistic that more Chinese tourists would visit Bali in the coming years. He expects their numbers to soon exceed the figures recorded during the pre-pandemic days.

A group of Udayana University's students visited China on Aug 15-25. China's Jiangxi Normal University and Nanchang Normal University are their hosts.

Peng Liyuan, wife of President Xi Jinping, attended a reception hosted by Udayana University for her and Indonesian first lady Iriana Jokowi on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Bali late last year.

Students at the Tourism Confucius Institute of Indonesia's Udayana University in Bali, dressed in folk costumes, sang in Chinese the Indonesian song Bengawan Solo, according to Xinhua News Agency.

The existence of the Confucius Institute and the teaching of the Chinese language in Indonesia is not just a matter of enabling young people to get a job.

"The ability to speak Chinese leads employees to build good human relations," said Ding Yong, president and director of Jakarta-based PT Datang DSSP Power Indonesia, at Al Azhar's job expo.

With Chinese and Indonesian employees understanding each other better, their companies can improve the efficiency of their management and operation teams, he said.

The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.