Learning for the future

Except for the store manager and one assistant sent from China, all employees are local hires.

"Most of them are of Chinese descent and have some founding in the language," said Li. The company trains them and, over time, many of them have learned to speak and even write in Chinese. It will be beneficial for their future jobs."

Daumnimon, 33, works in the Phnom Penh store. A friend introduced the former factory worker to the language two years ago.

"I started learning Chinese in 1997, but my language skills have really improved since I became a bookseller," said the ethnic Chinese man, who added that Chinese textbooks are the most popular items in the store.

Dhananjaya Sutanto, a Jakarta-born ethnic Chinese who has spent the last few years working in China, felt the demand for Chinese books may be limited, even though many people are curious about the new Chinese bookstore in the neighborhood.

"In Jakarta, we have many small Chinese bookstores. The problem is that books here are too expensive," he said. "For example, one Xinhua Dictionary (the standard dictionary of modern Chinese) can sell for about 200 yuan ($33), while in China it costs around 20-something."

"I'd rather buy one from China and carry it back home," he said. "Plus, there are some books related to business practice that are always hard to find outside China."

Sutanto believes that the next generation of ethnic Chinese will have better language skills, but he pointed out that they are also very comfortable with Western culture, including movies, music and novels.

"I don't know how much they would like to go to a Chinese bookstore at the weekend with friends and read Chinese books," he said.

However, Li is sanguine about the development of the language abroad.

"On Aug 15 when I visited our Phnom Penh store, two Singaporeans asked if we were selling Zhu Rongji's Shanghai Speeches," said Yao. "I was amazed. The former premier's new book had only been published in China three days earlier. I told myself: 'People are watching China closely from every corner of the planet'."