I didn't expect people to greet me in Chinese when I attended a cocktail reception held by the Washington-based International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) on Tuesday.

I went there to learn more about a series of new projects by the winners of the 2011 Knight International Journalism Fellowships. The projects range from digital mapping at Colombia's largest newspaper, El Tiempo, aimed at identifying trends in the coming local elections, to a regular health section at This Day, a newspaper in Nigeria, and promoting the use of digital technology in the Middle East.

With these projects, the fellows who are established journalists in their own countries hope to improve the quality of their work as well as the life of the communities they serve.

Even at such an international gathering, I was surprised by the number of people with China connections. Marcus Brauchli, executive editor of the Washington Post, surprised me by telling me in Chinese that he had forgotten to bring his business card. Vjollca Shtylla, who is now in Beijing on a business trip, told me she learned Chinese in the 1970s as an exchange student from Albania. Others who greeted me in Chinese said they studied the language in China.

As Jaime FlorCruz, CNN's bureau chief in Beijing, noted recently, China has experienced an "English craze". Now it is America's turn.

Gone are the days when Lucia Sedwick Claster started learning Chinese at Bowdoin College. Her class in 1976 had only three students, all girls.

Today, not only do American colleges and universities offer Chinese language programs; many elementary and high schools across the US do too. In Chicago, more than 12,000 public school students are learning Chinese. According to the College Board, the number of high school students taking Chinese language as part of the advance placement program more than doubled between 2007 and 2010.