Joël Bellassen: Developing a Liking for Chinese has Changed My Life

Joël Bellassen is a renowned French sinologist, the first Inspector General of Chinese of the Ministry of National Education (France), Vice President of the International Society for Chinese Language Teaching (ISCLT), and Professor at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris. Majoring in philosophy and Chinese at university, he went to Beijing before graduation in 1973 as one of the first French students to be sent to China, and he has never broken his ties with China since then. Born in 1950, Joël Bellassen is also a promoter and witness of Sino-French cultural and educational cooperation. In addition to editing more than 30 linguistic monographs, including A Key to Chinese Speech and Writing, Instruction for Use of Chinese Grammar, and Ideographic Kingdom of Chinese Characters, he also translated famous Chinese writer Lu Xun's popular works like Kong Yiji, Medicine, Call to Arms into French.

Romance with China

"It's been half a century since I first became attached to Chinese. Through being curious about Chinese, learning Chinese systematically and further understanding Chinese, the profoundness of Chinese culture has captivated me and changed my life." French sinologist and Chinese language educator Joël Bellassen, who speaks standard Mandarin, recalled his experience of learning Chinese.

In 1969, Joël Bellassen entered the University of Paris VIII to study Chinese. Before graduation, coinciding with the resumption of cultural exchanges between France and China, Joël Bellassen went to study in China in 1973 and became one of the first French students to go there. "It was pretty exciting news for me at that time and changed my life." He said proudly.

"When I was studying Chinese in France, I was interested in anything related to China and Chinese language, from idiom stories to playing weiqi (a game played with black and white pieces on a board of 361 crosses), as well as the philosophy of Chinese ancient great thinkers Laozi and Zhuangzi and the literary works of Lu Xun. However, seeing is believing. Thanks to seeing and experiencing them in China in person, my Chinese has improved significantly and I have deepened my understanding of China." Joël Bellassen recollected.

In 1975, he returned to France after completing his studies, and in the following over four decades he has been devoted to the promotion, research and teaching of Chinese language, and his personal career is closely linked to the cultural exchange between France and China. He served as the first Inspector General of Chinese from 2006 to 2016.

In the past 20 years, France has seen a boom in Chinese language learning, for example, at the secondary level, where the number of students learning Chinese is growing and Chinese language teaching is becoming more standardized, said Joël Bellassen. Many parents believe that mastering Chinese language will play an important role in their children's future employment and other areas.

Bellassen noted that Chinese is now more and more widely used in France. "For example, at the Louvre, Charles de Gaulle Airport, and some train stations in Paris, the signs and notices are usually in three major languages, the first is French, the second is English, and the third is Chinese. This is something I never imagined when I was learning Chinese before."

For more than a decade, the French government has been offering international classes of Chinese language in 46 primary and secondary schools in 10 school districts, which is the third largest number of international classes in 17 languages among French primary and secondary schools. According to statistics, more than 100,000 French students studied Chinese in 2018.

According to Bellassen, the rise of "Chinese language fever" in France is inseparable from the historical connection between the two countries and the support of the French Ministry of Education. He said France was the first Western country to open a Chinese language department in its universities, and the scale of its Chinese language education far exceeds that of some other European countries. In addition, the Ministry of Education has clear policies and measures to support Chinese language teaching. "France, for example, appointed a full-time Inspector General of Chinese, which is an important initiative for the French education system."

He believes that the best way for French people to know more about China is to learn Chinese and to study Chinese language and culture in depth, so as to improve understanding and remove prejudices.

In terms of his expectations for the relationship between the two countries, Bellassen said, "I will continue to promote Chinese culture and hope that the relationship between the two countries, especially in education and cultural exchanges, will continue to prosper and grow closer."

Spread of Chinese language

"Language is interesting in that it is a mirror that reflects the geographical environment where it is produced. In Finnish language, for example, there are several words for 'snow', while French has just one word because France doesn't get snow as often as Finland and doesn't need more words. "Bellassen said.

"The way of thinking is determined by their own language and characters. For example, although some words in French and English are similar, they are very different in the nature of the language and in how they process the information, and to some extent, English is closer to Chinese, as has been proven. If you look at English and French classical philosophy, from a distance they both look like western philosophy, but in fact they are very different. English classical philosophy is characterized by pragmatism, the so-called empiricism, which is very different from French and German classical philosophy, especially German classical philosophy which is certainly more abstract. I believe that China and the West are complementary in terms of ideas and ways of thinking, just like the taiji diagram (diagram of the universe). For example, the western subject-object relationship is clearly separated, while China is about the harmony between man and nature. Western culture is seen as focusing on linear logical thinking and discursiveness, while the Chinese way of thinking is regarded as placing more emphasis on flexibility, and the two should be complementary. "Bellassen explained.

Since around the mid-1980s, Bellassen has gradually developed a relatively clear and systematic "character-based" approach to Chinese language teaching, emphasizing the use of characters to bring phrases together and taking both into account, and compiling textbooks based on this principle. In 1989, he edited and published the influential textbook: A Key to Chinese Speech and Writing, in collaboration with Zhang Pengpeng; the Chinese version of the book was titled Hanyu Yuyan Wenzi Qimengzi Jiaocai. In the mid to late 80's, he also conceived the first "Chinese character threshold" of 400 basic Chinese characters, which became an important indicator for the teaching and assessment of Chinese language teaching in France. He said, "The French character-based approach not only emphasizes the teaching of Chinese characters, but also considers the context of Chinese language teaching as a whole." In other words, Professor Bellassen's approach to Chinese language teaching is infused with his systematic and holistic view of language theory alongside the teaching of Chinese characters.

In 2002, Bellassen edited and published Illustrating Chinese Characters and Phrases. In 2010, he published a Chinese language toolkit General Chinese, which was compiled in collaboration with Arnaud Arslangul. In 2011, the Chinese reading textbook Snowballing Chinese, written in collaboration with Prof. Liu Jialing, was published. In 2012, Ideographic Kingdom of Chinese Characters, written in collaboration with French-Chinese painter Chen Dehong, was published in Paris. In recent years, he is in charge of compiling a book on the History of the Spread of Chinese in France.

France is the first country around the world to incorporate the Chinese language into its basic education system and as a subject in the college entrance examination. Bellassen said he hopes and believes that other countries in Europe and the United States should make Chinese an official foreign language in their basic education systems. Thus, eastern and western cultures will truly play a complementary role in understanding each other's way of thinking. Learning a language, especially a "distant language", is not just about learning a tool, but about learning from the "others".