Even two centuries into the capitalist era, the literatures of East and West remain separate

A while back the vogue in San Francisco was to put your toddler into a Mandarin-immersion preschool. White yuppies got the idea that because China was the other pole in a newly-bipolar world, that it would confer some material advantage for their kids to know Mandarin. It made absolutely no sense. If you learn Spanish, there is a potential that you coul…