Thanks Bodhi, this was the third article I’ve sent to John Menadue, the second, as I mentioned before was a request which was then rejected, I sent that to him because I knew it was too confrontational for Chinese news outlets. Believe it or not, even the Global Times has limits on how much criticism they will allow in an op-ed.

As for the task of learning Chinese, I’m sorry, I’m definitely not the bst person to ask. I’m perhaps the world’s worst student and have not learnt any reading or writing in China. Of course, I can read a lot of characters, but by no means efficiently, I prefer to call myself functional — I have great conversatinos with taxi drivers for the first 10 or 15 minutes but on long journeys it gets quiet.

I could recommend going to any Confuscius Institute, depending on where you live they will help you, and if not, then the local Chinese embassy might. Not withstanding that, an ad locally or an appeal on Twitter, or whatever social media you feel most comfortable using, might find you a teacher willing to help in your area