This paper explores a key dilemma of the Chinese
middle class as it appears in their apparent adherence to
official language policy despite their lack of direct knowledge
of that policy. Using fieldwork data from Hangzhou, I
show that a group of middle-class parents worked together to
build an ‘‘Ancient Way Academy’’ for their children to chant
the ancient Chinese classics. In this, although they were
unaware of the official policy of ‘‘Chanting the Chinese
Classics’’ (CCC), they effectively reproduced it in their
actions. Some parents, however, soon drifted away from the
traditionalism of CCC and toward a much stronger emphasis
on the learning of English as the gateway to modernization.
In facing the dilemma of choice between these two educational
pathways, the parents thus unwittingly reenacted the
state’s ceaseless oscillation between nationalistic and international
visions of the country’s needs.

EB00000002329K

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• Between the National and the International: Ethnography of Language Ideologies in a Middle-Class Community in China