THE old man would surely be proud. This week some 300 representatives, from 35 different countries, gathered in Beijing's Great Hall of the People for the first-ever Confucius Institute conference. This was no philosophical pow-wow, but the world's largest-ever conference on teaching Chinese as a foreign language. Confucius Institutes are China's answer to the Alliance Française, Germany's Goethe Institut and the British Council, and officials hope they will help meet a growing global demand for Chinese-language education.

　　孔老夫子肯定会感到自豪。本周，来自35个国家的近300名代表在北京人民大会堂召开了首届孔子学院大会。这不是一次讨论哲学思想的会议，而是迄今为止最大的一次研究对外汉语教学的大会。孔子学院的意义如同法兰西联谊会、德国歌德学院和英国文化协会，中国官员希望它将有助于满足全球对汉语教学日益增长的需求。