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Chinese learning English in Nepal

Language Log 2025-09-02

Classrooms Beneath the Himalayas: Why China’s “Migrant Learners” Are Turning to Nepal Zheng Yiwen, The World of Chinese (8/13/25)

As a former Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal, I find this phenomenon of Chinese going to Nepal to learn English to be somewhat cognitively dissonant.

Here's what goes on in one such Kathmandu crammer:

Inside, around 10 young Chinese students sit in a classroom, hunched over as they complete English listening exercises. Leon Row, the school’s British founder and lead instructor, steps out of the classroom, and with a crisp London accent, gently asks the crowd outside to keep their voices down—the noise is disrupting them.

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“Chinese students have flooded in—they now make up around 70 percent of our total enrollment,” Row tells TWOC. “It started to increase from the beginning of the year, but the real surge has come in the past four months.” According to Row, the institute recently added a fourth classroom and expanded its teaching staff to meet demand.

Megan Zhu, a 27-year-old from China’s Hunan province, is one of the newest arrivals at the language school English for All. According to Zhu, she had quit her job the previous Friday and, by Monday, she was in Kathmandu with nothing but a backpack and a plan. “I signed up for classes immediately,” she tells TWOC. “I’ll be here for a month, mainly for English and a barista course. Then maybe I’ll travel a bit once the courses are done.”

Her daily schedule is tightly packed but deliberately unhurried: English classes from 12:30 to 2 p.m. followed by a short walk to a nearby coffee school for her 3 to 4 p.m. barista course. In between, she reviews assignments while sitting outside the school. “It keeps me busy,” she tells TWOC. “But life here feels less rushed.”

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Since early 2025, a quiet but steady influx of young Chinese in their 20s and 30s has begun to reshape Nepal’s short-term training scene—not only in English classrooms, but at coffee academies, yoga studios, tennis courts, and other skills-based programs. Most come with dual intention—to pick up a skill or two, and to momentarily drop out of China’s hyper-competitive education and work culture. They are not tourists exactly, nor digital nomads, but something in between: soft residents with a schedule.

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Why Nepal? In part, because of an official push. China formally declared 2025 the “Visit Nepal Year,” aiming for at least 500,000 of its citizens to visit by year-end—a major increase from the 101,879 Chinese nationals who visited Nepal last year, which itself was a 67 percent increase from 2023. In return, tourism provides a major driver of employment in the country, supporting approximately 1.19 million jobs in 2023—around 15 percent of the country’s total employment.

But young people are especially drawn to Nepal because of its cheap living, and the three interviewees above all traced their fledgling interest in the country back to the same source: Xiaohongshu, China’s Instagram-like lifestyle platform.

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At the Barista Coffee School—Kathmandu’s largest coffee training center—head instructor Anryan Kumar KC tells TWOC that Chinese students can make up as much as 60 percent of their student body. The shift has forced them to adapt. “They’re fast learners,” KC says. “But the language barrier is a challenge. Most of them speak very limited English, so we use translation apps—and we’ve picked up some coffee terms in Mandarin: bitter, sweet, sour, milk, latte art, that kind of thing.”

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“The results weren’t as significant as I’d hoped,” Liu tells TWOC. “Nepali instructors emphasize long-term immersion—repetition over technique. One of my instructors told me to forget tricks: Just read 15 minutes a day, watch English YouTube, and let it become part of your life. Real test hacks? You find those on Chinese online learning platforms.”

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Compared to Kathmandu, the tourist city of Pokhara offers transplants a gentler landing. Nestled beside Phewa Lake and the snow-capped Annapurna mountain range, Pokhara has an altogether slower rhythm, cleaner air, and scenic calm, earning it the nickname “the Dali of Nepal” on Chinese social media, a reference to the idyllic backpacker hub in China’s Yunnan province.

“I spent my first month in Pokhara,” Ada Lu tells TWOC, having now lived in Nepal for three months total. “I ended up spending the rest of my time in Kathmandu,” explaining that’s where her friends are. “It’s dirty, it’s hectic—but it’s also full of life.”

“I didn’t expect this, but maybe that’s the point…We’re all just going with the flow. In this land of gods and miracles, most of us didn’t come expecting miracles. Nepal isn’t about changing your life overnight. It’s a transit stop, a pause—just a place we’re passing through.”

Whenever I think of Pokhara, I am reminded of Machhapuchhre, whose twin summit points resemble a "fishtail", giving rise to its name in Nepali.  Its pyramidal shape and sharp, soaring peak, plus the fact that its name begins with "Ma-", lead me in turn to think of Matterhorn,  Machhapuchhre (22,943 ft.) is only 16 miles north of Pokhara — truly awesome (an adjective that I seldom use).  Matterhorn (German "meadow-horn", i.e., "peak of the meadows") (14,692 ft.) has a strikingly similar appearance; it is 75 miles north of Turin, the closest city with an airport.  As the crow flies, Matterhorn is 0.9 miles from Zermatt, the nearest town.  Zermatt (German "at the meadow") is car-free (!!); as the car drives, it is 143 miles from Matterhorn.

 

Selected readings

We have had many Language Log posts about stressful life in China and different modes of dropping out of the rat race:  "lying flat", "involution", "Buddha whatever", and so forth.