Astronaut family Astronaut family An astronaut family is a family unit where the members reside in different countries across the world—in contrast to a "nuclear family". The astronaut family represents the growing transnationalism of peoples' identities that accompanies the growing globalization. The term was coined by Aihwa Ong in her publication "Flexible Citizenship: The cultural logics of transnationality" in 1999. The term is especially used to describe Chinese families, who have spread across the globe. Astronaut families was a new economic source started in the early 80s for Chinese to migrate abroad and work under contracts or settle down and then send
Chinese as a foreign language the Kuomintang took over control from Japan after World War II. In 2010, 750,000 people (670,000 from overseas) took the Chinese Proficiency Test. For comparison, in 2005, 117,660 non-native speakers took the test, an increase of 26.52% from 2004. From 2000 to 2004, the number of students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland taking Advanced Level exams in Chinese increased by 57%. An independent school in the UK made Chinese one of their compulsory subjects for study in 2006. The study of Chinese is also rising in the United States. The USC U.S.-China Institute cited a report that 51,582 students