Chen Dong (astronaut) Chen Dong (astronaut) Chen Dong (; born 12 December 1978) is a Chinese pilot and astronaut selected as part of the Shenzhou program. A fighter pilot in the People's Liberation Army Air Force, he was selected to be a CNSA astronaut in 2010. Chen was born in Luoyang, Henan on 12 December 1978 from a working-class family. He holds a Master degree in Engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong University. He joined the People's Liberation Army Air Force in August 1997, achieving the rank of Colonel. Chen was selected for the second batch for Chinese astronauts in 2009 when he was a
Chinese as a foreign language late 16th century. Among the first were the Italian Jesuits, Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci. They mastered the language without the aid of any grammar books or dictionaries, and are often viewed as the first Western sinologists. Ruggeiri set up a school in Macau, which was the first for teaching foreigners Chinese and translated part of the "Great Learning" into Latin. This was the first translation of a Confucian classic into any European language. He also wrote a religious tract in Chinese, the first Chinese book written by a Westerner. Matteo Ricci brought Western sciences to China, and became a