A rant about learning Mandarin
Hans Kumlin, a Swede running an American factory in China, wrote "From Nerd to Warrior", a rant (a little foul-mouthed, but hey, he's Swedish) about his motivation for learning languages: first German, then Spanish, and now Mandarin.
Mandarin is the only one that matters. He's not in Germany, he's not in Spain. He's in China.
It's good reading for someone (like me) who is learning Mandarin (sometimes easily, many times with difficulty).