Про chic-factor :D

[N!cky]

"With its reputation for intractable difficulty, speaking and writing Chinese fluently is seen as the gold standard of intellectual achievement. If you are fluent in Chinese and have no Chinese background, nobody should ever have a doubt about your intelligence.

Of course there are many other difficult languages out there, and all Chinese speakers are not rocket scientists, but chic is about image, is it not?" (c)

Speaking about motivation