From what I've seen, not much and what they learn isn't all that amazing... Hell ask the average CHINESE kid about their own country and they can't tell you much... It's surprising as I know they do well in school...

West? What west?

We only know there is one Great China, we r the middle. Is there any other country ever exist?

And about China, we know little, because it's just too huge!!!!!

See what I mean, look what wenna7 learnt in school... It's a good thing foreigners have come to help out, what would you people do without us?! Don't worry wenna7, sooner or later you'll learn, I'll make it my mission in life to educate you.

Wenna is right, u go wenna!

China is huge and it have too much 6000 yr history. Our China have more history than all Western together, so of course it complicate to learn ALL about China!

dont you know. China has 6000 years of history!!! the west just popped out of nothingness about 200 years ago, and have contributed nothing to anybody, only Chinese history is worth learning. exept the great leap forward, cultural revolution. tienanmen 1989. their is no real reason to learn about that.

I love how it's now "6000 years". A few years ago it was 5000 years. In 2014 it will be 10,000 years.

America has a long history,, we just don't know it,, Indians,,Mayans,,, their cities deserted before whites came.,,,the Eskimos know where Atlantis is and we won't tell

The 5,000 year history claim is certainly debatable. Some scholars suggest 4,000. But the 5,000 year figure has become a useful tool for nationalists to invoke when they thump their chest and proclaim things like "only China's history is worth learning".

Incidentally, by contrast the West has perhaps 3,000 - 3,500 years of history if you go back to the origins of Greek and Mycenaean civilization.

As for what Chinese kids learn of the West in school, I think it is safe to say it is very limited. I think the main thing most students take away is the "west as imperialists" narrative from events like the Opium War. But I don't think it's TOO unusual for schools across the world to focus overwhelmingly on history of their own cultural.

Yet overall, I have to say that overall, the level of education in China concerning humanities and social sciences is extremely poor.

Well the sad truth is be it 4000 years or 5000 years of history... It was all undone over the past 62 years...

Why would any nationalist think only China's history is worth learning? It's thousands of years of the same shit. Whereas the rest of the world evovled, invented things, went to the moon, discovered continents. Are they just pretending to save face? Sad.

I teach in a private school kids come from all over and know nothing because the Chinese teachers say they dont have time...the truth is they know nothing about real western life ,and they guess and teach the kids wrong......if your going to teach about the western world get the facts right or you sgouldnt be in the teaching profession

Egyptinan and European culture predate 5000 years.I have always bee fascinated with Egypt and Greek history.
Immigration started 15,000 bc to North America,, still continues to this day,, hows that for history !!

i was trying to explain the TV show' Zena' to my gf, by using Greek history,, she didn't know what I was talking about.

I'm Canadian,,i find Americans don't know Canadain history or geography, at least not the tourists, and they are so intertwined.

You'd be surprised, actually.

I taught for a while and my kids had lots of hours spent on American history, geography and the like. Whether or not they actually incorporated any of that knowledge is a different question, but they certainly were taught quite a bit about the States. Also not entirely sure how much of that was fabrication or truth.

All that has come at the detriment of knowledge about Europe. I mean, who cares about Europe anymore?

Chinese make you feel like crap for not knowing this or that period of their history, but they themselves couldn't place Germany on a map of Europe.

Apart from the students who learn a specific language like French, Spanish or German in university, don't expect Chinese to know a damn thing about Europe.

As far as the States go, they might be able to talk about KFC and basketball for a while, but really, don't expect much more.

We dont really to start to learn about the West before high school, and most is America. I think its difficult for us because we know our teachers also dont really know much. And not all schools have foreign teachers, so its normal for us not to much know.

mostly we use internet, like shows like Big Bang Theory, etc to learn ourselves.

But your history we dont know.

Civilisations stagnate, backslide and become extinct all the time. China's current civilisation is a pre-modern technological industrialism. Maybe in another 5000, 6000 or 10000 years they'll come close to catching up again.

Yes, we heavily studied Marx, that's very true.
 But 5 years after graduation, I clearly remember we also studied Aristotle, Socrates, Archimedes , ect .
 Those two boys you talked with were probably sleeping during politics and history class.  Most students do that because of the horrible textbooks. The editors make the books so boring
 By the way, politics, philosophy, and economics are all mixed together, we call this politics class
 P.S. History includes both Chinese and Western ancient and modern history, we start learning this from primary school

My undergraduate degree was in History & Religious Studies. Just saying what my major was is more than enough to get most eyes to glaze over in zombie like boredom, or run screaming for the door.

Sad fact is that very few people care about History. Now, having said that, I have encountered some Chinese students who have a very solid grasp of "Western History" (sorry guys for lumping us together) but over all most people I know, Chinese and Western, know or even care very little about History.  To give you an example, there was this guy from Canada a few years ago who insists the Flying Tigers were really Canadian and that he was sick of Americans trying to claim otherwise...

In fairness, as Ted said above, we Americans know very little about Canadian history.

every thing they know and are taught is western they just do not know it. i do not think even 1% of the science and math they are learning was discovered or invented in china as for history can you say xenophobic. 

every thing they know and are taught is western they just do not know it. i do not think even 1% of the science and math they are learning was discovered or invented in china as for history can you say xenophobic. 

In fairness I wasn't taught much about Chinese history in school.

My idea of China as a child was this massive country of factories surrounded by a great wall...

National history comes first, I think this would apply for most countries.

And western countries often teach about the world wars.