@squ1rrel You write very well for a high school freshman and show a great deal of maturity or foresight even asking this question. I strongly believed in learning languages and cultures for our kid, and took unique life situations as opportunities to encourage our kid to learn as many languages as possible. Your parents are not wrong but you need to expose yourself to China by studying and experience it for one summer before you decide to invest more time and effort. If you do decide to learn Chinese, you have to become really good at it to make it worthwhile imo.