I know that Chinese is one of the hardest foreign language to learn in either speaking or (especially) writing.
In my childhood, I always wanted to learn chinese not just because I was influenced by those chinese (kungfu/shaolin) movies, but also that I want to understand each and every chinese characters. Secondly, there's a lot of chinese here in our country. It is essential to do a business with them in the near future if I know how to speak your language.
So far, I can speak and write elementary level of chinese but I'm not that good yet...
:)