We learn mandarin because it's worth it.

Because our culture has more than three thousands years old of lesson for ur to learn. And it is the responsibility of descendants to inherit what their ancestors leave for them.

In fact, SPM level chinese is deteriorating already. The standard isn't equivalent to China's level. They need to write atleast 1000 words for one essay, we only need to write more than 350 words. Furthermore, their exam requires them to translate the 白话文to文言文(which i think is much more difficult)，unlike spm only translate 文言文to白话文.