In comparison to java, dot net and php, there are much less perl programmers in china. For awhile I was looking for some engineers there to help with some perl projects, was very difficult even in places like Shanghai.

My own take (being a chinese myself) was several fold: For one, China caught the web fever after the CGI years already passed, missing the golden years of perl; furthermore, China has a large install base of Windows, even on the server side, so scripting for sysadmin was/is not widespread; Culture wise, chinese has much less participation in the Open Source movement, people are more inclined to take organized classes (thus dotnet and java). Anyhow, these are just my thoughts.

As to how, besides having projects/tasks, it all depends on need. At this age, people do have other choices: php, python, ruby, etc. I personally do not see a need to have an advocacy. Needs will drive everything.