Why American Children are Interested in Learning Chinese
--Xinmin Evening News Reporters Visit Chinese Schools in the US

Currently, ethnic Chinese “stand-up comedy” is popular in the US. A classic episode from a comedy by Comedian Joe Wong: His American-born son asks him, “Hey Dad! Why do I have to learn both English and Chinese?” Joe Wong joked, “Son, once you become the president of the United States, you’re going to sign legislation bills in English, and talk to debt collectors in Chinese!”

Children should begin learning Chinese at early age

When speaking of foreigners learning Chinese, the first person who springs to our mind probably is Mark Henry Rowswell, the Canadian man who performed cross talk together with Jiang Kun at the Spring Festival Gala Evening.

Several years ago, when we saw a foreign student singing “You are like a fire in the winter” at a Chinese bridge program, that looked incredibly strange to most of us.

Nowadays, our reporters found that at Barnard Elementary School of San Diego, a large number of non-Chinese American children could speak perfect Chinese; at Denver Chinese Culture Center of Colorado, some American parents enrolled in Chinese courses due to their adopted Chinese children, and their desire to ensure that the children stay in touch with the culture and language of their mother country. These phenomena indicate that a campaign of Chinese-learning is sweeping over the U.S.

Since the U.S. has a history of only approximately 200 years, the long history of 5,000 years of China and its profound culture seems fresh and interesting to the American people.

Addie has been learning Chinese for only one year, but he won the first place prize for the elementary group in the “Chinese Bridge” contest in California this year. He told us in Chinese that he liked the Great Wall, “I liked it at first sight. I don’t know why. ”

Addie’s mother had brought him to China twice in one year, and visited 10 cities. The

5th grade boy told his mother that his dream was to study Chinese in Shanghai.

The Denver Chinese Culture Center aims to help adopted Chinese children remember the splendid culture of their motherland. Yu Li, Head of the center stated that there was an increase in elementary and secondary schools offering Chinese courses during the last 4 or 5 years. If the children begin learning Chinese from the age of three or four, then it will be easier for them to learn Chinese in formal schools, “Children should begin learning language at early age.”

Chinese learning is beyond interesting

In Denver, Jonathan, who has never been to China gave himself a Chinese name—Xiao Qiang. Xiao Qing will have his college admissions test next year and he works at the Denver Chinese Culture Center as a volunteer every week, in hopes of increasing his chances of meeting Chinese people. His Chinese teacher proudly said that Xiao Qiang was No. 1 among all the Chinese learners in Denver and he deserved his Chinese name (which means superior in English). He will become an expert on China in the future, “He told me that his future work will related to China. ”

With the strengthening of China economy, more and more Americans realized that learning Chinese well would increase their chance to get a good job in the future.

Edward D. Park, Principal of Barnard Elementary School, is a Korean American, when he took over the school about 2 years ago, there were only about 130 students studying there and the school was about to be closed due to low enrollment. Now, the number of students has doubled and the school has students who live up 30 kilometers away from the school.

“The former principal made right decision to offer Chinese courses in the school before he retired.” When Edward D. Park took over, he set clear goals to offer unique courses such as Chinese and employ two excellent Chinese teachers. The school, as the only full-time public elementary offering Chinese courses in San Diego, was honored as a “Model School in California” (ranked among the top 5 in California) and became a sister school with Fengxian Ladder English Kindergarten in Shanghai.

When our reporters conducted interviews at the school the day before yesterday, they met a batch of principals from northern California who came to learn from the school’s success. The principals intended to open Chinese classes in their schools. Edward D. Park stated that when his school becomes well-known for its Chinese teaching, he received many delegations from other schools. “There are 2.5 billion Chinese people learning English while only 23 thousand Americans are studying Chinese. Although the difference in numbers are significant, there are still a large number of Chinese learners, ” he said.

The school council has voted to teach other subjects in Chinese starting from next year. By that time, 80% of the subjects will be taught in Chinese. “The bold decision is related to the strong demands of the parents, ” the principal said. Among the students, 38% are Hispanic Americans, 38% are Caucasians, 20% are African Americans, and only one student is Chinese American.

When Chen Zhunmin, Counselor of Education from the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles, conducted a survey on promotion of Chinese culture in southern California, some Americans engaged in education told him, “If Hanban stresses the promotion of the Chinese language in Chinese communities, it will make certainly add value to the community; if it focuses on largely white communities, it will offer an opportunity for many different people to become involved in something unique and valuable.”

Feeling proud of learning Chinese

Jon Meade Huntsman, Jr. is the current United States Ambassador to China and previously served as the Governor of Utah. He is fond of China and able to speak fluent Chinese, had made great efforts in promoting Chinese culture in Utah.

According to Edward D. Park, there have been 53 Chinese classes opened in Utah in one year. “It has created no small stir in the U.S.,” he said.

Edward D. Park became famous for his efforts in Chinese promotion. A large number of Korean Americans asked him why he doesn’t promote the Korean language. He confided: “Chinese culture is the core and essence of East Asian cultures. Both Korean and Japanese cultures will benefit from the wide promotion of Chinese culture.” Mr. Park, who has been invited to China for 4 times for his successful managing of a school, is now trying hard to improve his Chinese level. Chinese teacher Mao Ronghui has lived in the U.S. for 20 years. When she first came to the U.S., she chose education as her major while most of her friends majored in finance, computer, accounting, and biochemistry. After graduation, she worked as an English teacher to teach ESL students. 9 years ago, she found a job as a bilingual teacher in the Silicon Valley in northern California. 3 years ago, she moved to San Diego due to family reasons and saw the school’s advertisement for Chinese teachers. Then she became a Chinese teacher at Barnard Elementary School.

When talking about her feelings, Ms. Mao cannot help but cry, “I feel glad and proud when our homeland grows more and more strong. There should be no difference between teaching English and Chinese. But as for me, the feelings are rather different…”

Since Barnard Elementary School heavily features its Chinese-English bilingual teaching as a selling point, Ms. Mao values this job and devotes her effort to developing Chinese teaching methods and the compilation of Chinese textbooks. “This is also a heavy responsibility,” she said. (Xinmin Evening News, May 19th, wrote by Gao Xing )