Chinese School aims to keep culture alive for its students

By Linda Shrieves
Sentinel Staff Writer

October 20, 2003

Hunched over a piece of parchment, with a calligraphy brush in her hand,Justine Chan struggles to paint the Chinese characters precisely."You have to go very slowly," says Justine, 12. "It's not as easy as itlooks." But Justine is on a mission.

After visiting China and Hong Kong last summer with her father, a Native of Hong Kong, Justine returned to Orlando with one goal: to learn Mandarin Chinese. So she signed up for classes at Chinese School, operated Saturday afternoons by the Chinese American Association of Central Florida.

Each Saturday, while most of their classmates play soccer or watch college football, 150 students -- most of them of Chinese descent --spend three hours in classrooms at Winter Park High's Ninth Grade Center, studying books with Chinese characters.

The school has been open for 20 years. Its teachers are members of the Chinese American Association eager to keep their language and culture alive. The cost: $100 per semester. In the Chinese community, parents enroll children as young as 4. Some want the youngsters to speak their native language; others want to improve their children's chances of getting into competitive colleges such as Harvard and Stanford. But for
most parents, there's a more sentimental reason. "It's so rewarding when you can see the kids write a birthday note to Grandma or send an e-mail to a cousin in Taiwan," says Jessie Chen, a psychologist and the school's volunteer principal. "It's all about family."

Students are separated into two categories: those whose parents speak Chinese at home and those whose parents don't. With a Caucasian mother and a Chinese father, Justine Chan belongs to the latter. So she and a group of three Caucasian adults sit in a portable classroom and converse-- or attempt to -- with teacher Bob Lynch, who learned Chinese in graduate school.

Lynch's students include 34-year-old Lillian Droz, a kung fu student; Michael Stutler, 35, a former theme-park employee who wants to work in China; and Sandrine Butler, 35, who teaches Spanish at a Maitland private school. Butler, who speaks six languages, always dreamed of learning eight languages. Now she's rethinking that goal. "Chinese is
so hard that I think this is it," she says.

Little wonder. A language with tens of thousands of characters,
Mandarin Chinese is so complex that most native speakers and writers use only 500 basic characters. Still, that's too much for many non-native speakers to learn. So on this sunny Saturday afternoon, Lynch teaches his pupils a key phrase: "I don't know."

In another classroom, 10 children, ages 7 to 13, are learning how to Say their names and ages in Chinese. For some, it's the first time they've seen their name written in characters. Most are Chinese, of course -- except for Joe Benjamin.

Joe, who's 12, wanted to take classes because he's intrigued with Chinese art -- and because a school friend, Jason Shieh, attends too.
Joe's parents, on the other hand, are eager for Joe to learn Chinese because they want him to be well-rounded. The Benjamin and Shieh families take turns driving from Indian Harbor Beach every Saturday.

The students have homework, which adds up to about 30 minutes each day. "I try not to give them too much pressure," says teacher Rachel Pan.

"Learning a language is a long-term project."

Indeed, many who begin Chinese school at age 4 or 5 continue through high school. For those who signed up as teenagers or college students, catching up isn't easy.

Take David Wong, 24, a University of Central Florida graduate student, who began classes this fall.

Growing up, he was too busy for Chinese school and his mother didn't have time to teach him. Now in a class full of teenagers who have studied the language for years, he finds himself floundering."I thought if I jumped in the deep end, I'd learn quickly," says Wong. "Right now, I'm kind of drowning."

There are no grades, but students take exams regularly, and teachers will call home if a student is struggling. Yet every week, there is a reward. After two hours of language instruction, the students break for cultural electives: Chinese chess, calligraphy, art, traditional Chinese dance, kung fu and Chinese yo-yo.

Alas, the kids are Americans too. After class ends, the older boys skip the electives and head to a grassy area for a truly American elective:
football.

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