Lobbying for Mandarin-immersion program

Chinese language appears to be a huge gift Susan has been trying to bring to the kids. Charlotte has been learning Mandarin for three years and Georgia about one year. They currently spend about two hours a week in Chinese class and Susan usually sits in on Charlotte's Chinese class for the last 20 minutes, taking notes on what's new.

Look and Say is a game which Charlotte and Georgia love to play with Susan acting as mentor, as a way to practise Chinese. Susan shows pictures one by one to the girls and they compete to say the Chinese words of the objects in the picture. Sometimes she helps them with the answers, though her Chinese pronunciation is not so good.

Realizing it's not easy for Charlotte and Georgia to achieve Chinese fluency in an English-speaking background and by attending classes just once a week, Susan has joined about nine parents in passionately lobbying Vancouver School Board over the past two years for a Mandarin-immersion program in public school system, starting from kindergarten.

The group represents some 140 parents and their 250 children and are hoping for a start in September 2010. She said the the Vancouver School Board had agreed to the proposal in principle and was working on the school curriculum, funding, possible teachers and school location.

'A beattiful Chinsese girl'

With the Mandarin-immersion program pending in school, the Duffys have already had their own Chinese culture immersion in their family. They celebrate important Chinese festivals with Charlotte and Georgia, including joining parades in Chinatown during Spring Festivals, and admiring the moon during Mid-autumn Festivals. They even celebrate Chinese Valentine Day. On these occasions, Susan likes to tell kids Chinese legends about their origins.

As the children always like food, Susan has managed to make steady progress in cooking Chinese food. She can prepare a table of traditional Chinese food for Spring Festival, comprising a whole steamed fish, long-life noodles, sweet and sour shrimp, dumplings and so on.

It was important for the children to have a mixture of Chinese traditions and North American traditions, Susan said, adding "they can see and make these choices for themselves when they get older."

All the efforts that the Duffys have made in incorporating Chinese culture into the children's lives are rewarding. When being asked what they know about China, Charlotte cited "populous"," Tiananmen Square", "dumpling" and "firecracker" while Georgia said "panda" and "bamboo."

The Duffys agree both Charlotte and Georgia are comfortable with their special identity and proud of who they are. As Eamon recalled, one morning when he and Charlotte were both in the bathroom and looking in the mirror together, he asked her: "what do you see in the mirror?" Charlotte just said: "I see a beautiful Chinese girl." Eamon felt that was "so wonderful."

Eamon said that when Westerners adopt Chinese children, it's very important that they will still be Chinese. If Charlotte and Georgia get older and go back to China for whatever reasons, he hopes the Chinese culture and heritage they learn now will make them comfortable there.

In fact, the Duffys are considering return trips to China as the girls grow up. They hope the first one will take place in the autumn of 2010.

(Xinhua News Agency November 17, 2009)