Chinesewings.com 2005/10/31

　　To Cameron Persons, it is a language of expressive nature. This 17 year old high school student resides in San Francisco where she diligently practices her Chinese characters and asserts, “ I like the Chinese characters .They look beautiful.”
　　A couple weeks ago, Cameron Persons begin Mandarin classes at Piedmont High School. Mandarin fever has finally hit schools in America and doesn’t seem to be stopping. Based solely on the public schools in San Francisco, the number of students learning Mandarin has already reached 2200.
Currently, there are 50,000 students learning Mandarin with an increasing number of schools integrating the language into their curriculum, such as Louisa May Alcott Elementary School in Chicago. Mandarin classes begun this February to popular acclaim with a growing amount of students foregoing Spanish in favor of Mandarin as a secondary language.
　　In the classrooms, the American and Chinese flag can be found hung, side by side. Lanterns suspend from the ceiling while pandas and paper dragons decorate the walls. Third graders can be seen bowing and greeting in Mandarin before the beginning of class while students in fourth grade practice their characters on the blackboard. Principal David J. Domovic exclaims, “Mandarin is much coveted!” Principal Domovic’s school is one out of twenty schools in Chicago that offer Mandarin classes.
　　A further 2,400 schools have decided to offer courses in Mandarin starting next year. The Chinese government has agreed to fund half of the USD$1.35 million needed to decorate classrooms, create course content, hire teachers and so on. Democrat Senator Joseph Liebermann and Republican Senator Lamar Alexander have pushed through a law regulating the government to set aside USD$1.3 billion to fund Mandarin classes for five years.
　　Trevor Packer, Executive Director of the Advanced Placement (AP) Program states, “A growing number of Americans will become conscious of how important it is to be able to speak Mandarin.” Scott McGinnis of the Defense Language Institute in Washington D.C. also says, “In the next ten years, the amount of Mandarin courses offered will triple. Mandarin tutelage will be everywhere, from elementary schools to night classes.” He further iterates the future value of learning Mandarin because China’s rapid growth will make it an economic and military superpower in no time.
　　Many students decide to learn Mandarin because of the Chinese ancestry in their family. Take for example 17 year old Michael Lucas in San Francisco whose grandmother emigrated from Beijing to America during World War II. Michael Lucas hopes to further understand his grandmother’s culture and his own roots through learning the language.
　　Mandarin has caught on the most in cities such as San Francisco, Chicago and New York, where Asians account for a large portion of the population. There are 3.4 million American-born Chinese solely in New York, which is more than any other American city. In addition, the fever has also caught on to people with no Chinese background or heritage. Irene Driscoll lives near New York and has a daughter learning Mandarin. She says, “Wall Street in New York is full of businessmen conducting trade with China. Our child learning Mandarin is important to America. Even the mayor of Chicago expressed that the two dominant languages of the future will be Mandarin and English.”