Monday, December 13, 2010

Help Us Usher In the Year of the Rabbit!



photo caption: Kwan's Kung Fu performs a traditional lion dance to celebrate the Chinese New Year.


Chinese New Year Festival at Stamford’s Plaza Hotel and Conference Center

-- 9th Annual Chinese New Year Festival Welcomes in the Year of the Rabbit --

“We are very excited to have such an exciting group of performers, artists, and wonderful food at our Chinese New Year Festival this year,” said Greenwich resident, CLSC Chinese New Year Festival Chair, Anita Lai.


Riverside, CT, December 12, 2010 – Stamford Mayor Michael Pavia will welcome in the Year of the Rabbit at the Chinese Language School of Connecticut’s 9th Annual Chinese New Year Festival to be held Sunday, January 23, 2011, from 12:0-3:00pm at the Stamford Plaza Hotel and Conference Center, 2701 Summer Street, Stamford, CT . For information and tickets please visit: www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org.

The non-profit Chinese Language School of Connecticut (CLSC) (www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org) teaches Chinese as a second language to children and adults in their weekday and weekend classes, Before and After School programs, cultural workshops, winter and spring break programs, summer classes, private tutoring and AP Prep sessions.

Martial Arts performers, drummers, and a Dragon Dance will be performed by Kwan’s Kung Fu Studio, of Peekskill, NY. Since 1982, martial arts have been taught at Kwan's Kung Fu in Westchester, NY by Sifu Shue Yiu Kwan. This traditional Kwoon (school) offers its students training in Fu Jow Pai (Tiger Claw System), which originated in the mid 19th century, as well as Tai Chi Chuan and Lion Dance. Fu Jow Pai training includes aerobic activity, strength training, increased flexibility, practical self defense, respect, self discipline, values, improved coordination and concentration. Master Kwan has been featured in prominent martial arts publications such as Inside Kung-Fu magazine.

This year’s Chinese New Year Festival will usher in the year of the rabbit and, along with Kwan’s Kung Fu performers, will feature music provided by the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York, gravity-defying Chinese Yo-yo performances and children’s workshops by the Columbia University Chinese yoyo troupe, name painting artists, brush calligraphy demonstration, traditional crafts for children; Asian vendors, an authentic Chinese buffet luncheon included as part of the price of admission, and much more.

Susan Serven, president of CLSC, noted, “We’re very pleased to welcome the retirement planning advisory and investment firm, www.YourOwnRetirement.com, as a lead corporate sponsor of this year’s Chinese New Year Festival. Their donation helps fund our event, and allows us to introduce Mandarin Chinese to even more children in the area.” For more information on how to plan your retirement using annuities please visit www.YourOwnRetirement.com.

For information on the Chinese Language School of Connecticut’s language and cultural programs for children and adults, their Before– and After- School programs, special workshops, private tutoring, AP Prep, or corporate language programs, please visit www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org or email them at info@ChineseLanguageSchool.org.

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from the BBC: Chinese archaeologists unearth 2,400-year-old 'soup'


Chinese archaeologists unearth 2,400-year-old 'soup' Experts say the 'bone soup' in the vessel turned green due to the oxidation of the bronze

Chinese archaeologists have unearthed what they believe is a 2,400-year-old pot of soup, state media report.

The liquid and bones were in a sealed bronze cooking vessel dug up near the ancient capital of Xian - home to the country's famed terracotta warriors.

Tests are being carried out to identify the ingredients. An odourless liquid, believed to be wine, was also found.

The pots were discovered in a tomb being excavated to make way for an extension to the local airport.

"It's the first discovery of bone soup in Chinese archaeological history," the newspaper quoted Liu Daiyun of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology as saying.

"The discovery will play an important role in studying the eating habits and culture of the Warring States Period (475-221BC)."

The scientists said the tomb could have held the body of either a member of the land-owning class or a low-ranking military officer, the report said.

Xian served as China's capital for more than 1,100 years.

In 1974, the terracotta army was found there at the burial site of Qin Shihuang, China's first emperor.

He presided over the unification of China in 221BC and ruled until 210BC

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Top Scores From Shanghai Stun Educators

How can U.S. students compete globally? They can start by learning Chinese....

from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/education/07education.html?_r=2

Top Test Scores From Shanghai Stun Educators
By SAM DILLON
Published: December 7, 2010

With China’s debut in international standardized testing, students in Shanghai have surprised experts by outscoring their counterparts in dozens of other countries, in reading as well as in math and science, according to the results of a respected exam.


American officials and Europeans involved in administering the test in about 65 countries acknowledged that the scores from Shanghai — an industrial powerhouse with some 20 million residents and scores of modern universities that is a magnet for the best students in the country — are by no means representative of all of China.

About 5,100 15-year-olds in Shanghai were chosen as a representative cross-section of students in that city. In the United States, a similar number of students from across the country were selected as a representative sample for the test.

Experts noted the obvious difficulty of using a standardized test to compare countries and cities of vastly different sizes. Even so, they said the stellar academic performance of students in Shanghai was noteworthy, and another sign of China’s rapid modernization.

The results also appeared to reflect the culture of education there, including greater emphasis on teacher training and more time spent on studying rather than extracurricular activities like sports.

“Wow, I’m kind of stunned, I’m thinking Sputnik,” said Chester E. Finn Jr., who served in President Ronald Reagan’s Department of Education, referring to the groundbreaking Soviet satellite launching. Mr. Finn, who has visited schools all across China, said, “I’ve seen how relentless the Chinese are at accomplishing goals, and if they can do this in Shanghai in 2009, they can do it in 10 cities in 2019, and in 50 cities by 2029.”

The test, the Program for International Student Assessment, known as PISA, was given to 15-year-old students by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group that includes the world’s major industrial powers.

The results are to be released officially on Tuesday, but advance copies were provided to the news media a day early.

“We have to see this as a wake-up call,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in an interview on Monday.

“I know skeptics will want to argue with the results, but we consider them to be accurate and reliable, and we have to see them as a challenge to get better,” he added. “The United States came in 23rd or 24th in most subjects. We can quibble, or we can face the brutal truth that we’re being out-educated.”

In math, the Shanghai students performed in a class by themselves, outperforming second-place Singapore, which has been seen as an educational superstar in recent years. The average math scores of American students put them below 30 other countries.

PISA scores are on a scale, with 500 as the average. Two-thirds of students in participating countries score between 400 and 600. On the math test last year, students in Shanghai scored 600, in Singapore 562, in Germany 513, and in the United States 487.

In reading, Shanghai students scored 556, ahead of second-place Korea with 539. The United States scored 500 and came in 17th, putting it on par with students in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and several other countries.

In science, Shanghai students scored 575. In second place was Finland, where the average score was 554. The United States scored 502 — in 23rd place — with a performance indistinguishable from Poland, Ireland, Norway, France and several other countries.

The testing in Shanghai was carried out by an international contractor, working with Chinese authorities, and overseen by the Australian Council for Educational Research, a nonprofit testing group, said Andreas Schleicher, who directs the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s international educational testing program.

Mark Schneider, a commissioner of the Department of Education’s research arm in the George W. Bush administration, who returned from an educational research visit to China on Friday, said he had been skeptical about some PISA results in the past. But Mr. Schneider said he considered the accuracy of these results to be unassailable.

“The technical side of this was well regulated, the sampling was O.K., and there was no evidence of cheating,” he said.

Mr. Schneider, however, noted some factors that may have influenced the outcome.

For one thing, Shanghai is a huge migration hub within China. Students are supposed to return to their home provinces to attend high school, but the Shanghai authorities could increase scores by allowing stellar students to stay in the city, he said. And Shanghai students apparently were told the test was important for China’s image and thus were more motivated to do well, he said.

“Can you imagine the reaction if we told the students of Chicago that the PISA was an important international test and that America’s reputation depended on them performing well?” Mr. Schneider said. “That said, China is taking education very seriously. The work ethic is amazingly strong.”

In a speech to a college audience in North Carolina, President Obama recalled how the Soviet Union’s 1957 launching of Sputnik provoked the United States to increase investment in math and science education, helping America win the space race.

“Fifty years later, our generation’s Sputnik moment is back,” Mr. Obama said. With billions of people in India and China “suddenly plugged into the world economy,” he said, nations with the most educated workers will prevail. “As it stands right now,” he said, “America is in danger of falling behind.”

If Shanghai is a showcase of Chinese educational progress, America’s showcase would be Massachusetts, which has routinely scored higher than all other states on America’s main federal math test in recent years.

But in a 2007 study that correlated the results of that test with the results of an international math exam, Massachusetts students scored behind Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Shanghai did not participate in the test.

A 259-page Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report on the latest Pisa results notes that throughout its history, China has been organized around competitive examinations. “Schools work their students long hours every day, and the work weeks extend into the weekends,” it said.

Chinese students spend less time than American students on athletics, music and other activities not geared toward success on exams in core subjects. Also, in recent years, teaching has rapidly climbed up the ladder of preferred occupations in China, and salaries have risen. In Shanghai, the authorities have undertaken important curricular reforms, and educators have been given more freedom to experiment.

Ever since his organization received the Shanghai test scores last year, Mr. Schleicher said, international testing experts have investigated them to vouch for their accuracy, expecting that they would produce astonishment in many Western countries.

“This is the first time that we have internationally comparable data on learning outcomes in China,” Mr. Schleicher said. “While that’s important, for me the real significance of these results is that they refute the commonly held hypothesis that China just produces rote learning.”

“Large fractions of these students demonstrate their ability to extrapolate from what they know and apply their knowledge very creatively in novel situations,” he said

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

From CNN: Education survey shows eight of top 10 performing countries are in Asia-Pacific region

From: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/07/school.results.us.asia.desai/index.html

You can also watch a video about this at http://asiasociety.org/video/education-learning/asia-top-class and also a video called Why Languages Matter at http://asiasociety.org/video/education-learning/why-language-matters


The U.S. must start learning from Asia
By Vishakha N. Desai, Special to CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Education survey shows eight of top 10 performing countries are in Asia-Pacific region

Studies show higher test scores in math and science are associated with higher growth

High quality teachers and emphasis on math and science are factors, Desai says

Desai: Asia can look to America for clues in cultivating innovation and creativity
Vishakha N. Desai is president of Asia Society, which promotes the teaching of Chinese language and international studies in U.S. schools.

(CNN) -- Results of a global education survey today show U.S. high school students come in a dispiriting 26th out of 65 places worldwide in combined scores for math, science and reading tests.

The OECD's Program for International Assessment (PISA) suggests that while America lags, Asia soars: Out of the top 10, eight are in the Asia-Pacific region -- led by Shanghai and Hong Kong in China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan.

The rise of education in Asia is no accident. It reflects deliberate policies and long-term investments that recognize the centrality of quality education to a nation's economic growth.

Studies on PISA data show that higher test scores in math and science are associated with higher growth rates that, in turn, lead to higher incomes. These countries understand, as former Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong has said: "A nation's wealth in the 21st century will depend on the capacity of its people to learn."

What do Asian school systems do to produce such achievement?

There is no one "Asian way" to academic success, just as not all Asian nations are equally successful. Shanghai is the leading edge in China but disparities remain within the country.

There are, however, common themes that permeate high-performing Asian school systems. These include:

• Rigorous standards and coherent curricula. Asian nations establish high academic standards and a demanding school curriculum that clearly defines the content to be taught and is sequenced to build on a student's abilities step by step. Teachers are expected to teach the full curriculum to all students, and schools have substantial responsibility and autonomy to design a program of instruction that meets students' needs.

• High-quality teachers and principals. Teachers are routinely recruited from among the top high-school graduates and, unlike in the U.S., principals generally do not apply to become school leaders as much as they are selected and prepared to do so. There are comprehensive systems for selecting, training, compensating and developing teachers and principals -- delivering tremendous skill right to the classroom.

• Emphasis on math and science. Math and science training begins early in primary school and rigorous courses such as biology, chemistry and physics, as well as algebra and geometry are part of a core curriculum for secondary school. Specialist teachers are often employed in elementary schools unlike "generalists" usually found in U.S. schools.

• Time and Effort. With longer school years and sometimes longer school days, Asian students often have the equivalent of several more years of schooling by the time they finish high school than the typical American student. Asian students are also expected to work hard in school, reflecting a societal belief that developing one's skills and knowledge reflects effort more than innate ability.

Aligning education goals to economic development, Asian nations have built strong school systems by scouring the world -- including the United States -- for effective practices and weaving them together in ways that mesh with their cultural values.

Recognizing the fast pace of change in the world's economic and civic environment, their focus now is on developing teachers, principals and students who are expected to have a global outlook and be "future ready."

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has said: "The simple truth is that America has a great deal to learn from the educational practices of other countries."

Models of best practice exist all over the world, but are most noticeably increasing in Asia. And, it's not a one-way street. Asian nations struggle with outmoded instructional practices and an over-reliance on high-pressure examinations -- and they continue to look to America for clues in cultivating innovation in teaching and creativity in their students.

The time has come for America to learn from -- and with -- Asia and the world.

Our ability to compete and lead in a global economy may well depend on it.

Newsweek: America's Chinese Problem

From: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/12/06/not-much-progress-in-america-s-chinese-problem.html

America’s Chinese Problem
The reports of progress are wrong.
by Jerry GuoDecember 06, 2010
Corbis
Cutting-edge programs like those at the immersion charter school Yu Ying in Washington, D.C., and reports of Chinese-language courses popping up in heartland America would all seem to suggest that Americans are on the fast track to learning Chinese—and ultimately understanding China. Indeed, it’s a thesis that just feels right. After all, with the recent economic crisis, Americans must appreciate better than anyone else our frightening loss of a competitive edge to the Chinese. You’ll be hard-pressed, the reasoning goes, to find anyone who doesn’t think grasping the language of the world’s fastest-growing economy is a good idea.

But the sad fact is that Americans are not learning Mandarin, the main tongue spoken in mainland China, in droves. Just take a look at the numbers. According to the Center for Applied Linguistics, in 2008 only 4 percent of middle and high schools that offer foreign-language instruction included Mandarin. That’s up from 1 percent in 1997. While that initially seems like respectable growth, the same survey reveals that 13 percent of schools still offer Latin and a full 10-fold more schools offer French than Mandarin. How is it that one a dead language and the other a language primarily used to impress your dinner companion can trounce one spoken by 1.3 billion natives and many millions more expats and immigrants abroad?

The answer is America’s lack of support for language instruction in the classroom. The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act placed all the emphasis on math and reading, to the detriment of foreign language. The result has been cutbacks in courses, particularly to historically popular languages like French, German, and Russian. This lack of funding is especially worrying with regard to Mandarin instruction, which requires teachers and course material that are more expensive and difficult to acquire than those for, say, Spanish. The Chinese government has tried to kick-start instruction in the U.S., sending some 300 Chinese teachers to American classrooms in the last four years, to the tune of $13,000 per teacher. Convincing parents is another thing. According to a report this September by Wakefield Research, twice as many parents believe their kids should speak Spanish than Chinese.

The comparison between Spanish and Chinese is worth fleshing out, because I suspect both parents and students find the former much less daunting than the latter. Who wouldn’t be put off by all those mind-numbing characters and fast pace of speech? But counterintuitively, Mandarin is easier than Spanish in many ways: there is no need to conjugate verbs, match gender or number, nor worry about tenses. What is much tougher, however, is the sheer number of characters you have to memorize and the mastery of tones (depending on the inflection, the word ji could mean chicken or to remember). Since memorization, particularly when it comes to language acquisition, is a skill that gradually diminishes with age, it’s all the more important for kids to pick up Mandarin from a young age.

Yet there is no culture of teaching language to primary-school students in the U.S., at least outside progressive private schools on the coasts. While students in Europe are learning a second, third, or even fourth language in elementary school, our own are still laboring over cursive. Only 15 percent of elementary schools and 58 percent of middle schools offer any foreign languages, according to the Center for Applied Linguistics. It’s time to come to terms with globalization.

The need to train a culturally savvy workforce is something other countries understand much better. The Chinese government estimates that some 40 million foreigners are studying Mandarin, but according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, only 50,000 of them are in the United States.

Who’s beating us? Asia. The Beijing Language and Culture University Press, which is the biggest publisher of textbooks on learning Chinese in the world, says most of its students are coming from Japan and South Korea, not the U.S. Indonesians are learning Chinese en masse—a 42 percent jump from 2007 to 2009—while this September India’s education minister suggested adding Chinese to the state curriculum. In the U.S., Chinese is the fifth-most-popular language to learn, according to Tom Adams, CEO of the language-instruction company Rosetta Stone. In Japan and South Korea, it’s No. 2. Looks like it’s time to go back to school.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Interest in Learning Mandarin Soars


http://www.economist.com/node/17522444?story_id=17522444&fsrc=rss

Teaching Chinese
Mandarin's Great Leap Forward
Interest soars in learning China’s official language
Nov 18th 2010 | SINGAPORE | from PRINT EDITION



ON A small street in Singapore’s Chinatown Fu Xianling, the founder of a language-education company called New Concept Mandarin, searches for additional office space. Mr Fu wants to expand his business with the lofty ambition of competing with the industry leader, Rosetta Stone. Demand for his product has increased by 20% over the past two years.

As the Chinese economy surges, so does interest in Mandarin. The Chinese government estimates some 40m people study Mandarin outside the country, up from 30m in 2005. A tight job market in the West is partly responsible. According to a survey in September by Rosetta Stone, 58% of Americans believe the lack of foreign-language skills among native workers will lead to foreigners taking high-paying jobs. “The recession has focused people on where growth is going to come from,” says Tom Adams, the firm’s chief executive. Among existing corporate customers logging into the company’s multi-language programme, the number learning Mandarin increased by 1,800% between 2008 and 2010.

Fred Rao, the founder of eChinese Learning, which offers one-on-one Mandarin instruction through Skype, predicts fierce competition. Taking a page from Mr Rao’s playbook, Rosetta Stone recently launched a new way for its Mandarin students to connect via video links to instructors in China.

Asia remains the core market. The Beijing Language and Culture University Press, the largest publisher of Chinese-language textbooks, says South Korea and Japan are its biggest customers. The number of Indonesians studying in Chinese institutions increased by 42% between 2007 and 2009, according to the Chinese embassy in Jakarta. In September India’s education minister proposed Mandarin classes at state schools.

The question remains whether the Mandarin rush will prove a fad. Japanese and Russian also had “hot” periods, only to recede in popularity. And Chinese can be controversial. With some parents fearful of communist influence, a California school district recently turned down $30,000 per year from the Chinese government to pay for Mandarin classes.

Yet Mandarin ought to continue to grow. In America just 4% of schools teach the language. In Britain, though Mandarin is spreading, the most popular languages by far remain Spanish, French and German. There is a long way to go before China’s main language becomes as widespread as its economic influence.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Greenwich-Based Language School Expands Classes


Greenwich Time
Lisa Chamoff

November 20, 2010

There had already been a full day of school for the children who were busy at work in a small classroom at Second Congregational Church on a recent afternoon.

Still, the small group was buzzing with energy as the kids jumped from an activity with paper and glue sticks, to singing a song, and then playing a game with flashcards.

The entire time, teacher Jing Tan rarely spoke a word of English, encouraging her students to master the correct pronunciation of the Chinese characters they recognized.

It was one of the newest classes for the Chinese Language School of Connecticut, a Greenwich-based nonprofit school that teaches Mandarin Chinese as a second language, with lessons on Chinese culture, to children and adults.

Recently, the eight-year-old program has started to grow, reaching families that, for a variety of reasons, want their children to learn Chinese.

Classes at various levels have been held on Sundays at Eastern Middle School. After hearing feedback from parents, the school decided to add a weekday program, and secured space at Second Congregational Church.

A private tutoring program has also tripled in size since 2007, said Susan Serven, the school's president. It started with 45 students and has grown to about 130.

The school attracts students from a variety of backgrounds. Many have parents who emigrated from China and want their children to learn or retain the language, while some parents have adopted children and want them stay connected with their Chinese heritage.

Others, recognizing China's emerging importance in the global economy, are learning Chinese at local schools and are looking for additional classes and tutoring.

In the winter, the school will be launching a prepatory course for students taking the Advanced Placement Chinese Language and Culture exam, which Serven said doesn't seem to be offered by most test-preparation companies.

"This is another need that has spurred us to expand," she said.

The school's classes range in price from $630 to more than $1,300.

As an executive recruiter, Holly McCarthy said she sees that China has become an economic force. The Westport resident's two sons, 7-year-old Jack and 9-year-old Liam, were simply intrigued by Asian culture by taking martial arts classes. They also learned, when visiting friends in Ohio over the summer, that the public schools in Cleveland had begun teaching Chinese.

"My children heard that and they were fascinated," said McCarthy, after dropping Jack and Liam off at the two-hour-long Level 1 class at Second Congregational.

Greenwich resident Chelsea Kirwan enrolled her 7-year-old twin daughters in the program on the recommendation of one of their teachers at Convent of the Sacred Heart school. The girls, Lilbet and Felicity, already speak fluent French after enrolling in the French American School of New York in Scarsdale, N.Y.

"I think Mandarin is a great language to learn," Kirwan said. "I think it helps women in business."

The program, Kirwan said, produces results.

"They really are there to teach the kids how to speak Mandarin," she said. "This is really a language-immersion program."

McCarthy said she overheard her sons talking to a friend about their classes, which they've been attending for the past two months. When the friend asked them why they were learning Chinese, they said it was so they could have a secret language that their mom didn't understand. Although the boys don't speak Chinese much at home, they seem to be picking it up fast, she said.

"I hope that it increases in popularity," McCarthy said. "I think it's going to be an important thing for our kids to understand over the next 20 years."

Monday, November 15, 2010

NY Times: China Top Home of Foreign Students

China Surges Past India as Top Home of Foreign Students
By TAMAR LEWIN

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/us/15international.html

The number of Chinese students studying in the United States surged 30 percent in the 2009-10 academic year, making China, for the first time, the top country of origin for international students, according to “Open Doors,” the Institute of International Education’s annual report.

The report found that a record high of 690,923 international students came to the United States last year — nearly 128,000 of them, or more than 18 percent, from China. Over all, the number of international students at colleges and universities in the United States increased 3 percent for the 2009-10 academic year.

India, which in recent years had been in the top spot, increased its numbers only slightly, to 104,897 last academic year.

“The number of students from China is booming, because of that booming Chinese economy,” said Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice president of the institute. “But India, which also has a booming economy, is only up 1.6 percent. I think one factor is the great number of Chinese families with disposable income, two working parents and only one child, and a determination to invest their money to make sure that child receives the best education possible.”

David B. Austell, director of the Office for International Students and Scholars at New York University, said the Chinese undergraduates came primarily from the large urban areas on China’s coast. Because they are not eligible for the same financial aid as Americans and usually pay full tuition, he said, their growing presence is an indicator of just how many Chinese families are financially strong.

At the University of Southern California, Tony Tambascia, executive director of the Office of International Services, said the number of Chinese students grew substantially last year, but surpassed the number of Indian students for the first time just this fall.

“We’re getting more Chinese master’s students, and dramatically more freshmen,” he said.

According to the report, which is supported by the State Department, the number of students coming to the United States from Saudi Arabia increased almost 25 percent last year, to 15,810, reflecting the Saudi government’s generous aid for studies abroad.

But not all countries sent more students to the United States last year. The number coming from Japan declined 15 percent, and Mexico, Indonesia and Kenya each sent 7 percent to 9 percent fewer students than in the previous year.

Still, Allan Goodman, president of the institute, said the United States continued to host more international students than any other country. And according to the Commerce Department, such students contribute nearly $20 billion to the economy.

While the majority of Chinese students in the United States are still graduate students, the recent growth has been strongest among undergraduates.

Last year, there were 39,921 Chinese undergraduates studying in the United States, a 50 percent increase from the previous year, and more than four times as many as five years earlier.

The Indian experience has been quite different; that country sent 15,192 undergraduates last year, fewer than five years earlier. And the number of Indians coming to the United States for graduate study dropped by almost 4 percent last year

“The educational-advising people say that the job market is so hot in places like Mumbai and Bangalore that students thinking about grad school decide it’s not worth it,” Ms. Blumenthal said, “since they can just go out and get a good engineering job.”

As in past years, the report found that California, with 94,279 international students, hosts far more students from abroad than any other state. The University of Southern California is the institution with the most international students, 7,987 last year.

The report also tracks Americans studying abroad, although those numbers come from a year earlier. In the 2008-9 academic year, 260,327 American students studied abroad, down slightly from 262,416 the previous year.

While Britain, Italy, Spain and France remain the leading destinations, the study found, all four hosted fewer students, with the declines ranging from 2.5 percent to 10.8 percent.

But nontraditional destinations outside Europe gained popularity. Chile, Peru and South Korea all had increases of more than 26 percent, and China, Australia, Costa Rica, Japan, Argentina, South Africa, Ecuador, Brazil and New Zealand all hosted more American students than in the previous year.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hand and Mind at MoCA


Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind
The Yi Zhi Tang Collection
November 6, 2010-May 2, 2011

Wooden sliding block puzzle, 1930s. Photo by Niana Liu.

China’s rich tradition of puzzles and fascination with puzzling objects is thoroughly embedded in its arts and culture, and has been a popular cultural export to America since the 19th century. The Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) presents Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hands and Mind, curated by Wei Zhang and Peter Rasmussen.

Over the course of a four-month period, more than 100 objects and images from the curators’ private Yi Zhi Tang (art and intelligence) Collection will be on view at MOCA. Consisting of over 1300 antique Chinese puzzles, books, and graphic materials, the collection dates back from the Song dynasty to the mid-20th century. Many of the puzzles are also objets d’art in the classical tradition and exhibit the highest level of workmanship, including beautifully crafted porcelains, carved ivory, and mother-of-pearl.

Literally translated in Chinese as “intelligence games”, puzzles inspire us to challenge our hands and mind. Visitors young and old will have the opportunity to play with modern reproductions of these classic puzzles, including: the tangram – the game that sparked the world’s first international puzzle craze; the nine-linked rings – an object of interest for mathematicians and computer scientists; and the sliding block puzzle – a challenge in military strategy.

The exhibition is accompanied by an 80-page, full-color catalog; and a full-range of public programs designed for audiences of all ages: guided gallery tours; Family Puzzle Days – workshops for budding puzzlers ages 5-12 years; Puzzler Day for newbies and veterans of the puzzling world; and curator talks with Wei Zhang and Peter Rasmussen, who have been collecting and documenting the histories of Chinese puzzles since 1997.


Great mention from @nytimes about new MOCA show Chinese Puzzles: Games for the Hand and Mind http://ow.ly/352KN

PUZZLING TEAPOTS
Wei Zhang and Peter Rasmussen call their holdings of 1,400 Chinese puzzles “the art and intelligence collection.” Retired teachers who have homes in Northern California and Beijing, they have spent much of the last 13 years traveling to antiques fairs, auctions, galleries and flea markets to find puzzles dating back 1,000 years.

On Saturday the Museum of Chinese in America in Lower Manhattan will display 100 of their sets alongside videos of traditional puzzle makers and solvers in action.

This married couple have acquired nested cubes, triangles and rings made of silver, jadeite, porcelain, wood and ivory and have researched how they were exported and subjected to scholarly study over the centuries.
Sometimes spending tens of thousands of dollars per acquisition, they also buy trick vessels with hidden compartments. Since around A.D. 960, Chinese artisans have made teapots that can be filled only through bottom holes, and “fairness cups” that leak out of concealed bottom holes if a pourer greedily fills them close to the brim.

“Here’s something we got today,” Mr. Rasmussen said during a recent visit to New York, pulling out a mound of Bubble Wrap he had just picked up at Christie’s. Ms. Zhang sliced open the plastic and revealed a bottom-filling purple pot draped with green leaves, made around 1700. (It cost $6,875 at a Chinese ceramics auction.)

She has been interested in puzzles, she explained, since her childhood in northwest China. During the Cultural Revolution, her father was imprisoned, and the family moved into a warehouse infested by rats. Expelled from school because of her father’s disgrace, she whiled away time making wire puzzles.

“We used them to lock up our storage boxes for food,” she said.

She and her husband plan to donate the collection to a museum, probably in China. Mr. Rasmussen occasionally suggests selling off their lesser examples, but then Ms. Zhang reminds him that she was born in a Chinese year of the dog.
“Once I get my jaw into something, I don’t let go,” she said.

At the Museum of Chinese in America, shelves running the length of the room are piled with reproduction puzzles for visitors to try. (The collectors have trained docents to give hints.) In one display case is a set of nine interlocked jadeite rings that belonged to Pu Yi, the last Chinese emperor.

In his thousands of rooms, Ms. Zhang said, “there’s no telling if he ever played with this.”

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Join Us at Greenwich's Enchanted Forest!



Please visit our table at this year's The Enchanted Forest event,, sponsored by the Greenwich Junior League, at the Hyatt Old Greenwich.

Crafts, activities for children, holiday boutique, it's a great way to welcome in the holiday season!

For more info: http://www.jlgreenwich.org/?nd=tef09

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Shangri-La Chinese Acrobats at Ridgefield Playhouse


The Shangri-La Chinese Acrobats

Saturday, November 6 at 2 pm & 6 pm


For 30 years, the Shangri-La Chinese Acrobats have been performing their multi-faceted, multi-cultural acrobatic display that includes formidable feats of daring and balance, brilliant costumes and explosive Kung Fu energy and even some Chinese comedy. They have appeared on numerous television shows throughout the United States and Canada including “Good Morning LA”, “New York One News” and CNN and now they’re coming to The Ridgefield Playhouse!

It’s a great show for everyone in the family, from ages 2 to 102!


Under the artistic direction of the Hai Family and International Asia, Inc., the Shangri-La Chinese Acrobats flawlessly execute Chinese acrobatics with grace and precision honoring an art form honed by years of discipline and training. The troupe has received numerous awards including the Performing Arts Campus Entertainment Award.


Pepsi Children’s Series

&

Benziger Family Winery Comedy and Theatre Series

There will be a wine tasting in the lobby prior to the 6 pm performance beginning at 5 pm


Ticket Price: $25.00

Tickets for Children (under 18) and Seniors (over 62) are $20 each

and available only by calling the box office at 203.438.5795



For tickets call the box office at 203.438.5795 or log onto

http://www.ridgefieldplayhouse.org/venue.asp?eventID=1060






The Ridgefield Playhouse

for movies and the performing arts

80 East Ridge Avenue

Ridgefield, CT 06877

Phone: 203.438.5795

Fax: 203.438.4543

www.ridgefieldplayhouse.org

Thursday, October 14, 2010

WSJ: Writing Chinese Characters Improves Brain Cognition

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704631504575531932754922518-lMyQjAxMTAwMDAwNDEwNDQyWj.html

How Handwriting Trains The Brain:

By GWENDOLYN BOUNDS
Ask preschooler Zane Pike to write his name or the alphabet, then watch this 4-year-old's stubborn side kick in. He spurns practice at school and tosses aside workbooks at home. But Angie Pike, Zane's mom, persists, believing that handwriting is a building block to learning.

Wendy Bounds discusses the fading art of handwriting, pointing out that new research shows it can benefit children's motor skills and their ability to compose ideas and achieve goals throughout life.

Gwendolyn Bounds reports on what your handwriting says about your brain and everything else.

She's right. Using advanced tools such as magnetic resonance imaging, researchers are finding that writing by hand is more than just a way to communicate. The practice helps with learning letters and shapes, can improve idea composition and expression, and may aid fine motor-skill development.

It's not just children who benefit. Adults studying new symbols, such as Chinese characters, might enhance recognition by writing the characters by hand, researchers say. Some physicians say handwriting could be a good cognitive exercise for baby boomers working to keep their minds sharp as they age.

Studies suggest there's real value in learning and maintaining this ancient skill, even as we increasingly communicate electronically via keyboards big and small. Indeed, technology often gets blamed for handwriting's demise. But in an interesting twist, new software for touch-screen devices, such as the iPad, is starting to reinvigorate the practice.

View Full Image

Angie Pike

Four-year-old Zane Pike used to toss aside his handwriting books. Now, the Cabot, Ark., preschooler is learning to write his letters using a smartphone application.
.Most schools still include conventional handwriting instruction in their primary-grade curriculum, but today that amounts to just over an hour a week, according to Zaner-Bloser Inc., one of the nation's largest handwriting-curriculum publishers. Even at institutions that make it a strong priority, such as the private Brearley School in New York City, "some parents say, 'I can't believe you are wasting a minute on this,'" says Linda Boldt, the school's head of learning skills.

Recent research illustrates how writing by hand engages the brain in learning. During one study at Indiana University published this year, researchers invited children to man a "spaceship," actually an MRI machine using a specialized scan called "functional" MRI that spots neural activity in the brain. The kids were shown letters before and after receiving different letter-learning instruction. In children who had practiced printing by hand, the neural activity was far more enhanced and "adult-like" than in those who had simply looked at letters.

"It seems there is something really important about manually manipulating and drawing out two-dimensional things we see all the time," says Karin Harman James, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Indiana University who led the study.

More
The Juggle: In Digital Age, Does Handwriting Still Matter?

.Adults may benefit similarly when learning a new graphically different language, such as Mandarin, or symbol systems for mathematics, music and chemistry, Dr. James says. For instance, in a 2008 study in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, adults were asked to distinguish between new characters and a mirror image of them after producing the characters using pen-and-paper writing and a computer keyboard. The result: For those writing by hand, there was stronger and longer-lasting recognition of the characters' proper orientation, suggesting that the specific movements memorized when learning how to write aided the visual identification of graphic shapes.

Other research highlights the hand's unique relationship with the brain when it comes to composing thoughts and ideas. Virginia Berninger, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, says handwriting differs from typing because it requires executing sequential strokes to form a letter, whereas keyboarding involves selecting a whole letter by touching a key.

She says pictures of the brain have illustrated that sequential finger movements activated massive regions involved in thinking, language and working memory—the system for temporarily storing and managing information.

And one recent study of hers demonstrated that in grades two, four and six, children wrote more words, faster, and expressed more ideas when writing essays by hand versus with a keyboard.

View Full Image

AJ Mast for the Wall Street Journal

For research at Indiana University, children undergo specialized MRI brain scans that spot neurological activity.
.Even in the digital age, people remain enthralled by handwriting for myriad reasons—the intimacy implied by a loved one's script, or what the slant and shape of letters might reveal about personality. During actress Lindsay Lohan's probation violation court appearance this summer, a swarm of handwriting experts proffered analysis of her blocky courtroom scribbling. "Projecting a false image" and "crossing boundaries," concluded two on celebrity news and entertainment site hollywoodlife.com. Beyond identifying personality traits through handwriting, called graphology, some doctors treating neurological disorders say handwriting can be an early diagnostic tool.

"Some patients bring in journals from the years, and you can see dramatic change from when they were 55 and doing fine and now at 70," says P. Murali Doraiswamy, a neuroscientist at Duke University. "As more people lose writing skills and migrate to the computer, retraining people in handwriting skills could be a useful cognitive exercise."

In high schools, where laptops are increasingly used, handwriting still matters. In the essay section of SAT college-entrance exams, scorers unable to read a student's writing can assign that portion an "illegible" score of 0.

Monday, October 11, 2010

CLSC Program Expansion!


photo caption: Chinese Language School of Connecticut Vice Principal Xian Xian Feng with students at CLSC's new weekday location at 2CC



Chinese Language School of Connecticut Launches New Weekday Programs at the Second Congregational Church of Greenwich


--CLSC to hold classes at historic Greenwich location.--



Greenwich, CT, October 15, 2010– The Chinese Language School of Connecticut (www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org) is pleased to announce their new location at Greenwich’s Second Congregational Church, 139 East Putnam Avenue, Greenwich, CT.



Principal Daisy Chen Laone said, “We are so pleased to be partnering with 2CC to offer Chinese at their beautiful school facility. CLSC’s classroom at 2CC is spacious, bright, and sunny, with plenty of room for teachers and children to interact while learning Mandarin Chinese.”



CLSC Board of Directors Co-Chair, Greenwich resident Cynthia Chang Scanlan, concurred. “My family are members of 2CC. We joined the church because of the wonderful pastor, Bob Naylor, the terrific staff, and the openness and friendliness of the other members. There are so many wonderful youth programs, as well, and CLSC is pleased and very fortunate to be able to offer Mandarin Chinese at one of Greenwich’s historic locations.”



For information on the Chinese Language School of Connecticut’s language programs for children or adults, their Before– and After- School programs, special workshops, private tutoring or corporate language programs, please visit www.ChineseLanguageSchool.org or email them at info@ChineseLanguageSchool.org.


* * *

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

WSJ: Chinese On the Menu For Students

from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704082104575516082963460938.html

Spurred by separate pushes by the U.S. and Chinese governments, more schools in Greater New York have begun offering—even requiring—the study of Mandarin at the elementary level.


Starting this month, Manhattan's New Explorations Into Science, Technology and Math, or NEST+m, replaced Spanish with Mandarin for kindergarten through fifth grades. Some city elementary schools, such as PS 310 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, have launched Chinese bilingual programs aimed at native Chinese speakers. Others, such as as PS 20 on the Lower East Side, have opted for dual-language programs, where half of the class is fluent in English and the other half is fluent in Mandarin. The programs this year add to about 25 bilingual and dual-language ones that already existed in the city, according to Matthew Mittenthal, city Department of Education spokesman.

"Mandarin is a language that has symbols that are very different than our written language," said Olga Livanis, the principal of NEST+m, a K-12 gifted-and-talented school on the Lower East Side. "The more difficult, the earlier a child needs to learn it."

The rise in Mandarin comes amid increased federal funding for programs that teach it and from school administrators' recognition of China's growing influence in the global economy. China is also cultivating the study of Mandarin abroad, sponsoring teachers, materials and visits to China.

As of the end of 2008 school year, about 50 public and two dozen private schools in New York City had Chinese classes, according to Robin Harvey, coordinator of a Chinese-language teachers program at New York University. Since then, the number has increased by 5% to 10%, she said.

Several new programs certifying teachers in instruction of Chinese as a second language are launching around the city. NYU, for example, had more than 42 graduates from its master's program over the past three years, said Ms. Harvey. "Most of our teachers once they graduate find work in the New York metropolitan area," she said.

Chinese is one of of the languages considered to be critical to the U.S. national security by the U.S. Department of Education, which helps schools secure funding if they agree to teach the languages.

Last year, New Rochelle began offering Mandarin in its middle and high schools, and this year the language is offered to some kindergarteners and fourth-graders. Being aware that "we could possibly get support to introduce" Mandarin played a role in starting the language up throughout the school system, said Richard E. Organisciak, the Westchester County district's superintendent. New Rochelle received about $1.5 million in federal grants, and the approval for the money came within weeks of application, said Mr. Organisciak.

Support from China is also helping Chinese instruction grow around the country. U.S. schools are able to get a guest teacher for two years sponsored by the Chinese government via a program with the College Board.

In New York State, only two schools have guest teachers, whose stipends and international travel is sponsored by the Chinese government, while housing and administrative fees are taken on by school districts. Both New York guest teachers starting this school year at Medgar Evers College Preparatory school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and the Brewster School District, about 50 miles north of the city. In Connecticut, nine guest-teachers are working, all having started in 2009 or this year, according to the College Board. New Jersey has two guest teachers, who also arrived in the past year or so.

But Rocco Tomazic, superintendent of Linden, N.J., school district, said that he chose to decline and find permanent teachers. NEST also found a teacher on its own and is paying for the teacher out of its own budget.

Several schools in Greater New York are part of a new grant program called the Confucius Classroom, sponsored by the Chinese government through the New York-based Asia Society, which selects programs that could serve as models for Chinese-language instruction. These classrooms are matched with partner schools in China for joint projects and exchanges and are provided with teacher development.

View Full Image

Julie Platner for The Wall Street Journal

Students work on pronunciation and geography of cities in China by coloring in their own maps.
.Offering Chinese was a leap of faith, said Linden's Mr. Tomazic, "in a working-class town that has no significant number of Chinese." But a recent "China night" filled a school auditorium for students singing in Mandarin, he said. Now about 400 elementary-school children in the Linden school district are learning Mandarin.

For James Lee, principal of PS 20, a public school on the Lower East Side, introducing a dual-language program this year in two kindergarten classes was a matter of satisfying the needs of the growing number of children learning English in the district the school serves, he said. About 47 children, mixed English and Mandarin speakers, are enrolled this year, studying a full-day in Mandarin, followed by a day in English.

PS 20 received applications from English-speaking students in upper Manhattan and Brooklyn, said Mr. Lee. "The interest is huge," he said. Preference was given to children in District 1.

Two weeks into the program, things are going well, said Mr. Lee. He called the program, "a fairly challenging setting." "To be taught in a language that you only comprehend in small amounts, that's a lot to ask of a five year old."

Write to Yuliya Chernova at yuliya.chernova@dowjones.com

NBC Today Show Hosts Chinese Language Learning Segment

NBC's Today Show sponsored a segment on the importance of learning Mandarin Chinese.

According to Daniella Montalto, NYU's Institute of Learning and Achievement, learning a language at a very young age can help improve children's reading, writing, math and IQ scores.

Watch it here: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39154226/vp/39418545#39418545

Beijing's First Confucian Temple Service in 60 years


Confucius' birthday, celebrated in China. Photograph: Wu Hong/EPA

When a man has reached 2,561 years, it is hard to distinguish each birthday from the last. But anniversary celebrations for China's best-known philosopher included one notable change today: the first service at Beijing's Confucian temple since the Communists took power in 1949.

Once reviled as backwards and feudalist, Confucius has made a comeback since the 1990s, his work again openly a source of moral instruction and social debate – although it is also used to legitimise a party that once denounced him, to bolster tourism, and to soothe the souls of stressed workers.

Today hundreds of schoolchildren gathered to pay their respects. Dancers in red robes and students in flowing black drifted through the courtyards of the 14th century temple complex in central Beijing.

For Confucian teacher Yang Ruqin, the event was a welcome sign of renewed interest in the philosopher's thought.

"Confucianism has always been in Chinese people's blood. Although negated for many years, it is still there and when the environment is right, it will come back. I think it is a very good thing, especially in today's materialistic society," he said. "Most people now are just curious about it instead of really understanding the theory, but that's okay: as time goes on, they will know better. Plus Confucianism is something really suited to the Chinese people."

Although celebrations of Confucius have become a valuable money-spinner in Qufu, his birthplace, Yang said it was the first officially-approved service at the Beijing temple for six decades.

Disapproval of Confucianism, and destruction of temples during the cultural revolution, had made people cautious, he said.

"But people started to understand the core values, the true concepts, and started to find that those values are not completely irrelevant to their lives," he said.

Virtue, filial duty, obedience to rulers and benevolence from them are all key themes. But like most influential schools of thought, Confucianism can be interpreted in apparently limitless ways.

A Taiwanese speaker described Confucianism's relevance to cross-Straits ties.

Yu Dan – China's best known populariser of the philosopher's work – made him sound more like a self-help guru. "Now that everyone is busy, it seems that the things that actually make people happy are drifting further away from us. A child should have a dream. This is all related to what Confucius says in ethics."

The country's leaders too have co-opted the thinker. He has reappeared in school textbooks, and President Hu Jintao drew on Confucius in establishing his vision of the "harmonious society".

Dr Daniel Bell, a scholar at Tsinghua University and author of China's New Confucianism, said: "[Historically] it was part of political legitimation – and maybe that helps to explain the revival now to the extent [China's leaders] appeal to Confucianism for legitimacy. Obviously they don't want to become liberal democrats, but Marxism does not really grab people any more."

But he added: "The revival is happening at different levels of society, with some [Confucian theorists] having a much more critical way of thinking. In Imperial China it was a conservative tradition, but always had a critical edge; Confucius and Mencius were social critics."

Li Gengwu, a retired newspaper employee attending the service, studied Confucius as a child before the revolution. "All the good traditional values were abandoned. Now it seems more people are interested. Confucius advocates loyalty and trust and caring for others. In today's society, all people care about is money, so it's good to promote these values."

Younger people were less enthusiastic.

"Confucius is an important part of Chinese culture, related to everyone," said Han Bing, 30, a musician at the event. But she was "not really sure" how he was relevant.

Xue Wenjuan, 23, was swift to quote "Learning is our belief," but added: "That's a commercial for a language training centre."

Additional research by Lin Yi

Monday, September 27, 2010

Parents Debate the Merits of Chinese

Maybe they should sign their youngest children up for toddler league T-ball, instead?

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2010/09/27/parents-debate-the-rise-of-mandarin-at-elementary-schools/

By Yuliya Chernova

The growth of Mandarin classes at elementary schools in and around New York City stirred debate at UrbanBaby.com, a popular forum website for parents.

As The Journal reported, more schools around the city this year started offering — and in some cases requiring — Mandarin instruction, including New Explorations Into Science, Technology and Math (known as NEST+m), PS 20 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and PS 310 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The rise of Mandarin stems, in part, from separate programs backed by the U.S. and Chinese governments that offer resources for the classes.

The UrbanBaby discussion took on the issue of whether Mandarin is appropriate for elementary-school children. Some writers on the anonymous forum suggested that there is no need to introduce a difficult language so early on, arguing that children won’t gain proficiency anyway when taught just once a week. As one commenter put it:

anyone who has tried to teach toddlers a foreign language that no one in their household speaks (inc nanny) will realize that the classes are just not enough - you need to either live there and immerse or have the immersion at home for it to take hold.

Other commenters suggested that it’s harder to find Mandarin practice outside of school, making it even more unlikely that the language would stick for young students. Some contributors to the forum argued that Spanish will be the predominant and most useful second language in the U.S. for years to come, so schools should focus on it. One commenter was skeptical about language instruction in general for elementary students: “But is it really necessary for a child at the age of 5 to be taught some random language? I can think of 10 other things that could be done with that time.”

Some contributors spoke out in support of early exposure to Mandarin. One person, identified as a NEST+m parent, argued that “the daytime class gives you a place to start if you decide to embrace it. Otherwise just do the minimum and treat it like on of the other non-core subjects e.g. dance.”

Another self-identified parent of a student in the NEST+m Mandarin program said the once-a-week class was “more about the culture/geography so far and less about the language,” which served as an important introduction to China generally.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Black Market For Mooncakes.

From NPR: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/21/a-black-market-for-mooncakes-in-china/

A black market for mooncakes in China
China's mid-Autumn Festival and its tradition of eating mooncakes has lent itself to an underground economy worth billions.

KAI RYSSDAL: There's a big festival coming up on the Chinese calendar tomorrow: It's called the mid-Autumn festival. For the past week or so, stores over there have been stocking up on the traditional gift of the season: Mooncakes. They're pastries, small but rich, with a flaky crust and a sweet filling, usually made of lotus paste.
More than a billion people wanting the same thing on the same day? Smells like a business opportunity to me. Our Shanghai Correspondent Rob Schmitz takes us inside the mooncake economy

ROB SCHMITZ: Mooncakes have been likened to pastry hockey pucks. At around a thousand calories, they're almost as dense. This helps explain why the Chinese don't buy mooncakes for themselves. They gift them.
Shaun Rein is a strategy consultant in Shanghai.

SHAUN REIN: It's a way of showing respect to business partners and people you want to be close to, and it's also a way to give them outright bribes.
Yes, bribes -- and we're not talking about briefcases full of mooncakes, but their paper representations, mooncake vouchers.
Here's how it works: Buy a voucher from a company that makes mooncakes. Give it to your friend, client, local government official. And they, in theory, redeem the voucher for mooncakes. What most people do, though, is sell the vouchers on the black market for cash.

REIN: There's no embarrassment about saying, "We don't want this mooncake." Let's be pragmatic and get some money out of it.
And when a fifth of the world is in on this, that money becomes an underground economy worth billions.
Dozens of workers pack boxes of mooncakes at a Haagen-Dazs redemption center in Shanghai. Thirteen years ago, the company had an epiphany: They realized the Chinese give mooncakes, but many don't eat them. It's like the Christmas fruitcake dilemma in the West. So they thought: Why not make ice cream mooncakes? The ice cream mooncake was born.
Gary Chu manages the company's China operation.

GARY CHU: It's huge business. It's a very important business for us. It's growing at double digits every year.
Soon after, Starbucks, Nestle and Dairy Queen got into the business. This year, Haagen-Dazs sold 1.5 million boxes. To buy one, you'll need $50 to $100 worth of vouchers. Want an ice cream mooncake this year? Sorry. Vouchers are sold out. Your only option is the black market.
A back-alley vendor named Yin Jing wears a fanny pack full of Haagen-Dazs mooncake vouchers. They're made of thick paper; each one has a laser engraved hologram, just like currency. They float like currency, too. Last week, their price peaked. Now with just days to go before the festival, Mr. Yin is looking to unload.

YIN JING: After the festival's over, all these vouchers will be expired. So I have no choice. I've got to start dropping the price.
This selling frenzy reaches the highest levels of society. Just blocks away, a vendor who only gives his surname -- Zhang -- just negotiated a deal on reams of vouchers.

ZHANG: These are all from government officials. They get so many as gifts, and they feel too embarrassed to sell them to me in person, so they ask their wives to meet me in a coffee shop.
Fresh from his secret government rendezvous, Zhang's got his game face on, trying to sell all these vouchers before time runs out. If he fails? He'll be forced to succumb to the spirit of the season by giving away dozens of boxes of mooncakes and keeping a few for himself, at which point the giving will stop, and the losers of this annual game will be forced to eat.
In Shanghai, I'm Rob Schmitz for Marketplace.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Promoting Multi-Culturalism in our Schools

From: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/119031-we-must-promote-multilingualism-in-our-schools-rep-judy-chu?sms_ss=facebook



We must promote multilingualism in our schools (Rep. Judy Chu)
By Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) - 09/15/10 04:31 PM ET

Yesterday, President Obama gave his second annual back-to-school address. In a speech to students at Julia R. Masterman School in Philadelphia, he urged them to take responsibility, work hard and dream big.

The words that really stood out to me, however, came at the end of his remarks when he said, “I want you to take away the notion that life is precious, and part of what makes it so wonderful is its diversity, that all of us are different.” I couldn’t agree more.

Unfortunately, the current system too often limits our students’ exposure to other cultures and languages. If we’re to fully embrace life’s wonderful diversity, this must change.

About a year ago, the President set a goal for our country to reclaim the highest college graduation rate in the world. It’s a worthy goal and one I strongly support, but it’s not enough. We don’t just need college graduates. We need college graduates ready to compete on the world’s stage.

Years ago, my mother immigrated to America at the age of 19, right before our country prohibited travel to China. For the next 25 years, she had virtually no contact with her family. But what isolated her even more was her inability to use English. Until she went to an adult education program to learn her second language, she never fully integrated into American society.

Today, the lack of a second language doesn’t just isolate people. It makes them less competitive. There’s a Spanish proverb that says, “The person who speaks two languages is worth two." And that’s why neglecting foreign language instruction prevents students from realizing their full worth.

Lacking international knowledge and experience, many of today’s young Americans aren’t prepared for the increasingly global economy of tomorrow. This shortcoming limits our ability to address future international challenges. It restrains our relationships with other nations and could someday threaten our national security.

Moreover, studies show that learning a second language improves cognitive flexibility. Because dual language learners naturally consider multiple meanings for words, they’re better able to manage complex situations. And that’s a skill our next generation of supervisors and executives can all use.

That’s why legislation that creates a multilingual society is so important. These programs don’t just promote a second language; they advance the American workforce. Unfortunately, current instruction in our country lags behind our global competitors’. In Asia and Europe, the question is not whether you speak another language – it’s how many.

That’s why I strongly support the Providing Resources to Improve Dual Language Education (PRIDE) Act, which establishes and expands language programs in classrooms across the country, closing this gap. And since children more easily absorb foreign languages than older students and adults, I’ll soon introduce the Global Languages Early Education (GLEE) Act to focus funds on early education. Because, developing our youngest minds is the best path toward increased fluency now and improved competitiveness later.

I’ll be pushing for a greater focus on foreign and dual-language programs in the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and I encourage all of my colleagues to support this effort.

Promoting multilingualism in our nation’s schools ensures that the next generation of American students won’t just travel the globe, they’ll shape it.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Peabody Essex Museum the First to Show Off Hidden Works

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/exhibitionist/2010/07/peabody_essex_m.html

By Geoff Edgers
Globe Staff

A special international partnership will make the Peabody Essex Museum the first place in the world to display a group of 90 imperial objects from a hidden Chinese palace complex inside Beijing's Forbidden City.


Related
Photos
Rare art on display
•Video A preview of the show in Salem

For nearly 500 years, the sprawling Forbidden City served as the home of Chinese emperors. When the last emperor was forced out in 1924, the government closed the doors on a two-acre compound deep within the Forbidden City, filled with magnificent 18th-century artworks and other objects.

Now the US public will see those works for the first time in a show called "The Emperor's Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City." The objects, which range from paintings and murals to exquisite pieces of furniture and jades, will make up an exhibition running Sept. 14-Jan. 9 at the Salem museum. Organized by PEM with the Palace Museum, Beijing and the New York-based World Monuments Fund, the show will then travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Milwaukee Art Museum.

“These are objects created by the finest artists at the time, and they’ve never been seen before,” said PEM curator of Chinese art Nancy Berliner, speaking by phone this week from the Forbidden City, where she and a group of museum workers are readying the objects that will be brought to Salem for the show.

It is extremely unusual for China to send cultural objects abroad, and the museum will be the first place anywhere -- including China -- that these pieces will be shown to the public.

The partnership springs from an ambitious $25 million project to renovate the palace garden complex, a project that began in 2001 and won’t be complete until 2019. Officials from the World Monuments Fund overseeing the restoration were impressed by PEM’s installation of Yin Yu Tang, a late Qing dynasty merchants' house, at the museum. After viewing the house in 2004, the nonprofit organization hired Berliner as a consultant.

That led to the Salem museum's coup.

This week, as temperatures in Beijing have risen to 104 degrees, Berliner and four other museum staffers have been meticulously packing up the objects in the palace compound created by Emperor Qianlong in the 18th century and last occupied by Emperor Puyi. It is a quiet, contemplative space, Berliner said, where there is often only room to walk single file because the emperor never intended it to be experienced by groups. Of the
27 buildings in the garden complex, just one has been restored so far.

Speaking by phone from a building that had not yet been restored, Berliner said she was holding a flashlight because there were no lights.

“The feeling inside these buildings and in the garden as a whole is a little bit like being in an incredibly luxurious and contemplative playground,” said Berliner, who noted that she has visited the Forbidden City hundreds of times since her first visit in 1980 but only gained access to Qianlong's complex in recent years.

The museum has great expectations for the exhibition, projecting that it will draw as many as 85,000 visitors. That would make it the second most attended at the museum since its reopening after a major expansion in 2003.

But bringing “The Emperor’s Private Paradise” to Salem is not cheap. The exhibition will cost $1.8 million, or more than the museum spent on exhibitions for all of 2009. All but $300,000 is being covered through support from the Carpenter Foundation, American Express, Mandarin Oriental, and other sponsors.

“This is once-in-a-lifetime material,” said Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, the museum’s chief curator. “This truly is one of those shows where a lot of stars have aligned to make this possible.”

In Salem, Berliner hopes to use architectural flourishes to re-create the feel of the 18th-century garden complex. The works on hand will provide a stunning window into the private universe crafted by China’s rulers. A Buddhist shrine painted on silk shows a series of holy and supernatural figures with Qianlong, depicted in gold, at the center. A carved wooden throne features bamboo thread marquetry, gold paintings, and a jade inlay. And then there is the jade screen depicting the 16 disciples of the Buddha. Only recently did restorers discover that Qianlong, who commissioned the work, had the screen installed in a way that hid the golden images painted on its reverse side. Conservators never knew of that other side.

“He installed it so the panels were actually up against walls," Berliner said. "When they took it out, they discovered that on the side of the panels that faced the walls were these incredibly beautiful paintings of botanical motifs that had never been seen before.”

The Forbidden City is one of the world's most popular tourist attractions, drawing more than seven million people a year. None of the buildings in Qianlong garden complex, however, have been open to the public.

Peabody Essex Museum director Dan Monroe said that he was moved, walking through the hidden space for the first time.

"There are several gates and doors and pathways, but it shocks you with its immensity," he said. "It’s full of large monumental buildings and small buildings and water features and bridges. And it’s a spectacular space that was designed for tranquility and harmony."
Henry Ng, executive vice president of the World Monuments Fund, said that the Palace Museum's trust in Berliner made it possible to bring the works to the United States.

"I don't think it could be done anywhere else," said Ng. "Nancy is the reason they're letting them go."

Hartigan emphasized the beauty of the works that will be on display.

"The fact that the garden itself is this exquisite combination of art, architecture, and nature and that this comes across so clearly in the exhibition is another important aspect of this," she said. "The notion that not even the Chinese themelves have seen these artworks is really remarkable."

Berliner believes it is unlikely that works from the garden complex will ever be allowed out once the restoration is complete. That means, she says, this will be the first and last time these objects will be seen in the United States.

Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com

The World of Khublai Khan at the Met

Special Exhibition
The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty
September 28, 2010–January 2, 2011
The Tisch Galleries, 2nd floor

This exhibition will cover the period from 1215, the year of Khubilai's birth, to 1368, the year of the fall of the Yuan dynasty in China founded by Khubilai Khan, and will feature every art form, including paintings, sculpture, gold and silver, textiles, ceramics, lacquer, and other decorative arts, religious and secular. The exhibition will highlight new art forms and styles generated in China as a result of the unification of China under the Yuan dynasty and the massive influx of craftsmen from all over the vast Mongol empire—with reverberations in Italian art of the fourteenth century.

NY Times on Chinese Language Learning and Testing

From http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/weekinreview/12rosenthal.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&sq=Testing,%20%20the%20Chinese%20Way&st=cse&scp=1

When my children were 6 and 8, taking tests was as much a part of the rhythm of their school day as tag at recess or listening to stories at circle time. There were the “mad minute” math quizzes twice each week, with the results elaborately graphed. There were regular spelling quizzes. Even today I have my daughter’s minutely graded third-grade science exams, with grades like 23/25 or A minus.

We were living in China, where their school blended a mostly Western elementary school curriculum with the emphasis on discipline and testing that typifies Asian educational styles. In Asia, such a march of tests for young children was regarded as normal, and not evil or particularly anxiety provoking. That made for some interesting culture clashes. I remember nearly constant tension between the Asian parents, who wanted still more tests and homework, and the Western parents, who were more concerned with whether their kids were having fun — and wanted less.

I still have occasional nightmares about a miserable summer vacation spent force-feeding flash cards into the brain of my 5-year-old son — who was clearly not “ready” to read, but through herculean effort and tears, learned anyway. Reading was simply a requirement for progressing from kindergarten to first grade. How could he take tests and do worksheets if he couldn’t read the questions?

But Andrew and Cara, now 16 and 18, have only the warmest memories of their years at the International School of Beijing — they mostly didn’t understand that they were being “tested.” As educators and parents in the United States debate new federal programs that will probably expose young children to far more exams and quizzes than is the current norm, I think often of the ups and downs of my children’s elementary education. What makes a test feel like an interesting challenge rather than an anxiety-provoking assault?

Testing of young children had been out of favor for decades among early-childhood educators in the United States, who worry that it stifles creativity and harms self-esteem, and does not accurately reflect the style and irregular pace of children’s learning anyway. (There may be some truth to that. My son, who suffered the flash card assault, was by age 7 the family’s most voracious reader.) Testing young children has been so out of favor that even the test-based No Child Left Behind law doesn’t start testing students’ reading abilities until after third grade — at which point, some educators believe, it is too late to remedy deficiencies.

But recently, American education’s “no test” philosophy for young children has been coming under assault, as government programs strongly promote the practice.

First there was No Child Left Behind, which took effect in 2003 and required states to give all students standardized tests to measure school progress.

Now, President Obama’s Race to the Top educational competition — which announced billions of dollars in state grants this month — includes and encourages more reliance on what educators call “formative tests” or “formative assessments.” These are not the big once-a-year or once-in-a-lifetime exams, like the SATs, but a stream of smaller, less monumental tests, designed in theory, at least, primarily to help students and their teachers know how they’re doing.

Some education experts hail the change as a step forward from the ideological dark ages. “Research has long shown that more frequent testing is beneficial to kids, but educators have resisted this finding,” said Gregory J. Cizek, a professor of educational measurement and evaluation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Of course, the tests have to be age-appropriate, Professor Cizek notes, and the Race to the Top program includes funds for research to develop new exams. Filling in three pages of multiple-choice bubbles may not be appropriate for young children. Likewise “high stakes” tests — like the Chinese university entrance exam, which alone determines university placement — create anxiety and may unfairly derail a youngster’s future based on poor performance on a single day.

But Professor Cizek, who started his career as a second-grade teacher, said the prevailing philosophy of offering young children unconditional praise and support was probably not the best prescription for successful education. “What’s best for kids is frequent testing, where even if they do badly, they can get help and improve and have the satisfaction of doing better,” he said. “Kids don’t get self-esteem by people just telling them they are wonderful.”

Other educators recoil at the thought of more tests. “The Obama administration is using the power of the purse to compel states to add more destructive testing,” said Alfie Kohn, author of “The Case Against Standardized Testing” and many other books on education. “With Race to the Top the bad news has gotten worse, with a relentless regimen that turns schools into test prep courses.”

He said genuine learning in young children was a global process, while tests look at narrow and specific skills, and good teachers don’t need tests to know if a child is learning. He added that for young children, good test results were more a function of whether children can sit still or hold a pencil. “These tests are being added in the name of accountability despite the objections of early-childhood educators who say they have no place in the classrooms,” he said.

Rather than a “low-stress tool to identify gaps in the learning process,” he added, “they are used as a club to punish students who need help.”

I will not pretend that raising children amid a stream of tests is a Zen experience, for them or for their parents. In Beijing, both of my children had subjects or grades in which they performed poorly. There was an entire elementary school year in which my son got consistently mediocre grades in math, in English, in everything, it seemed. It took endless parental cheerleading to maintain his self-esteem. And there were times when — yes — I’m sure he felt bad about himself.

But let’s face it, life is filled with all kinds of tests — some you ace and some you flunk — so at some point you have to get used to it. “Schools do a lot of nurturing and facilitating, and then it’s a bit of a shock for children when they have to sit at a desk all alone and be tested,” Professor Cizek said.

When testing is commonplace and the teachers are supportive — as my children’s were, for the most part — the tests felt like so many puzzles; not so much a judgment on your being, but an interesting challenge. It is a testament to the International School of Beijing — or to the malleability of childhood memory — that Andrew now says he did not realize that he was being tested. Will tests be like that in a national program, like Race to the Top?

When we moved back to New York City, my children, then 9 and 11, started at a progressive school with no real tests, no grades, not even auditions for the annual school musical. They didn’t last long. It turned out they had come to like the feedback of testing.

“How do I know if I get what’s going on in math class?” my daughter asked with obvious discomfort after a month. Primed with Beijing test-taking experience, they each soon tested into New York City’s academic public schools — where they have had tests aplenty and (probably not surprisingly) a high proportion of Asian classmates.

Friday, September 10, 2010

NY Times: Following Workers' Trails of Tears in China

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/movies/29home.html?_r=2&ref=movies

IN the quietly devastating documentary “Last Train Home” Chinese migrant workers huddle together in an overcrowded railway car, sweating through their annual ride home for the New Year holiday. One nattily coiffed young man inveighs against the West, complaining bitterly that American consumers who buy the cheap Chinese goods he makes also get to spend most of their higher salaries on discretionary items, while he, who makes those goods, must send most of his earnings home to support his family.

Lixin Fan, who shot, edited and directed the film, might have chosen to stick with this feisty representative of the new China. Instead his camera cuts away to a middle-aged couple who sit in silence. Zhang Changhua and Cheng Suqin, who make this trip every year to visit the children they left behind nearly two decades ago, belong to a mostly ignored generation of roughly 130 million migrant workers who have sacrificed their productive years, and possibly the integrity of their families, in service to China’s headlong rush into global economic supremacy.

“Many times I was in tears at all this misery,” Mr. Fan said, seated in an anteroom at the Los Angeles Asian-Pacific Film Festival, where “Last Train Home” played in May after winning praise at the Sundance Film Festival. “If you were on this train with hundreds of migrants around us — it stinks, it’s dirty and everyone’s trying to survive, just to see their kids.”

In 2006 Mr. Fan and a skeleton crew of three began documenting the effects of industrial change on this family, with whom he spent three years, on and off.

Mr. Zhang and Ms. Cheng left their village in Sichuan — Mr. Fan’s home province and the country’s largest exporter of labor — to work in Guangzhou, the world’s largest manufacturing source of denim jeans. The film cuts between the factory where they toil seven days a week, and the bucolic but chronically poor countryside where they visit their little boy and teenage daughter, who are raised by a careworn yet uncomplaining grandmother who suffered even worse privation under Mao Zedong.

Mr. Fan, a slender 33-year-old who cheerfully attributes his fluent English to “fighting with my Chinese-American girlfriend,” showed a sociologist’s grasp of the broad shifts that have afflicted workers like this couple. The lack of farm subsidies and expropriation of farmland for urban construction have crippled agriculture, while an outdated housing registration system that denies education and social services to rural migrants in the city has created a sharp class divide and placed untenable strains on the traditionally close-knit Chinese family.

The film’s unnerving railway station scenes — panoramic views of frustrated crowds surging forward, barely contained by nervous police officers with truncheons — underscore these changes and the growing specter of civil war. “The government does not have a perfect track record of dealing with dissent,” Mr. Fan said carefully. “So civil war would be a terrible thing. While I was making this film, it was difficult to figure out where to point the finger. At the government? The factory owners and corporations? The West? I’m not in a righteous place to answer, but I hope to raise this question for my audience.”

Mr. Fan encountered little serious official opposition, perhaps because of his accommodating demeanor, or because national issues are kept mostly in the background of this intimate film, which opens Friday at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village.

To gain the family’s trust Mr. Fan and his crew ate with them in their dormitory in Guangzhou, taught them how to manage their own wireless mikes, which they wore constantly, and would sleep on the pile of warm jeans the couple made while the crew waited to tag along after they finished their shift at midnight. “So 15 minutes into the film, after that first train ride,” he said proudly, “we’d already known each other for a year.”

“The mom once told me that they worked for 29 days, 15 hours a day straight,” Mr. Fan said. “The dormitories are right across the street from their factory, so it takes one minute exactly to go from their sewing machine to their bed. So that’s what they did for that month — sewing machine, bed, sewing machine, bed.”

At home Mr. Zhang and Ms. Cheng encountered their deeply resentful daughter, Qin, 17, who rebels against her parents’ pressure to get the grades they see as her passport to a better life. At one point the simmering tensions come to a boil, forcing Mr. Fan to decide on his feet whether to intervene. “The kids want more attention, and the parents are never around,” he said. “The parents know that education is the only way to, as we call it, jump out of the dragon’s door, out of poverty. But Qin, who is rebellious, independent and smart, did it her own way.”

Still, Mr. Fan doesn’t believe that the Chinese family is close to collapse. “Down deep we are still very family oriented,” he said. “When Qin gets a little older, she will come to understand that.”

He added, laughing, “I still call my mom every other day.”

If Mr. Fan belongs to a new generation of Internet-savvy filmmakers schooled in Western liberal ideas, his spiritual, intellectual and cinematic influences reflect both ancient tradition and modernity. His father was a college professor and projectionist, and Mr. Fan grew up watching foreign films. Like many of his generation, he broke with tradition by leaving home for Beijing, then gave up a prestigious job (“My mom thought I was crazy”) with the CCTV network, briefly relocating to Canada before working as a sound man and associate producer on the well-received 2007 documentary “Up the Yangtze,” about the mass displacements caused by the building of the Three Gorges Dam.

“Lixin is not from the foreign-influenced cultural centers,” said Daniel Cross, president of EyesteelFilm company in Montreal, which produced “Up the Yangtze” and co-produced “Last Train Home” with the ITVS television and cable company, which holds the North American television rights. “He comes from the sticks, and that’s what makes him unique.”

Mr. Fan said he is a committed Taoist, and his eye for the interplay of beauty and ugliness is influenced by what he calls the “epic poetry” of the director Jia Zhangke, whose 2004 feature “The World” centered on the youthful staff of a giant theme park that replicates the world’s famous tourist spots.

“I see a lot of Chinese philosophy in Jia’s film,” said Mr. Fan, who added that he hopes to seed his next project, a documentary about China’s green initiative focusing on a state-financed wind farm on the Silk Road in the Gobi Desert, with his earnings from “Last Train Home.”

“I’ll shoot there and in a remote mountain school where Taoist philosophy originated, where they recruit peasant children to teach them Tai Chi with martial art,” he said. “It’s yin and yang, keeping the balance between human desire and what nature can give you