The New Mandarins

Susan Kostal

Melanie Hoefer developed an interest in Mandarin while accompanying her husband on business trips to Shanghai. A few audiotapes later, however, she came to a certain realization. "I'm stuck with this English mouth structure," Hoefer says.

But it wasn't too late for daughter Charlotte, now in third grade. Last spring, Hoefer signed her up for private Mandarin classes with friends. Charlotte now has a "kitchen vocabulary" and knows various greetings—which will come in handy when the family visits Beijing for the 2008 Olympics.

After decades of being relegated to the nation's linguistic backwaters, owing to a Eurocentric bias and vestigial racism, Chinese is experiencing a minivogue among global-minded parents. Around the Bay, among some forward-thinking professionals, Mandarin is edging out ballet and French lessons as a preferred extracurricular for children. "You meet bilingual Chinese kids in parks here. There's no reason our kids can't be," says polyglot Shirley von Karl, who began Mandarin classes with three-year-old son Oliver in January.

Parents cite several reasons for their interest in Mandarin. It's spoken by more people than any other language and is the Chinese business world's dialect. Studies show a correlation between learning the language and development of the brain's math and music centers. But it's China's growing economic power that prompts many to sign up for classes. "There are more cranes in Shanghai than anywhere in the world," Hoefer offers.

While non-Chinese children learning the language constitute a small minority overall, demand is growing. Cathedral School for Boys, which has offered Mandarin for 12 years, is dropping French (quelle horreur!) to focus on Mandarin. And while some families are choosing immersion programs (half of the students in the one offered by the Chinese American International School are non-Asian), others send the kids to after-school or weekend classes. To top it off, the College Board recently added Chinese to the list of AP exams for 2007, which will only spark more interest.

Even so, there's not much opportunity to practice Mandarin here—many local Chinese Americans speak Cantonese. But even that's changing. "Cantonese is so yesterday," says Ada Kwan, a mother who's exploring Mandarin for her kids. "Mandarin is what's next."