Liverpool embraces Chinese language and culture

When Chao Qiuling arrived in the British port city of Liverpool to open a Confucius Institute in October 2009, her first class had just eight students.

The same Confucius Institute now teaches more than 1000 students, and Chao's team has grown to include two teachers and 14 volunteers.

"Watching the institute grow was very rewarding for me, and overcoming all the challenges has made me a stronger person," said Chao, deputy director of the Confucius Institute affiliated with Liverpool University.

Chao's team teachers the Chinese language, and also provides lessons on Chinese traditional painting, Chinese fan dance, and Chinese physical exercises to students, either at the institute or at neighboring primary and secondary schools.

High demand has seen the institute extend its classes to Saturdays and evenings. Interest in Chinese culture is growing, with one Liverpool school making it compulsory for all students to practice Chinese physical exercises twice a week.

Confucius Institutes were started by the Chinese government in 2004 to promote Chinese language and culture overseas. The institutes are nonprofit organizations affiliated with Western academic institutions, usually universities.

As of last year, there were 358 Confucius Institutes all over the world, of which about 100 are in Europe.

Chao admits that founding a Confucius Institute is not easy. As most British schools do not currently offer Mandarin as a second language, many students and parents are reluctant to give it a try. In 2009, there were only 100 qualified Mandarin teachers in Britain.

Chao realized that the first step to recruit new students would be to spark local children's interest in Chinese culture.

She asked visiting scholars and students from her home university, Xi'an Jiaotong University, to bring her costumes needed to perform Chinese fan dancing, and then gathered Chinese students from Liverpool University to give performances at local primary and secondary schools.

The initiative was an immediate success. By April 2010, four local schools gathered enough students to form Mandarin classes on their campuses, which Chao and two volunteers taught weekly. 

Chao says that the best way to teach Mandarin is through cultural activities. "For example, if we want to teach the Mandarin words for 'left' and 'right', we teach them a dance and give them instructions in Mandarin."

To attract the parents' interest, Chao taught the students the Chinese activity of cutting butterflies from red decorative paper, and then writing messages on them, such as: "hello mommy" in Mandarin. They then presented the finished artwork to their parents.

Chao's passion and dedication made her a popular figure at the university. Confucius Institute's director Michael Hoey described Chao as "professional, intelligent and dedicated". Hoey, a professor of English Language at Liverpool University, has also become a Mandarin student at the institute.

At Christmas and New Year, Chao would receive chocolates and cards from her students. Some primary school students even cried when they realized they would not be taking Mandarin classes at their secondary school.

Chao said she originally thought about teaching abroad in 2008 upon learning that a friend was going to teach Chinese in Russia.

"I thought, 'if I can take half a year, or a year abroad to teach Chinese, it would be a great experience'," she said.

This casual thought eventually led Chao to Liverpool. After almost three years, the peaceful town has become almost a second home for Chao. Last October she made a decision to stay for a second term, despite Hanban, the Chinese National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, normally only allowing teachers to stay in the UK for two years.

"I didn't want to go back so soon because there is so much more I wish to do to make our institute a better place, and my journey has just begun," Chao said.