US expat translates love of Mandarin into teaching post

If you speak to Benjamin K. Hammer on the phone, you would think you were talking to a person who had lived in a Chinese-language environment since childhood, as he uses Mandarin's four tones correctly.

But Hammer started learning Mandarin when he was a high school senior in San Jose, California. Since there were no Chinese-related courses at his high school in the 1990s, Hammer studied Mandarin at a community school's night classes.

"In the United States, people are curious about Oriental culture and history, such as the culture embodied in religions, kung fu and traditional Chinese medicine," Hammer said.