Irvine has become a growing center of Chinese culture in Southern California. There are about 30,000 residents of Chinese descent here, city officials say. There are Chinese supermarkets, plays, operas, Buddhist temples and a cultural center that is one of the largest in the U.S. More Chinese Americans live in Irvine than any other city in the county.

The school, at the newly opened, $12-million, 44,000-square-foot South Coast Chinese Cultural Center, is the country’s largest site for the Startalk program. Funded by the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Startalk aims to lure students into learning languages deemed critical to national security and the economy…

“In the U.S., foreign languages have always taken a back seat to other disciplines, and we want to change that,” said Betsy Hart, associate director of the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland and head of Startalk. “This is a pilot year, and we are testing to see which models will be most effective.” …

The Irvine site was chosen after David Wu, who heads the Southern California Council of Chinese Schools, and representatives from the Chinese cultural center heard about the program and applied for a federal grant. They were awarded $193,000 and set about devising a one-month, intensive curriculum.

“This is the first time we have seen a federal grant program come along to teach Chinese,” said Tim Cheng, manager of the cultural center and vice chairman of the Irvine Community Services Commission. “We used to have to beg our kids to learn Chinese, and now it has become very popular.” …

Source: Los Angeles Times
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