BETHLEHEM TWP., Pa. — A Lehigh Valley Mandarin-language school, Huaxia, marked Chinese New Year at Northampton Community College’s Lipkin Theatre on Sunday with a program equal parts a celebration and a way to pass on Chinese culture to a new generation.
Huaxia marked the new year, one of the most important annual celebrations in Chinese culture, with performances from the school’s students, teachers and some parents.
Founded in the late 1990s, Huaxia Lehigh Valley offers Chinese language and culture classes as part of a network of more than a dozen Huaxia Chinese schools, most in New Jersey.Huaxia Lehigh Valley history
Students, most of them dressed in red for the new year holiday, performed songs, dances and short plays in Mandarin with their classmates as a sea of beaming parents, friends and relatives looked on.
Teachers demonstrated the students’ exercise routine, and the parent dancing club also showed off their moves.
Each class put together its own performance, with some of the school’s extracurricular clubs also joining.
For example, the school’s debate club delivered arguments, in Mandarin with the occasional word or two of English, on “Chinese parenting styles.”
Founded in the late 1990s, Huaxia Lehigh Valley offers Chinese language and culture classes as part of a network of more than a dozen Huaxia Chinese schools, most in New Jersey.
'Know their fathers, mothers, ancestors'
Once a week, students from preschool to eighth grade come to Northampton Community College’s Bethlehem Township campus for Mandarin language and Chinese culture courses.
Some come from families that speak Chinese at home, while others are coming to learn the language.
Though not all its students are of Chinese descent, the school’s main mission is to teach U.S.-born children of Chinese immigrants about their language and culture, said school Principal Taoye Zhang, a son of immigrants.
“They are Americans, but they're Chinese-Americans. So without the touch of connection to the Chinese language, it's very hard to actually feel that heritage.”Josh Shen of Allentown
“For my kids, I don't want them to just learn English," he said. "We want them to also know their fathers, mothers and also their ancestors, how they speak and the culture."
“We want her to remember and to appreciate her culture, where her family is from,” said a woman who identified herself as Jeanne, a Breinigsville resident with a daughter enrolled in Huaxia Lehigh Valley.
“And also just a way for her to be able to accept who she is and appreciate who she is.”
Josh Shen, an Allentown resident with children in the school, said the school offers a way to acquaint his U.S.-born kids with the culture from which they came.
“They are Americans, but they're Chinese-Americans," Shen said. "So without the touch of connection to the Chinese language, it's very hard to actually feel that heritage.”
Watching his children get to know their shared culture, he said, was worth the difficulty of getting them to go to an extra day of school every Sunday.
