New year, old ways

A wonderful story about the way these families are combining American culture with their heritage. It shows that it is not an easy thing to do either. DP

Chinese school grows as parents keep traditions alive

By Erica Noonan, Globe Staff

Boston.com: Between reciting Chinese poetry and performing traditional dance routines, kids munched on McDonald's fries and hunched over Game Boy consoles.

They were preparing a pageant to celebrate the Chinese New Year, 4075, the Year of the Pig, which starts Sunday.

Mothers helped their daughters slip out of Disney Princess backpacks and into white tutus. Teachers hustled children clutching paper fans and flowers on and off the stage at Massachusetts Bay Community College in Framingham.

Trying to keep the dress rehearsal for last weekend's performance on track, Century Chinese Language School director Lina Chen commandeered a microphone and issued rapid-fire instructions in Chinese, punctuated by a single word in English: "Listen!"

A decade ago, the school had four parent-volunteers and 28 students. Today, it has 40 teachers and enrolls 210 children, ranging from preschool to high school, in language and culture classes every Sunday afternoon on the Mass Bay Framingham campus.

The purpose is to help American-born, English-speaking children of Chinese immigrants bridge the gulf between their ancestry and modern US culture.
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