Young Students From Chinese Institute Mark New Year

By TOM BECKER

Jan. 25, 1998 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

CANOGA PARK — Nellie Kwan sat humming a song her grandmother sang to her about 50 years ago when she was a young girl growing up in the Jiangxi province of China.

It is a story about two teenagers who meet in a field and fall passionately in love. As a young girl, Kwan blushed when she heard the song. Saturday, the sweet memory made her smile.

“This is the China I know,” said the 58-year-old Canoga Park woman.

Kwan was one of more than 80 people, most of Chinese descent, attending a Chinese New Year’s celebration by the Sun Yat-sen Chinese Institute--a weekend school in Canoga Park where Chinese Americans born in the United States learn to read and write in the Chinese language.

For three hours, Benedict Hall at Sutter Junior High School, where the institute operates, was alive with Chinese culture. Young girls clad in traditional pink silk suits and draped in flowers performed the customary ribbon dance.

A first-grade boy who could kick higher than his head led taekwondo demonstrations. Two sixth-graders performed an ancient Chinese ballet, while others performed modern dances to old folk songs updated with new techno beats.

“This is China, these songs, these dances, these children,” Kwan said while sitting in a wooden auditorium seat, a few rows back from a tall black speaker blaring the taped music out into the audience.

The celebration by students from the school named for China’s first president took place one week before the Chinese New Year holiday that will mark the beginning of the Year of the Tiger. Each year since it opened in 1983, the school, which boasts an enrollment of almost 170 students, showcases its students’ accomplishments through its New Year’s celebration.

This year’s event was special because it was the school’s 15th anniversary.

“When we started the school, we were just hoping we would have enough students to fill a small room in the back of a church,” said Lena Lee, the principal who has been at the school since it opened. “We just kept growing and growing. It’s wonderful.”

Lee said the school teaches students to read, write and speak Chinese. That’s not easy because China has two distinct dialects, Mandarin and Cantonese.

“Most of these children have parents who speak English so they don’t have to learn Chinese. But we think it’s important they learn,” she said.

Lee held up a piece of paper filled with Chinese characters. “This one’s about the school. It says, ‘The Chinese school teaches me a lot.’ ”

In the auditorium, with balloons tied to their wrists, children danced to songs and clapped loudly when a small boy ran in front of the stage with an “Applause” sign after each performance.

Sitting in the back row, three students discussed what they like most about Chinese culture.

“I like the music, it’s relaxing,” said Phillip Hong, 12. His friends, Peter Chu, 13, and Peter Ton, 12, agreed, but also said they like the fireworks.

Whatever their choices, Lee said, she is just glad they are learning enough to have such a conversation.

“It’s important that the Chinese culture lives on here in America. It is our history and we can’t forget that,” she said.