Jan 12
Huntsville Chinese Village was founded in 2005 by Wanda Shaw in response to requests of Chinese language instruction. To supplement the language instruction, we provided various cultural activities: lunch/dinner parties, field trips, holiday celebrations, Chinese traditional dances, a summer camp, and helped two students apply for a youth immersion trip to Taiwan.
To celebrate Chinese culture, we volunteered to support many community organizations: Huntsville Chinese Association, FCC (Families with Children from China), Jade Club, Hot Spot Productions, Chinese churches and fellowships, and the Arts Council (Panoply Arts Festival). We volunteered teaching Chinese language at Weatherly Heights Elementary School and Mountain Gap Middle School from 2006 to 2009.
Huntsville Chinese Village LLC was born in the January of 2012, and at this time we will do business as Yuwenbon with our slogan being “Never Stop Learning”. Yuwenbon means “language culture list.” For centuries, Chinese people of all ages worked hard for years to get on the “list” of academic exam winners. When they did, they could bring such a great honor to their family. At times, the benefits that came with this honor changed the lives of themselves, their family, and the future generations.
As we examined all the important values we hold dear from our history, “learning” kept appearing. Our favorite Chinese proverb is “Learning is like a boat going upstream; if you don’t continue to move forward, you will be pulled back.”
“True learning has two components: knowledge and action. After all is stripped away, what we leave behind is the impact of our character.” An elderly Chinese gentleman wrote this saying, matted it, and gave it to Wanda Shaw when she was a social worker helping Chinese immigrants adapt to American lives 25 years ago.
Because this concept of learning is the center of our organization, we chose the Chinese proverb, “Never stop learning” as our slogan.
Wanda’s vision didn’t begin with an immersion preschool, but with small groups in the form of parent-child (ages 5-8), child (ages 9-13), together (ages 9-13), adult (ages 14 and up), and individual classes. At a point we had started a preschool class. Without a larger space, we had leased a dance studio for this type of class to introduce more physical activities to meet the needs of active children. The kids were able to make progress, but did so very slowly because they didn’t have enough exposure to the Chinese language. In the end, because the classes were not very effective, we put that part of the program on hold and began to rethink other possibilities.
As 2012 came along and we embraced a new name of Yuwenbon, we started to rethink the possibilities of a preschool program. We settled on an immersion preschool for a good reason. In 2001, Wanda took her -then 4-1/2 year old- daughter Chanda to Taiwan. They stayed there for 10 weeks, and Chanda was put in an all day preschool in Taipei without knowing any Chinese. At the end of their stay, all of Wanda’s friends were surprised with Chanda’s conversational skills as well as her pronunciation. As of today, 10 years later, she still carries with her what she learned in those 10 weeks. The experience of being thrust into an unknown language, without any previous experiences or explanations, had laid a foundation of the Chinese language in Chanda.
This is our rationale of starting the Little Dragon Chinese Immersion Preschool in the fall of 2012. We know for sure that children will progress much faster than if they didn’t have the immersion experience.
Huntsville Chinese Village celebrates its seventh year with a new name Yuwenbon and new vision of starting a Chinese immersion program. Little Dragon Chinese Immersion Preschool will be added to its current options of programs. It is continually building its reputation of excellent Chinese language and cultural education.