Making Chinese School Cool
Chinese is fun, practical, and cool. We re-designed Chinese schools from the ground-up so children grow up learning and loving Mandarin Chinese.
Our Inspiration
Dan Guo and Dylan Qian are two American-born Chinese (ABCs) who share the same realization - we regret our childhood Chinese language experiences and this same regret exists in so many of our other American-born Chinese friends.
As kids, the majority of ABCs attended after school and weekend Chinese schools that weren’t exciting - Who are Xiao Ming and Xiao Zhang, and why are they always doing frivolous activities? Why should I learn Chinese in America? Can I ever use Chinese outside of the classroom or at home?
These thoughts quickly waned our commitment to Chinese. We shot English responses to our Chinese-speaking parents. Most of us gave up on classes by middle school. The ones who stuck it out did so for the AP test score, rather than for the language.
It’s only now (college and early adult life) that we regret not learning as much. We yearn to communicate with our parents in their tongue. We see the East rising and want to participate. We’ve found great friends whom we want to speak Chinese with.
It’s with this regret that we aim to do better for our kids. They deserve a more thoughtful Chinese education. Chinese is cool, fun, and practical. Why can’t learning it be just as cool and fun?
Our Start
We started with classes and workshops held on Stanford campus. The very first class was teaching students how to order Chinese food from a Chinese restaurant. In 1-hour, students were able to order any food from any Chinese restaurant!
From our successful classes, parents started reaching out for more. We expanded to personalized home tutoring, for weekend and afternoon Chinese experiences. In-home experiences are based on a set of standardized curriculum that is then customized for each family, depending on what is cool, fun, and practical for the kids!