Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

A new career. A new school.
And a very inconvenient new crush.

I’m not sure I could have envisioned, back in 2005 when I first started going to meetings with the San Francisco Unified School District about starting a Mandarin immersion programs here, that twenty years later I’d be reading a romance novel set at a Mandarin immersion grade school.

And that one of its plot points would be the struggle to get a school district to create a middle school follow on so students had a chance to continue Chinese after fifth grade. Admittedly, it’s a minor plot point, but wow, it certainly resonated.

Clearly, The Teacher’s Match was written by someone who’s lived this. And indeed, she has. Kristi Hong was born to Taiwanese immigrant parents, grew up in Michigan and is Mandarin immersion parent.

Her novel definitely shows that – this is someone who’s spend time in MI schools and knows the issues they face. There’s even a dragon boat race and a fifth grade trip to Taiwan.

Mind you, it’s a Harlequin romance, so it’s a little fantasy based. The principle is 100% behind the school, there doesn’t seem to be any community pushback and at least some of the fifth graders have beautiful Chinese calligraphy. On the other hand, I kept seeing Jack Sun as Nick Young in Crazy Rich Asians as I read it, which was kind of fun.

I’m more a science fiction reader, but this was a lovely book and the first I’ve found that’s set in a Mandarin immersion school. I hope there are more to come – here’s to being mainstream!

And here’s a story about the author, and the book. Please read here.