Article "Mandarin rising" by Kimberly A.C. Wilson in the Oregonian:
...To the Portland schoolchildren on the first rung in the nation's only kindergarten-to-college Chinese immersion curriculum, Mandarin is fast becoming as familiar as story time and stubby pink erasers.
"Mandarin has been this quiet little jewel," says Patterson, whose English business card reverses to Simplified Chinese characters. "Interest keeps blossoming."
Ding Li, an electrical engineer from China who teaches Mandarin in Portland and Beaverton, agrees. "We can feel that the language is becoming hotter."
And Southeast Portland -- home to Woodstock's nine-year-old immersion program, assorted Chinese language schools and the city's largest concentration of native speakers -- is an epicenter.
The number of Portlanders who speak Chinese -- Cantonese as well as Mandarin -- grew at least 20 percent from 2000 to 2005, a recent Multnomah County Library study found. To serve them, the Woodstock branch hired the system's first Mandarin and Cantonese speakers last summer. Other businesses and services are blossoming in Southeast to serve a thriving community swelling with both multinational adoptive families and immigrants.
The developments might put a smile on the face of Uncle Sam. Mastering Mandarin is considered a matter of national security, and the U.S. Defense Department wants Americans to grasp Mandarin's nuances like the Beijing-born -- and compete with residents of the world's fastest-growing economy...
The prospect of college scholarships has made Woodstock's program even more popular. Nearly 110 families applied for Woodstock's 60 kindergarten slots this school year. Bacon gets frequent calls from parents who want Mandarin in other parts of Portland and from principals who want to replicate the K-to-college track....
About 600 Oregon families applied to adopt children from overseas last year, with about half of those seeking children from China, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Such families are encouraged to maintain linguistic and cultural connections with China....
The Woodstock Library, meanwhile, bulked up on Chinese materials and hired two staff members who are native speakers in Mandarin and Cantonese after a library study completed in fall found that branch is the most heavily used by Chinese speakers. The branch plans to add a Chinese story time for kids later this year, led by the new staffers.
The study's author, Ben Moorad, says Census data show that Southeast has the city's highest percentage of children under 5 who speak Chinese at home. He also found that the number of people who call Chinese their primary language ballooned 45 percent from 2000 to 2004, to 7,350. And while Cantonese speakers outnumber Mandarin speakers by as much as 10-to-1 in Portland, the ratio is shifting downward.....
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