U.S. Teen Woos China

(LA Times, February 2, 2008) | full story

Excerpt: Kyle Rothstein stands out in a sea of Chinese faces not because he is an American teenager with curly red hair and clear blue eyes, but because he speaks Chinese. Fluent Chinese. The visual and verbal double take is the handiwork of his father, Jay Rothstein, a prescient American businessman who put Kyle in a bilingual English-Mandarin school in San Francisco when he was 5. The elder Rothstein had read that if you don't learn to speak a foreign language by that age, you never really get it.

Mandarin a Must for Some

(Sydney Morning Herald, September 21, 2007) | full story

Excerpt: "The study of Mandarin is set to become compulsory in some NSW public schools from next year. The Conservatorium High School in Sydney may introduce Mandarin as a mandatory subject as early as next year, as part of a wide-ranging review of its curriculum. A spokeswoman for the Department of Education confirmed "it has been raised as a possibility".