Culture Class : Education: A South Bay Chinese school is one of many institutions that teaches students about their roots. Not all are enthused, but parents say their kids will thank them later.

While many of his friends are home watching cartoons, third-grader Allen Wang reluctantly spends his Saturday mornings learning mandarin.

As he explores his Chinese heritage, Allen’s parents are being taught ballroom dancing down the hall.

It’s all part of the South Bay Chinese School of Language and Culture, which has been holding Saturday morning classes for 21 years throughout the area, most recently at picturesque Palos Verdes Intermediate School. Recreational classes for adults were added six years ago, but Principal Albert Lin said the main goal of the school is to make its Chinese-American students bilingual. And language, he said, goes hand in hand with culture.

“If we don’t show their heritage, then that would be lost,” Lin said. “The kids are already dominated by the Western culture. We want to give them another side--Chinese culture.”

The school is believed to be one of the oldest of dozens of language and culture schools in the South Bay formed to supplement the American school system. Founded in 1971 by a small group of parents who wanted to teach their heritage to their children, the school now has 320 students and involves more than 200 families in the South Bay who form the core of its volunteer teaching and administrative staffs.

Still, Saturday morning classes are a tough sell for many of the youths. The school day consists of two hours of language instruction and one hour of a recreation or culture class. The students receive plenty of homework, take quizzes and labor through rigorous midterm and final exams.

Allen, 9, who attends a public elementary school during the week, said a kung fu class he takes as an elective is the only activity he likes at the South Bay Chinese School.

Asked what else he would be doing with his Saturdays, Allen doesn’t hesitate. “Anything. I don’t like coming,” he said as he watched a classmate practice kung fu kicks in an outdoor courtyard.

But Angela Wang, Allen’s mother, believes that in time her son will come to appreciate what his parents are doing for him.

“To learn the Chinese culture is to learn where you came from,” Wang said. “The Chinese language is so important nowadays because the world is so small. Furthermore, the Chinese language is beautiful.”

She points out the change in her 14-year-old daughter, who looks forward to attending her Saturday classes. “We don’t have to force her (to go) anymore,” Wang said.

The Wangs, who live in Palos Verdes Estates, don’t just drop their two children off at the curb when they pull into the school’s parking lot. While the kids are in language class, Andrew and Angela Wang, both medical doctors, cha-cha-cha their way through a ballroom dance course for adults.

Ballroom dancing is all the rage among older Chinese, Angela Wang said.

“It’s very good exercise, for one thing,” she said, as about 10 couples practiced their routines in a section of the school’s gymnasium. “And it’s something for husband and wife to do together.”

The school added recreational classes for adults to increase family participation in the school. In addition, there are four Cantonese classes and 16 courses in mandarin, the official language of China. The courses run roughly the equivalent of a U.S. academic school year.

Tuition each semester is $115 for the first child enrolled and $45 for adult classes. It will cost the South Bay Chinese School $20,000 this year for classroom rental and upkeep at Palos Verdes Intermediate, where the Chinese school moved last September.

Many students are the children of affluent Chinese professionals who in recent years have been settling in the Palos Verdes Peninsula in greater numbers. Most are first-generation immigrants from Taiwan or Hong Kong.

Lin, the school’s principal, is a computer engineer at a local aerospace company. He immigrated to the United States in the mid-1970s from Taiwan and became the school’s principal last September.

The South Bay Chinese School emphasizes traditional values, such as respect for elders. Those values, Lin says, are largely absent in public schools.

“We emphasize the family,” said Lin, who is married and has three children.

Such values are also emphasized at other language and culture schools in the area. In addition to the South Bay Chinese School, there are at least three other Chinese schools in the South Bay. And, as immigration has increased the area’s diversity, it has also spurred a greater interest in the language schools.

Keum Lee, assistant principal of the Peninsula branch of the Korean School of Southern California in Rancho Palos Verdes, said her school has grown every year since it opened six years ago.

The school currently has about 200 students, who take two hours of Korean language and an hour of either Korean dance or tae kwon do, the Korean martial arts form.

The classes also help bridge a communication gap between English-speaking children and their parents, Lee said.

“A lot of parents don’t understand English very well,” she said. “Children need to learn Korean language to improve communication between the parents and grandparents. Quite a few families have their grandparents living with them.”

On a recent Saturday, the South Bay Chinese School seemed much like any other school. Students toting backpacks filled the hallways, a gymnasium bustled with basketball practice and teachers led students through reading drills.

But there are distinctly Chinese touches. For young boys, part of the gymnasium is reserved for table tennis, a sport in which China produces many champions. For young girls, there are classes in traditional Chinese painting and knotting.

Alisa Guo, 12, and her friends had their minds on something other than the flower they were supposed to be learning how to paint. Alisa’s classmates had painted her face with mascara and lipstick to celebrate her birthday.

Still, Alisa, a sixth-grader at Palos Verdes Intermediate School, said she’d rather be horseback riding than coming to the school with friends on what is supposed to be a day off.

“It’s boring,” she said. “I’d rather go on a school day.”

Nevertheless, not all students mind coming on weekends. Seventh-grader Connie Chang studied from a reading book as her teacher gave instructions in mandarin. The book, customized for American-born Chinese, contained English translations of Chinese characters.

Connie, 12, has been coming to the school for four years. “My parents make me, but it’s fun so I don’t care,” she said. “Sometimes we play games to help us learn. It’s fun learning.”