Special Envoys : Hale Middle School Hosts Sixth-Graders From China

WOODLAND HILLS —  It only took one day for a group of 75 visiting Chinese sixth-graders to shuck their matching green and white school uniforms for American blue jeans. But despite the rebellious look, they still couldn’t resist getting up extra early for their first day of school.

The youngest delegation of foreign exchange students between China and the United States piled out of a yellow school bus Monday and lined up in rows long before the tardy bell rang at Hale Middle School in Woodland Hills.

“At 7:30 they were already ready,” said Christine Tung, president of the Sino-U.S. Business and Technology Exchange, a transpacific company that arranged the student exchange program. “They were so excited. They kept saying, ‘When are we going to go to school?’ ”

The Chinese youths--who are from the Heroes School in Guangzhou, China--will spend the fall semester at Hale, studying English and American culture. Next year, the Los Angeles Unified School District expects to send a U.S. delegation to Heroes--the first private school in China--where the $30,000-a-year tuition will be waived.

Since the students’ arrival from halfway around the world, Tung said there have been a few incidents of culture shock: one child was found trying to stuff a $50 bill into a soda machine at the Woodland Hills apartment complex where they will live this fall.

The visitors, Tung said, still have a lot to learn.

At Hale, the Chinese youngsters will be taking two English classes, math, social studies, physical education and an elective, said Grace Pang Bovy, an adviser with the school district’s Asian Pacific and Other Languages office.

“Hale has been very good in meeting the needs of ESL students,” said Bovy, which is why the exchange program is being conducted at the Woodland Hills school.

Hale teachers expect American students will also learn from their guests.

“We hope our students will learn respect from them,” said Karen Stafford, Hale’s bilingual coordinator who oversees the English as a Second Language program that represents 29 languages spoken at the school.

As far as cultural exchange, “hopefully (the Chinese students) will not return wearing baggy pants,” Stafford joked.

Chinese-American students, who speak Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese, will serve as translators throughout the semester. They and student government leaders took the Chinese students on a tour of the Hale campus Monday morning.

As they wandered about the campus, through the nurse’s room and the attendance office, the tour guides introduced the Chinese youths to the complexities of getting excused for an absence and the perils of the eighth-grade lawn, which is reserved for the school’s oldest students.

Student body vice president Nicole Sauler, 13, explained to her new peers: “You can’t be on the lawn during nutrition and lunch.”

Felicia Khong, 12, who speaks Cantonese, said the Chinese students asked her questions such as how the drinking fountain works and how to open hall lockers.

“I’ve never seen so many Chinese in one place,” Khong said, delighted to be using her bilingual ability.

“They’re so shy,” remarked 12-year-old Sarah Farzam, as she tried to talk to some of the Chinese girls.

“They like to hold hands and stuff,” Farzam said. She seemed a little peeved that the girls laughed at her when she tried to say in Cantonese--with help from a translator--that she thought their shoes were cute.

Howard Luck, 13, and his buddy Steve Aure, 12, plunked themselves down at a cafeteria table in the midst of several giggling Chinese girls, hoping to befriend them.

Communicating by drawing pictures in a notebook, Luck said he wanted to introduce himself to the exchange students and help them get around at Hale. “It’s a unique experience to have kids from another country,” Luck said.