For Christina Xu, who has nurtured the Chinese program at Andrew Jackson Language Academy since it's inception five years ago, the only regret was -- some of her students didn't have the chance to attend Friday's concert.
"We have over 100 students learning Chinese, ranging from Kindergarten to 8th grade. Unfortunately, we don' t have many tickets tonight so only a few parents and friends could come."
CIC's Lu said this is the first time they have members of Dong Fang Chinese Performing Arts Association on the stage for the special event.
"The reason we chose a local performing arts group is because we want to get the students more involved with the local Chinese community. Maybe next time we can combine the students' performance with the art group's performance."
Jan Zheng, vice president of Dong Fang Chinese Performing Arts Association, said they were very glad to perform at the event.
"We appreciate this opportunity to collaborate with the Confucius Institute in Chicago to share the artistic heritage in Chinese culture with administrators, teachers, students and parents of Chicago Public Schools."
Chicago Public Schools has the largest Chinese language program in the United States, with about 12,000 students learning Chinese at 42 schools.
On January 21, President Hu visited Walter Payton College Preparatory High School in downtown Chicago and conducted face-to-face exchanges with U.S. youth.
The school established the only Confucius Institute in the United States that is housed in a K-12 (Kindergarten through 12th grade) environment and which primarily focuses on the Chinese language and cultural education programs.
