US students find passion, purpose in learning Chinese

Kennedy Walton, 9, has been learning Chinese for five years and her reason for sticking with it so far is straightforward.

"I think learning another language is like powerful," she said, wearing a traditional Chinese outfit her father had bought for her in China.

The student at Hope Chinese Charter School in Oregon said her father works with Nike selling shoes in China and has to rely on friends who speak Chinese or translation apps to get by.

"So I feel like if I ever grow up and go to China or a place that speaks a different language, I could use my language and communicate," she told China Daily.

Kennedy placed second in the elementary school division of the 2026 "Chinese Bridge" preliminary competition, held Saturday at the Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco. She was one of 13 elementary, secondary and college students selected through qualifying rounds across several states. They competed before an audience of more than 80 students, teachers, parents and supporters from more than 20 schools.

The Chinese Bridge competition, now in its 25th year, has grown into one of the world's largest Chinese-language contests. Last year, the event drew more than 1.8 million young participants from over 160 countries. Winners of the San Francisco consular district will advance to the global finals in China later this year.

"Chinese Bridge competition is a global stage for Chinese language learners to display their talents and pursue their dreams," Chinese Consul General in San Francisco Zhang Jianmin told competitors at the event.

"Many students, in fact, like to refer to this competition as the Olympic Games of Chinese language learning."

He noted that past competitors from the San Francisco consular district had won the global championship and the US regional championship on multiple occasions, and that many went on to elite universities. He cited two recent examples: Shiraz Rothschild, who won the 2024 US championship for secondary school students, is headed to Stanford University; Andrew Fowler, who took third place in the 2023 college-level global finals, will this year begin a master's program in archaeology at Peking University.

Tori Howard, a ninth grader at Lakeridge High School in Oregon, won the secondary school division. For her competition speech, she reflected on the Chinese speakers she has met along the way and what they have meant to her journey toward fluency.

"I think the biggest thing is, it just gives you the opportunity to communicate with so many more people, and make new friends," she told China Daily.

For Eli Marx, the payoff is now academic. Marx attended high school in Ohio, where he first picked up Chinese, and is now a sophomore at Stanford University majoring in East Asian Studies. He won the college division at Saturday's competition.

His current research examines how Chinese and Western users interact on social media, which would be impossible without reading the source material himself.

"My research is focused on social media and interactions between China and the West on social media, and so I can read the Chinese comments, watch the Chinese videos, see what Chinese people are thinking about the content they're getting from abroad, and also see what foreigners are thinking about China," he said.

Marx said that while there may have been few other foreigners in his hometown, 10 percent of students at his high school were international students from China.

"I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity I had to learn from them and talk to them," he said.

"At first I was just really curious about other cultures, and slowly I felt like studying other cultures is like the best way to build empathy and to really learn about the world and think about putting other people first and really engaging with people in a deeper way," he said.

"One thing I love about Chinese — it really does open up another world to me," said Marx, who has traveled to China multiple times.

What keeps him going, he said, is a moment that any language learner would know: "Talking to someone in their native language and seeing them light up and be happy."