A Career of Volunteering

本文附有中文视频，敬請觀賞。

Note: a video clip in Mandarin is attached to this article.

Many know Cupertino has Hsinchu, Taiwan, as a sister city, but lesser known is how the sister-city relationship was established.

It was Elaine Han, founder of the Cupertino Chinese School and Women's Workshop, who initially suggested to then-mayor Michael Chang in 1998 to get a sister city in Taiwan.

"We decided on Hsinchu, because its Science Park (a large compound of high tech companies) made it look like a good match to Silicon Valley," said Han, a Taiwanese immigrant and Cupertino resident since 1987.

Han has contributed to Cupertino a lot more than a sister city. She helped countless new immigrants from Taiwan and China by establishing Cupertino Chinese School in 1990 for their children's Chinese language education, and by creating the Women's Workshop in 1995 to offer cooking classes and health lectures for homemakers.

In 1995, Han also founded Dimension Performing Arts, a nonprofit program that invites prominent performing artists from China and Taiwan to introduce the beauty of traditional Chinese culture to local elementary school children. Although the program was cancelled in 2009 for lack of funding, it was highly appreciated during its existence.

Han won an Asian Hero Award in 2004 for her distinguished achievements in community service.

It is hard to imagine that the Asian Hero Award winner who leads influential nonprofit organizations actually never worked a day of her life for pay.

Han says she never entered the job market, because she married right after college and has been a homemaker ever since, except for helping out with administrative tasks at the clinic of her father-in-law, then a physician in Taiwan, before having her first child.

Han has three children, who were 12, 8 and 6 when the family moved to Cupertino. Han and her husband sent them to Silicon Valley Chinese School on weekends to help them retain the Chinese language and culture. In the meantime, Han became a parent volunteer there.

Han said it was because Silicon Valley Chinese School was overcrowded that she decided to open another Chinese school.

Cupertino Chinese School rents classrooms of Monta Vista High School on Friday nights. It teaches the Chinese language and culture to students from preschoolers to 12th-graders.

According to Han, the school once had more than 1,000 students but now only has more than 600, because more and more Chinese language classes are offered at mainstream schools.

"How should Chinese schools cope with the change? This is what we need to discuss now," said Han. "We need to figure out how to transform ourselves."

Han said this is an issue for the Cupertino Area Chinese Language Committee, formed by Cupertino Chinese School, Silicon Valley Chinese School, Rainbow Chinese School and the Chinese Department of De Anza College.

While Cupertino Chinese School faces challenges, Women's Workshop continues grow and often attracts men to attend its classes, despite its name, Han said.

Women's Workshop operates on a quarter system. During the winter (January to March), spring (April to June) and fall (September to November) quarters, cooking classes or health lectures are held on the first and third Friday mornings of the month.

For the convenience of members, the Women's Workshop classes are not in sequence. Members are not required to attend all of them throughout a quarter. Instead, they can pick and choose. The annual membership fee is $10. There may or may not be a charge for each class, depending on the materials used.

Han said Women's Workshop has working members who will take time off their jobs for a particular class they find interesting or useful.

All the classes of Women's Workshop are taught in Mandarin, but they are not limited to those who speak it as their first language. Han said the cooking classes don't necessarily require advanced vocabulary and may be comprehensible to those who only know basic Mandarin.

Han encourages those whose first language is not Mandarin to learn the language and join Women's Workshop.

"We want to see non-Chinese in our classes," she said.

Han talked to Cupertino Patch in Mandarin about how she started making volunteering her lifelong career. The video recording of the interview is attached to this article.

To inquire about Women's Workshop, contact Elaine Han at kaoelaine@gmail.com.

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