An Affinity for the Irvine Chinese School

Editor’s Note:

As the South Coast Chinese Cultural Association and Irvine Chinese School near their 50th anniversary, a special editorial team is collecting reflections from former presidents and principals to preserve this half-century journey. 

Cultural Express launches the “Brilliant Fifty” series, featuring selected essays that illuminate the people and stories that shaped our community.

I joined Irvine Chinese School (ICS) in 1984 as a teacher when the school was just eight years old.  I was interviewed by Mitzi Fu and Terry Lee, who had earlier served as principals.  

To teach at a Chinese school was a totally new experience for me, although I had served as a private tutor to a reporter with the Japanese Sankei Shinbum.  I remember being a little anxious when I faced a roomful of students.  

1998 ICS Poetry Recitation Team

Heart Teaching · True Connection

I was to teach an upper class. The students were mostly of high school age.  

My approach was not to put on the airs of a teacher, but to see the students as friends, so my students would see me as someone to whom they could confide their difficulties.

Three years passed quickly. PTA president Victor Ko nominated me as principal of ICS for the following year. Blissfully unaware of what that entailed, but armed with unbridled ardor, I accepted the position.  

In 1987, ICS was still holding classes at the campus rented from Uni High. My son was only four years old, not yet old enough to attend ICS.

However, he was often a willing follower, running around campus and helping me carry things.  

1988 ICS Poetry Recitation Team

Vision Leadership · Future Shaping

With this exposure, he got into ICS the following year and became a member of the 1988 poetry recitation team.  

The year I became principal, Academic Affairs Dean Ko-Joan Kao and Hon-Wai Yow, husband of PTA president Ping Deng Yow, embarked on the task of computerizing student data.  

It was a massive undertaking to build a data file on close to seven hundred students.

Aside from teaching the advanced class, I also led the student association. These advanced classmen, with their earnest zeal, helped the association in carrying out many activities, e.g., Easter egg hunts, debate competitions and outdoor Christmas celebration activities, etc. 

Today, they have achieved career success, and their offspring are ICS students.

Ann Hwu with two student emcees,  Tiffany Cheng and Sean Niu at the 2000 Lunar New Year Gala

Voices Rising · Legacy Living

After becoming a teacher, because of my high school experience in public speaking and recitation, I started teaching the recitation teams that would represent ICS in competitions hosted by the area Chinese School Association.  

ICS students lived up to expectations. Due to the enthusiastic support of parents, the students rehearsed more intensely. 

Stella Liang served as coordinator, while Jane Chang contributed by designing and sewing the outfits.  

Ann Hwu with three student emcees at the 2015 Lunar New Year Gala

Students at the time included Clara & Bella Liang, Candice Ko, Kathryn Huang and her siblings, Victor, Catherine & Sandra Chu, Cynthia Lee, Irena Lin, Katherine Hwu, Tiffany & Kristin Cheng, Ryan Limb, Leslie Hsu, Stephanie Peng, etc., plus several others whose names now escape me.  

For twenty-plus years, they were the mainstay of the recitation teams, maintaining their standing in the top three places, collecting numerous champion and runner-up cups. 

These students have always been my pride. I am gratified whenever I see their pictures from that time.

2001 ICS Poetry Recitation Team

Foundation Built · Torch Passed

After teaching for twenty years at ICS, I joined the SCCCA Board of Trustees to help build the new campus. With SCCCA president Jerry Chou and other trustees, we often held meetings in Karen Kuo-Limb’s office late into the night.  

Sometimes, discussions on materials alone could drag on till midnight. When the school building was completed in 2004, we held an inauguration ceremony.  

Then the governor and members of the legislature all sent representatives or asked to attend to convey their congratulations.  

Opening of the South Coast Chinese Cultural  Center in 2004

The completion of the ICS campus was a major event in Irvine. I remember Beth Krom, then mayor, often brought visitors to tour our new facilities.  

When the school moved into the new building, I retired from the Board of Trustees. 

However, retirement did not mean I stopped coming back to ICS. I continued helping to train the Lunar New Year’s celebration emcees, or present awards to students at graduation ceremonies.  

In 2004 and 2005, I also regularly helped with fundraising activities. I remember the fundraising New Year’s soiree being attended by close to one thousand people.

Former Irvine Mayor Beth Krom and Ann Hwu at the 2007 ICS graduation ceremony

ICS’s attainments, along a path of trials, came at the sweat of our predecessors and the combined efforts of the Chinese in Irvine. 

My former students are now accomplished professionals.  Principals and teachers of those days have all retired.  

In congratulating ICS’s golden jubilee, I am beset by myriad emotions.  May the ICS, under the leadership of the current principal and board of trustees, continue to thrive, to become a focal point in Irvine. （Brilliant Fifty X）

1995 ICS Poetry Recitation Team