Two Jordan School District students are representing Utah on the national stage after excelling in the statewide Chinese language competition.

Harrison Kailer, a fifth grader at Monte Vista Elementary, and Cole Hansen, a ninth-grader at South Jordan Middle, were to travel to Los Angeles in May to compete in the National Chinese Bridge competition, where top students from across the country will showcase their Mandarin language skills and knowledge of Chinese culture.

For both dual immersion students, learning Mandarin has become more than a school subject. It’s opening doors to new culture, friendships and possibly, future career goals.

Harrison, who earned the state champion title demonstrating his language proficiency and cultural knowledge while competing against 45 other elementary students, said contestants practiced a prepared set of questions before the competition.

“They were: tell us in two or three sentences about yourself and your school,” he said. “Then, there was a harder part to memorize a 1917 poem. For me, it was difficult because there were certain words I didn’t know the meaning of.”

For the cultural talent portion of the competition, Harrison performed Chinese yo-yo tricks he learned from watching videos online and learning from friends.

Cole, who has studied Chinese since first grade, also studies several other languages, including Japanese and Russian. He recently traveled to China, an experience that deepened his passion for the language and culture as well as for international communication and engineering.

“Chinese has so many traditions and culture and meaning behind literally everything; it’s a really deep language,” he said. 

Cole earned his place at nationals after state competition, which was held in April. He, like Harrison, answered questions, recited four poems and demonstrated his cultural talent — playing the erhu, a traditional Chinese two-string instrument. Already an experienced violin player, he worked with a teacher for three weeks to learn the instrument to prepare for his performance.

Unlike the violin, the erhu is played on the lap instead of the shoulder.

“The spacings between the fingers and knowing the pressure on the bow and the speed look so similar, but it’s fundamentally different,” he said.

For nationals, Cole will deliver a three-minute speech about Chinese culture. They both will answer different posed questions and demonstrate their cultural talents. If they qualify, international competition will be in Beijing.

Both students learned about the opportunity to compete from their teachers and Harrison credits his for helping him prepare for the competition. 

More so, they’ve both grown to love the language and culture. Harrison enjoys learning about the meanings behind Chinese holidays and traditions.

“Like with Chinese New Year, there’s this monster that comes around, we learn why they use the color red, why they use firecrackers, why they give red envelopes — all of it has meaning,” he said.

Cole said he admires the strong respect for elders found in Chinese culture.

“When you’re a child, your parents take care of you. When they get old and you’re an adult, you take care of them. That’s a part of their culture I admire,” he said.

Both students hope to combine their language skills with careers in technology and engineering someday. Cole wants to connect American and Chinese innovation while Harrison dreams to become a software engineer and assist with translations in video games.

As they prepared to compete in LA, both were excited and nervous to represent Utah.

“It’s going to be a great opportunity to get out there and try my best,” Harrison said. 

Minutes later, he was honored for his success by his peers at a school-wide assembly and motivated them: “Work hard and you can do great things like this.”