📰 On July 16, 2026, CommonWealth Magazine (天下雜誌) Europe correspondent Shen Peng-ta published a report asking what makes Taiwan’s Mandarin learning centers so attractive that foreigners fall in love with traditional Chinese characters. The story about the Overseas Community Affairs Council’s (OCAC) centers around the world begins with our Jade Mountain Chinese School in Budapest.
Jade Mountain School in the report
- In 2023, Hungarian data engineer Fidel Csikós (計忠軒) received a Huayu Enrichment Scholarship from Taiwan’s Ministry of Education and studied Chinese at National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung, where he even got a driving licence and rode his own scooter around the port city. He has since obtained a Taiwan Employment Gold Card and hopes to return to live and work in Taiwan. His journey started in a small classroom in Budapest: Jade Mountain Chinese School.
- Principal Li Yi-Ying holds a master’s degree in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language from National Kaohsiung Normal University and has lived in Hungary for 15 years. She founded Jade Mountain in 2019, and in 2022 it became the first Taiwan Center for Mandarin Learning (TCML) in Hungary. About 80% of its roughly 40 students are Hungarian adults, including lawyers and doctors.
- How do you teach traditional characters? Li Yi-Ying does not judge simplified or traditional characters; instead she uses the evolution of scripts and character origins to show students the logic behind Chinese characters. Fidel gives an example: the traditional character for “love” (愛) contains “heart” (心), which makes its meaning easier to grasp.
- During Hungary’s parliamentary election this spring, students also discussed Taiwan’s elections in class. “There’s no need to keep stressing Taiwan’s democracy; they would see it as propaganda,” Li Yi-Ying says. Through discussion, students come to understand what kind of country Taiwan is.
Mandarin learning centers around the world
- Since 2021, OCAC has supported Taiwan Centers for Mandarin Learning that teach Taiwanese-style Mandarin, mainly in traditional characters, to local adults who are not native speakers. In just over five years there are already 93 centers worldwide, with the most (67) in North America and 19 in 12 European countries.
- The budget of the overseas Mandarin learning program has nearly tripled in five years, reaching almost NT$240 million this year.
- OCAC’s textbook series Let’s Learn Mandarin (來學華語) focuses on practical dialogues and is already available in 11 language versions.
- OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching says the centers use learning as a platform for Taiwan and other societies to get to know each other, and their students become Taiwan’s best ambassadors in their countries.
👉 Read the full report on CommonWealth Magazine (in Chinese; partly for subscribers)
Source: CommonWealth Magazine, by Shen Peng-ta (CW Web only), July 16, 2026.
