Upon arriving at Sea-Tac Airport in late January, Zhu Dan didn't know much about Seattle, but she did know the city was famous for rain, that Boeing airplanes came from here and that Bill Gates lived in the nearby.

What little else she understood about the city came from watching the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy "Sleepless in Seattle."

Zhu Dan is one of 36 Mandarin language instructors who are being dispersed across the United States to different schools as a part of the Chinese Guest Teacher Program, sponsored by the College Board in New York and Hanban, China's Office of Chinese Language Council International. Chief Sealth High School along with Madison and Denny middle schools will host Zhu Dan as a teacher for 18 months.

By 2009, 250 teachers are expected to teach in American classrooms across the country through the Chinese Guest Teacher Program.

"There are more and more people who want to learn Chinese now, and Hanban is the office in charge of making a lot of opportunities for people to learn Chinese," said Zhu Dan, 31.

John Boyd, principal of Chief Sealth High School, spearheaded the effort to bring a Mandarin language teacher to Seattle.

"We really want to build a language program in West Seattle, and this is just the first step hopefully for bigger and better things for the program," said Boyd. "This is part of the international global focus for our school. I had the opportunity to go to China this summer and it just really, really impressed me how many people there are and how big it is and how big a world player they are. Having kids in West Seattle learn a language that's so important really makes sense."

Chief Sealth also runs an exchange program for students to go to Chonqing, China; the classes will help prepare 12 selected students for a trip in 2008. Although grant money for sending Chief Sealth students ran out this year, the school will still be hosting students from the central China province this May.

Chief Sealth World Languages Department chair Noah Zeichner said the popularity of learning Mandarin has made grant money readily available to fund programs.

"Chinese is one of the most advantageous languages for students to learn right now globally, and it will provide students with opportunities in college and beyond that other languages can't provide necessarily," said Zeichner. "China has the world's fastest growing economy, and being able to speak Mandarin in the global society that we have today will help our kids communicate, especially students who are interested in going into international fields - plus it's an intriguing language and students are excited to learn."

Mandarin is the official language of China, which has a total population of more than 1.3 billion as of 2005, according to a report published by the United Nations. More than 873 million people worldwide speak Mandarin as a first language, as indicated by the online language database Ethnologue.com; about 178 million individuals learn Mandarin as a second language.

Now into her third week of instruction, Zhu Dan teaches three classes a day at Madison, Denny and Chief Sealth, respectively; she has 80 students all together, even taking the time to craft unique Chinese names for everyone. In this short period of time, students have already learned such skills as counting from one to 100, introducing themselves and their friends in Chinese, and learning basic phonetic symbols.

Zhu Dan has seven years of experience as an English teacher at her home province Kunming University of Science and Technology. She also holds a master's degree in translation from East China Normal University in Shanghai and a bachelor's degree in English education from Yunnan Normal University.

Although she admits that teaching Chinese to students is a change from her previous experience teaching English, Zhu Dan says the language switch has not ruffled her in the least.

"I think that teaching skills and those kinds of things are similar," she said. "They are both languages, English and Chinese, and I have learned some things about language acquisition and teaching. The only difference is that I think English is complicated in the aspect of grammar. But with Chinese characters, because Chinese is an ideographic language, how to write the character does not recall the sound and it's difficult."

She did note one distinct difference: student behavior.

"Usually. you know, in (my classroom in) China, one of the teacher's jobs is getting the students to talk," said Zhu Dan of teaching oral English to students at Kunming University of Science and Technology. "Here you have to quiet your students down!"

Appreciative of her students' enthusiasm, Zhu Dan has also made time to teach her classes a bit about Chinese culture, especially with the passing of Lunar New Year last weekend. She said that her students were able to recite parts of the New Year legend in Mandarin.

"She's a great teacher," said Robin Cantwell, Zhu Dan's host mother and wife of Chief Sealth math teacher Frank Cantwell. "She's very instinctual with her students and what their needs are, and she's really good at paying attention to what you're retaining."

To her surprise, Zhu Dan has yet to feel homesick; she credits her host family for supporting her not only in work but in her life as well. A newlywed of sorts, Zhu Dan left behind her husband of three years to come work in Seattle.

"Every day I call him or he calls me," said Zhu Dan, who also uses a Web camera hooked up to her computer in the Cantwell's home to communicate with family.

With 17 more months to go, Zhu Dan looks forward to continuing her role as Mandarin teacher and exploring more of Seattle as time allows. She plans to get a driver's license soon to become more independent and to do more sightseeing. In addition, Zhu Dan has been reading magazines and newspapers to "learn more about the culture" of Seattle. She's already enamored with the city's scenery, noting a love for ocean views.

"In my hometown we don't have the sea, we don't have oceans and but we have lakes," Zhu Dan said. "The Puget Sound is very beautiful."

Tiffany Wan is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory and may be reached via wseditor@robinsonnews.com.