Hello 你(nǐ) 好(hǎo)!

i am Nicole Darcy, 達(dá) 妮(nī) is my Chinese name.  i was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. at the age of 40 i’d spent half my lifetime away from Minneapolis and the USA. i now live in Minneapolis with my loving husband and our darling cat – 好(hǎo) 意(yì) – our furry little “good intent”.

During my first years of college, i studied in Denmark for one year and subsequently traveled extensively in Europe. i later became  involved in Asian and Chinese studies and ended up spending over 17 years in Asia. i hold a BA from the University of Minnesota in Asian Languages & Literatures with a focus on Chinese language and culture. i also studied at universities in both China and Taiwan. i lived in Taiwan for over 14 years. i have over 25 years of language teaching experience – from in the USA, Taiwan, and China. i have been teaching and tutoring Mandarin Chinese language around the Minneapolis-Saint Paul twin cities since i moved back to Minneapolis from Tainan, of southwest Taiwan, in 2003. i teach in schools and with
organizations. i also offer private classes tutoring in homes and businesses. i enjoy working with students of all ages, from pre-k, through all academic student ages, and with adults who are working with or traveling to China and/or Taiwan. for the past 4 years i have been lead teacher of the pre-k Chinese immersion program for Concordia Language Villages. i worked at a day care during my high school years and learned much about younger child education at that time. During my childhood my parents introduced me to different languages, cultures, arts, and ways. i was brought to music, dance, and Japanese lessons from the age of 4, the same year i began kindergarten. from those experiences  i believe that i quite understand the importance of early childhood learnings.

i work to assist people who are, and/or will be, working with the Chinese language, in areas where Mandarin is spoken and Mandarin’s related cultures. i work to create lessons to fulfill my students’ needs with Chinese language. i work to let students learn to non-harmfully express themselves in situations they may meet – some plan to study, work, or travel in China or Taiwan; some are doing business with China, Taiwan or Singapore; some may be adopting from China or Taiwan; some wish to learn an art from China or Taiwan;.. There are many reasons why so many people want to learn some Mandarin and about the language’s related cultures, today.

“i” am into the writings and work of Zhuang-zi. a Chinese philosopher who famed the ”no self” concept.  i capitalize words, bolden, slant, write and type as i prefer - when i can. thee “i” pronoun, beginnings of sentences, and other ‘usually capitalized’  manners may not appear on this blog as they do in ‘formal’ or ‘proper’ writings.