GL_020719

6 | February 7, 2019 | The glenview lantern news
glenviewlantern.com
GVTV host, teacher spreads Chinese culture far and wide
NEIL MILBERT
Freelance Reporter
Glenview’s Yvonne
Wolf is a multi-cultural
and multi-talented
woman leading a multidimensional
life.
She’s an educator, a lecturer
and the host of a TV
show, “Off the Shelf” on
GVTV.
Except for the TV show,
all of her endeavors have
a Chinese accent, even
though she speaks English
without the slightest trace
of one.
Wolf and her family
moved to Los Angeles
from Taiwan when she was
8 years old.
“When we emigrated to
America, my parents would
say, ‘You’ve got to remember
you’re Chinese,’” Wolf
remembered. “But now if
you are from Taiwan, they
don’t want to be called
Chinese — they want to
be called Taiwanese.”
Wolf went to college at
Cal-Irvine, before travelling
to Denmark as an exchange
student and living
there for three years.
In 2011, she settled in
Glenview with her husband,
Eric Bahaveolos-
Wolf, and their two sons,
who are now in sixth
and eighth grades at
Springman.
“The quirky thing about
my husband and me is we
both like to learn different
languages,” Wolf said. “He
has some distant cousins in
Greece and we have visited
a couple of times. Bahaveolos
is the Greek part
of his name and Wolf is the
German part.”
Not only does Wolf
like to learn different languages,
she loves teaching
Chinese to grammar and
high school students, as
well as schooling adults
in Chinese culture. She
is teaching part-time in
a new program at Caruso
Middle School and
Shepard Middle School
in Deerfield, having spent
the previous four years as
a Chinese teacher at Glenbrook
South.
Specifically, Wolf teaches
Mandarin. Although
Sichuanese is spoken by
about 120 million people
in China, and Cantonese
by 80 million, the government
doesn’t encourage
their use.
“Mandarin is the official
language in China — the
language used by the government,
used on radio and
TV and taught in schools,”
she explained. “The government
wants everyone to
learn Mandarin. It doesn’t
support teaching any of
the other languages right
now.”
Thus, because Mandarin
is the official language
in China, when “Chinese”
is taught in schools in the
U.S., it is Mandarin.
Wolf said she doesn’t
teach “the textbook way.”
Instead, she teaches by
having her students listen
to the language. They listen
to clips, video soundtracks,
commercials and songs.
“The hard thing about
Chinese is it’s the only
language in the world
that’s not phonetic,” she
said. “It’s not soundbased.
Chinese is closest
to the Egyptian and Mayan
hieroglyphics.”
“You can’t teach Chinese
without teaching culture.
China is not a country
where first names are
used. If someone’s name
is Bob Thomas, in Chinese
you would say, ‘Thomas
Mr.’ and then you have
to nod when you do this.
Yvonne Wolf (far right) shows Chinese artwork to residents during an class on Chinese brush painting Saturday,
Feb. 2, at the Glenview Public Library. Photo by Scott Margolin/22nd Century Media
When you say, ‘hello,’
you have to put it in some
body language to make it
understandable.”
“The Chinese culture
and language are very intimidating,
puzzling and
daunting. That’s true for
Chinese people, too — you
learn at a very young age
you can never learn 40,000
characters. You’re always
humbled by this.”
Both inside and outside
her classroom, Wolf is immersed
in educating locals
about Chinese culture, especially
at this time when
the Chinese celebrate their
New Year. The Chinese
New Year aligns with the
Lunar New Year, which
this year fell on Tuesday,
Feb. 5.
“In my classroom, we
made New Year decorations
and crafts,” she said.
“We got a taste of Chinese
snacks and New Year’s
Yvonne Wolf teaches the art of Chinese brush painting at the Glenview Public Library.
candies. We listened to
Chinese New Year music,
which is very cacophonous.
It’s supposed to scare
away the evil spirits. In the
modern world, we think
there’s no such thing as
evil spirits. But if we think
of it in older agrarian society,
the evil spirits could be
mice and rats and roaches
and bugs, and when you
have that kind of noise,
they’re all gone.”
“A lot of these traditions
come from medieval times.
Please see WOLF, 10