It was serendipity that Kate and I met when we did.

I was looking for a place to enrol my two-year-old to learn Mandarin through play. No such place existed in Hong Kong. Kate was looking into the feasibility of teaching toddlers Mandarin through play, because none existed for her to enrol her own two-year-old into Mandarin playgroups. And the logical step, in this situation, was to create one’s own.

But would it work? How do you teach toddlers from non-Mandarin speaking households to understand it? Kids learn fast but repetition and exposure is important. How do we make the language stick without expecting the child to attend daily playgroups? How do we create interest in this notoriously difficult language? How do we get two-year-olds to sit still, or do we?

These and countless more questions absorbed our conversations. I wanted to create resources to be used at home; she wanted to create a programme that could be held in real life. We immediately saw the synergy.

More than a client, or a project, Yifan Mandarin, and the subsequent sub-brand of Mandarin for Munchkins, became a true collaboration between us.

To add to the naming convention, I tried to persuade her to name her classes for adults “Mandarin for Old Dogs”. She thought it was hysterical, but it was a a little too risque for her. Shame.

Kate is a great teacher - to adults and children alike. Her passion for her mother tongue, for her culture and history, was infectious. Her students loved her. She loved teaching.

But not so much the business-side of the business. She was comfortable with the transactional side of the business - the HR, the insurance, the office lease…and she was a confident negotiator. She was a doer, not a dreamer.

The latter was where I was able to add real value.

Kate just wanted help testing the programme she’d develop for the toddler playgroups at first, and to help promote the classes. I saw the potential for her to build a brand, a business that would express itself as competently and passionately as her devotion in making Mandarin accessible.

I didn’t want Yifan to sell their classes. I wanted the parents, students and the schools to seek her out for her services.

That was the journey’s destination - to be the only go-to expert in Mandarin language learning for children. The purpose of undertaking the journey was to spread the love of language and learning to children from around the world.

And it all had to be fun. Otherwise, really, what’s the point?

There was a reason neither Kate nor I, as mothers, were able to find the kind of space we were looking for to expose your toddlers to Mandarin. No-one thought it could be taught to kdis that young from non-Mandarin speaking homes.

My job was to help create belief in the possibility.

I’ll let the founder speak for herself in her review!