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Bing Thom and Loretta Kong still remember when Kong interviewed for a position with the renowned Vancouver-based architect’s firm in 2007.

“She spoke English, Mandarin and Cantonese,” said Thom, adding that was a key reason for hiring the young architect. “Loretta studied Chinese history and was immersed in the culture.”

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Kong, now an associate with Shape Architecture in Vancouver, is a product of the extensive bilingual-immersion programs in Edmonton schools. Kong took half of her elementary and high-school classes in Mandarin Chinese.

“I do remember him being very surprised,” she recalled of the meeting with Thom. “It did impress him that a smaller centre like Edmonton had a program like this for more than 20 years.”

Since 1984, the Alberta capital has offered one of the largest Mandarin Chinese programs in Canada, with 2,009 students enrolled in 13 schools. It is the school district’s second-most-popular bilingual-immersion program, behind French with 3,703 student. What’s more, Edmonton also has 1,335 students in its Arabic program, in addition to having comparable programs for German, Hebrew, Spanish, Ukrainian and American Sign Language.