Welcome to Hua Language Institute

Guiding Principles

In Liu Ji’s “The Words of the Orange Peddler,” the cheating orange peddler is indignant at being criticized for the first time in his many years as a vendor. The fact that his oranges look good on the outside yet taste bad on the inside is but a minor deception, he claims. The real deceivers are those politicians and public figures that use a facade of righteousness to hide their lying and cheating. “They are truly the ones (who are) purely for display and useless at heart,” he concludes.

The world is, and always has been, full of charlatans, and appearances can often be deceiving: things are not always what they seem to be. Here at Hua Language Institute, we abhor any form of deception, which is why this text serves as an important reminder of our guiding principles.

At Hua, teaching is a labor of love. As we guide students along the path of knowledge, our aim is for students to be able to apply the language they learn to communicate clearly and competently in English.

友善列印

The Words of the Orange Peddler
By: Liu Ji from the Ming Dynasty
Calligraphy by: Du Zhong Gao

One day I was at the market, when I came across an orange peddler and saw that he had many beautiful and juicy oranges. They were piled high like mounds of gleaming gold. Though the oranges cost ten times more than those at other fruit stands, they looked so fresh, and so delicious, that I could not think of anything else but to sink my teeth into one. So despite its cost, I bought one and took it home.
However, when I cut the orange open, a foul smell emitted from the insides. To my dismay, the orange's flesh was all dried up like the thread of old, dusty cotton. I was furious and quickly returned to the market.
When I found the orange peddler again, I demanded, “Are these oranges for ancestral worship or for eating? Did you sell these to be placed on people's altars or are they to be given as delicious treats to guests? Or did you simply put them here for looks, so we would be tricked like fools into buying them?”
Feeling indignant, the orange peddler argued that he had sold oranges for many years and not once had anyone complained. “Why then,” he asked, “are you bringing up this petty problem with me? This orange may look good on the outside and taste bad on the inside, but that certainly does not compare to how the government prances around righteously while they lie and cheat to the entire country! They are truly the ones purely for display and useless at heart.”
The purpose of the military is to protect, and the purpose of politicians is to govern, therefore forming a solid structure for the nation. Historically, there had been but a few honorable men. Sun Wu and Wu Qi from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods were famous militarists. Yi Ying from the Shang Dynast and Hao Tao from the Yu Shun period were well-known civil service officials. All of these men have been praised and remembered for their great military and political abilities. However, today's politicians and militarists cannot compare with those great men.
The orange peddler continued to accuse the government of their passivity and ineffectiveness. Whilst the nation is overrun with criminals, those in power have done nothing to stop them. People everywhere are suffering, and they have not come to their rescue. Even in their own organizations there are corrupt elements, which are not punished or controlled. We are truly living in a lawless land, when even those who govern do not enforce or much less abide the laws. Our public funds and resources are truly wasted on these people who know no shame.
Here are these men in their ornate suites and threatening uniforms, demanding respect and inciting fear, but aren't they as well but a mere display of righteousness with nothing but blackened and rotten innards? Here is the golden skin they wear, so soft and supple, yet peeled away to reveal foul and dried up flesh. 
In my opinion, the orange peddler is a very cynical kind of person. Disgusted by the overwhelming corruption around him, he sees selling one rotten orange as the lesser of the two evils.

The Hua Language Institute was founded by Mr. Jerry CC Hua, with the clear intention of improving and advancing English-language learning in Taiwan. Back in the 1970s, learning English from a young age was not regarded as being an important factor in successful language learning, and was even actively discouraged by the Department of Education. English was therefore relegated to the position of “school subject,” with the resultant effect being that students had no way of truly understanding and effectively using the language. Convinced that more Taiwanese people needed to be taught how to speak English well and to understand its linguistic structure, Mr. Hua decided to put off a comfortable retirement and devote himself to providing effective English teaching for Taiwanese students.

Hua Language Institute was the first English-language teaching and research center of its kind in Asia. Even today, few Asian governments or English schools have managed to develop a curriculum that gives students a solid foundation in basic reading and articulation skills. As a consequence, most students’ speaking and listening skills remain weak, and when faced with obstacles and difficulties that they are not equipped to overcome, students can develop negative and even fearful attitudes towards learning the English language.

It is clear then that the key to success in learning English lies in acquiring the foundational building blocks of the language. Thus, at Hua, the initial stages of our language-learning programs are devoted to these important building blocks: articulation training and practice, and listening skills development. Through constant and repeated exposure to the sounds of the English language, the sounds, intonation and rhythm of the English language are instilled into students so that gradually, and eventually, correct articulation and spelling become second nature to students. And with this being the case, learning English can be relatively easy and even fun. At Hua, our goal is to help beginners develop the skills and understanding necessary for them to learn English well.

After students have learned to produce sounds from script and vice versa, Hua’s trained teachers present the structures of the English language in a natural, concise and systematic way. Classroom activities include frequent practice of functional and useful conversational language, providing students with a working knowledge of how to use different tenses and sentence structures. Rote learning has no place at Hua. Our primary aim is to equip students with the English skills necessary for real-life situations.

Ever since our inception, we at Hua have been evaluating, developing and improving our teaching materials on an ongoing basis. Our teachers, in addition to receiving initial training, receive regular on-the-job training in order to ensure and maintain the high quality on which we pride ourselves. Hua also produces multimedia learning resources so that learning can be ongoing outside the classroom. These resources are available to anyone who wants to benefit from the unique Hua method and learn English well.