Each Sunday, in a sunlit room inside a boxy low-rise building off Nu'uanu Avenue in Chinatown, Valerie Au takes her place alongside a few dozen other girls and boys in a conversational Chinese class. Just like any other schoolchildren between classes, their dim roar rises in direct proportion to the absence of adults in the vicinity.

When teacher Sui-Fan Chan arrives, they quiet down, and their English chatter flips like a light switch to the rapid clip of Cantonese as they discuss the poem she's assigned, or later, the kinds of sports they like.

Though it's early on a weekend morning, Valerie said she's happy to be here.

"I think my culture is interesting," said the 10-year-old, who also practices Chinese dancing. "All the history, all the Buddhas and gods. I kinda like 'Mulan,' too."

The night before, the booming beat of percussion instruments punctuated the air as Chinese lion dancers bounded from one 8 1/2-foot-tall pole to another — sometimes on one foot for two people — acrobatics that drew gasps and moves as thrilling as any Yuen Wo Ping movie, despite a misstep or two.

The staccato of Cortny Harada's drum mimicked the racing heartbeat of the dancing lion at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Coral Ballroom, as his Gee Yung troupe prepared to entertain a crowd who would celebrate the new Narcissus Queen court.

Like Valerie, the 13-year-old Cortny is keeping his heritage alive.

The perpetuation of Chinese culture takes effort by the youth and their parents, Baldwin Au, Valerie's dad, and Diana (Gum) Harada, Cortny's mom, who keep their children in touch with their Chinese heritage even as they're drawn farther away from it themselves. The subject is firmly on their minds as Chinese New Year approaches on Feb. 18.

"I've been so Americanized," said Au, a third-generation Chinese-American. "When I was young, I just wanted to be 'local.' ... I realized everyone from Hawai'i had an ancestry that should be explored. Then my children came along, and I didn't want them to lose that link."

Diana Harada's son Cortny is half Chinese, half Japanese — but hers is a full commitment: She volunteers at Gee Yung martial-arts school where Cortny drums, making costumes, watching practices, handling the money when the lion dances.

"It's a lotta time," admitted Diana Harada, calculating the average weekly commitment at about six hours, weighted toward this time of year. "It's a family affair."

BLENDING CULTURES

Youngsters like these are not alone. Census data from 2000 lists the population of Hawai'i who identify themselves as Chinese at 56,600. The number triples when including those who identify themselves as partChinese or a combination of ethnicities.

After 200 years on the Islands, Chinese-Americans have found that acculturation and intermarriage have taken their toll on Chinese traditions.

Ask Henry Lee — he's the executive director of the United Chinese Society that represents more than 100 Chinese societies, clubs and organizations — about acculturation figures of Chinese-Americans today and he laughs. That target moves too fast to capture.

He tells about his own grown children, both raised in a Cantonese-speaking household. Once they started school, their first language became English. His son understands the mother tongue, "but when he converses back, it's all in English," Lee said. Now, "we all speak English."

Anthony Chang, who has served as a lecturer in the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Hawai'i, teaching the history of Chinese here, sees acculturation having an effect in his own family, too — even the older generation.

His sister, 59, asked him all sorts of questions this year about customs for scheduling a family New Year's dinner, said Chang, who leads tours of Chinatown.

Did tradition from their region require that she bring family together before or after the lunar new year? What if it conflicted with her travel plans? And was she obligated to do it at all?

"You certainly wouldn't schedule it before, but in the 14-day celebration following New Year's Day," he told her, explaining that their family dinner is usually scheduled somewhere near the end of that period, so she had some latitude.

"Of course, she doesn't know all this. Even the present senior generation doesn't have a clear idea of what traditions they should be following," Chang said.

Since Chang's sister has gone on to have a family of her own, her "traditional" family dinner is in large part for the benefit of a next generation, just as with Valerie Au and Cortny Harada.

VAST TRADITION

Not that there's a single culture here anyway. China has a greater land mass than the U.S., including Alaska. Lumping different regions together makes about as much sense as mixing poi with cranberry sauce. Nearly everyone interviewed for this story carefully explained these were their families' traditions or perspectives, and they were loathe to speak for all Chinese-Americans.

An increase in foreign adoptions is changing the landscape, too: Those who offer Chinese language classes and Chinese dance classes say their services are being requested more regularly by non-Chinese parents who are looking for ways to connect their children with their faraway culture.

Gina Ling of Phoenix Dance Chamber said more than half of her Chinese dance-school regulars are China-born adoptees. And Chee Ping Lee Lum, principal of the Siu Wah School, said she's been receiving a steady influx of requests for Mandarin classes, as well.

And some are simply unabashed enthusiasts of Chinese traditions, such as the martial arts and lion dancing.

"My son says he's full Filipino and half Chinese," joked mom Lisa Banes, a sixth-grade teacher who also takes Chinese martial-arts classes.

LION LEADS THE WAY

As last weekend's Narcissus Festival coronation banquet proved, young Chinese-Americans approach their cultural education much like youth their age would take on any other weekend activity. Backstage at the Hilton had an air of soccer tourney halftime.

The lion dancers were perfecting their steps outside in the hallway. Inside the Nautilus suite, kids in their Gee Yung uniforms who would soon be showing their martial-arts moves were milling around; some playing card games, some watching "Power Rangers" on DVD.

Tables were strewn with snacks and Aloha Maid soft-drink cans. One mother who spoke mostly Cantonese sat quietly by herself as others chattered away in English, talking about their plans.

Cortny is here, rocking back and forth on the lid of a cooler, waiting for the performance. He's blase as he takes in the scene — he's been doing this for about half of his 13 years, after all, including a recent trip to Malaysia with other members of the school, training until late into the night, breaking only for meals and some sightseeing.

Asked if he can remember a time before lion dances and martial-arts exhibitions, and he shakes his head.

And that's the way the Jarrett Middle School student likes it.

"I want to do it as long as I can," he said. "I'm glad I can take advantage of it."

MAKING HERITAGE A PRIORITY

Valerie Au and her three siblings have been given no choice about attending Chinese language school. Even though dad Baldwin Au only attended one summer, "enough to learn my Chinese name," he remembers with a wry smile, he and his wife are insistent the children go.

"I'm part of the lost generation," said Baldwin Au, 59. "I was not aware of my culture beyond Chinese New Year traditions. ... I don't want them to lose that link."

Au remembers going to China when he was younger, his father leading the way to the ancestral village. But he himself never bothered to take notes or draw a map.

When he went back a few years ago, he had to show his father's picture around, to find someone to take him to the village.

Au attended a dinner with officials and sat there with a plastered-on smile, feeling foolish because he couldn't understand what was being said.

"Next time, I'm taking my wife with me," Au said. She's fluent in Cantonese and conversant in Mandarin.

Now, Au struggles to find the context imbedded in bits and pieces of his cultural heritage, context that might have been more apparent had he been vigilant earlier, before his father had a stroke or before his grandparents died.

"I was negligent in doing that, and now I regret it," he said. "I encourage all young people to interview their grandparents, to learn where they are from."

So even if Valerie and her older, teenage sisters might want to sleep in, mom gets them up every Sunday for classes, from 9 a.m. to noon.

While the floors of the school rumble between classes, Sundays at Siu Wah are a family affair.

On the main floor, there's a meeting with parents. Adults — including Valerie's mom — are in a back room of the giant auditorium, learning Mandarin. The youngest are learning their body parts in Cantonese, by singing them to the tune of "London Bridge is Falling Down."

Upstairs, Valerie's teacher, Sui-Fan Chan, who also goes by the name of Tracy, makes a face when one of Valerie's classmates sounds a wrong note and gives a sharp shake of her head. She's trying to coax out the right answer, drawing the syllables out like an elastic band.

Valerie says later that when she's a mom, she'll probably send her children to Chinese language school, too, even if it means no sleeping in on Sunday mornings.

"I would want them to experience their culture," she said.