How do you turn a big Texas "Howdy?!!" into the Chinese greeting of "Ni Hao Ma?" For the answer to that question you may have to go and ask an 8-year old Chinese girl who now lives in Texas and teaches Chinese there, among other things.

According to recent U.S. media reports, Zhang Jia, an 8-year old Chinese-American girl, has been teaching Mandarin Chinese classes at a local library in the town of Denton, Texas, to spread Chinese culture. In so doing, she has earned the distinction of having become the first child known to have taught the Chinese language in public community lessons in the United States. That's a real Western pioneer for you.

Zhang Jia immigrated to the United States and settled with her parents in the town of Denton in Texas-- in the southwestern United States and nicknamed the "Lone Star State"-- at the age of four. That she quickly became fluent in not just "talkin' Texan" but speaking and writing English in Texan twang or not turns out to be an understatement.

Zhang Jia is showing Chinese calligraphy to American students.

By the age of six, Zhang Jia was already a bona fide author and had penned her first novel, a story about global warming titled "Pearl Dog to Save the Earth". The young Chinese author¡¯s debut attracted an American creative writing professor who wrote in his letter to Zhang Jia that "Your novel is making me laugh all the time. It is interesting, and almost perfect. I am not able to comment because you¡¯ve done everything I tell my college students to do."

Apart from her foray into her first work of fiction, as a young pupil in the local elementary school, Zhang Jia has been recognized by teachers and students alike for embodying good morals and character.

She has also received recognition for her multiple accomplishments in many academic areas at her school, winning the Art Star Award, a writing award as well as the school's "Super Scientist Award". Heck, she even took first place in the school's Green Belt Taekwondo contest. As blessed with painting talents as she is with writing talents, last spring one of Zhang Jia's paintings, "Fairy Denton", was selected for a young artists' exhibition held in Denton, which is in the vicinity of the Dallas-Forth Worth metropolitan area.

Along with demonstrating her abundant aptitude in a variety of academic and personal talent areas, Zhang Jia has also participated in various school activities to popularize traditional Chinese culture. Each year her school selects ten outstanding students to perform in an annual traditional Chinese cultural performance showcase. Zhang Jia has been picked three times to date and gone on to make her own distinct contributions to the annual event. Her three appearances thus far have seen her starring in a self-composed (and self-choreographed) ballet dance, "The Great Wall"; playing the ancient Chinese melody, "Song of the Homebound Fisherman", on the guzheng, a traditional Chinese musical instrument that belongs to the zither family of string instruments that Zhang Jia has learned to play; and performing a highly-skilled Chinese sword dance.