A teacher in her home country in North China, Inner Mongolia, Ms Liu moved to Oamaru a decade ago, after teaching college students for five years.
She started the language course two months ago at the "The Station Yuan’s," a restaurant based in the old Oamaru railway station.
Her son, Yuan, is the chef at the restaurant. Ms Liu said her family was her inspiration.
"Teaching Chinese is my hobby and my interest.
"I have a 9-year-old daughter and she learned with me online, Mandarin.
"It inspired me to go back to teaching and for a lot of Chinese families, they want to educate their children to learn their home-country language," she said.
"The Waitaki Chinese Language School" is teaching four to five children each week, mostly from Chinese and Malaysian backgrounds, whose parents want them to learn Mandarin.
The course classes are every Sunday and run for two hours. She hopes the class "will grow".
She teaches Mandarin, along with Chinese culture and Chinese ancient poems, reading, writing and also oral speech, attempting to encourage the children to speak in Mandarin.
"Kiwi kids, when I speak Mandarin to my daughter she understands, but she replies only in English. I try to teach them to reply in Chinese, she said.
"We want to keep the language alive and for the kids to learn. It’s a good language."
She said Mandarin was a hard language to learn although she was enjoying teaching the classes.
In April,Ms Liu was supported by Waitaki Multicultural, along with tutor, Song Chen, to run the Chinese Cultural Workshop, which she said was "very successful".
The workshop featured Chinese arts and crafts; learning Mandarin, tai chi, Qigong and calligraphy.
Ms Liu also teaches Qi Gong classes as part of Waitaki Multicultural events at the Waitaki Recreation Centre.
She said it was "good news" when the owners of The Station Yuan’s on Humber St, offered her a room to teach Mandarin classes as she has gained an additional student.
"Tina’s son [Yuan] is starting a group and joining the classes too."
