Founded in 1994, the department was originally named “Department of Chinese Literature”. Later, President Dr. Chuan Lee and the Dean of School of Applied Languages Dr. Chen, Te-Chao applied to the Ministry of Education to change the name of the department to “Applied Chinese”. Finally, the Department of Applied Chinese was officially established in 1995. MCU’s Chinese Department is, in fact, the first one in the country that adopts the word “applied” in its name to show our emphasis on practical application.

The Department of Applied Chinese began to recruit students in 1994. Currently, there are eight undergraduate and six graduate classes. The total number of students is around five hundred. The first chairperson of the department was Dr. Chen, Te-Chao and the current chairperson is Yu, Shiu-Yun.