So now that Chinese New Year is over, my Chinese friends and I have been exchanging ideas about what we did for the kids’ classroom presentations for the New Year.  A friend told me a really cute idea, that I am definitely stealing for next year.  She got some of the calligraphy brushes, ink, and some rice paper at a local Pearl River in New York.  She demonstrated how to write a few simple Chinese words to 20 first graders!  I thought that was such a wonderful idea!

I learned the Chinese calligraphy when I was little, but I haven’t touched a Calligraphy brush for a very very long time.  I had pretty good hand writing too!  There is something really relaxing about holding a brush, and drawing these characters.  There are 2 types of ink you can use, inkstick, or pre-mixed bottle.  The pre-mixed bottles are the most convenient, but I really enjoyed using the inkstick.  The ink from the inkstick is made from lampblack (soot) and binders, and must be rubbed with water on an inkstone until the right consistency is achieved.  It takes a lot of patience to get the right consistency, but there’s something really soothing about it.

When the kids are a little bit older, I am definitely going to introduce this to them.

I am looking for yummy, comfort food recipes, and stumbled across with this recipe blog, called Christine’s Recipes.  The author lives in Australia currently, and loves to cook.  She offers Chinese, Asian, and other western recipes.  I found quite a bit of my familiar food here, and will definitely try them some day.  What I also love is that she offers these recipes in both Chinese and English.  It is very helpful for me, because I don’t necessarily understand all of the ingredient names in Chinese sometimes.

Anyway, there’s an Egg Tart recipe in here.  Egg tarts are one of my all time favorite food.  I especially love it when it is fresh, and still warm.  The smell of egg tarts often reminds me of my childhood in Hong Kong.  Most bakeries sell egg tarts in Hong Kong, so you can always smell the fresh egg tarts every time you pass by a bakery.  This recipe really doesn’t look that complicated.  I am very tempted to try it, maybe I will talk my husband into it.

My older son is showing a lot of  interest in learning Chinese, and that’s music to my ears.  I would like him to learn Mandarin.  Our family speaks Cantonese, but Mandarin is the official language which I would definitely want him to learn.  I started researching in Chinese school, and my husband is definitely against sending the kids to Saturdays/Sundays Chinese school.  He is a Chinese school drop out, and had bad memories of giving up play time to go to Chinese school.  Weekends are always packed with activities: sports, birthday parties, grandparents visits, social events; so I don’t necessarily disagree with him.

My other idea is to find a Chinese tutor.  I really want this to be an interesting and fun experience for the kids.  My ideal situation is to team up with another family so it’s a few kids together to learn Chinese, they can even play a little after the tutoring session.  I would definitely want this tutor to have experience with kids, and to want to make this learning experience an interesting one.  I started asking around.  I posted a request on one of the yahoo moms group around where I live to see if anyone has any recommendations.  I got some pretty interesting results!  I got ONE recommendation, and I got like TEN responses asking me to share my findings as they are all looking for the same thing.

This reminded me of something.  This is exactly why Debbie and I started My Panda Paws – make learning Chinese fun and educational for the kids.  There’s a pretty good candidates that I am going to call tomorrow, let’s see how it works out.

Lantern Festival – 元宵節 – Yuán xiāo jié

Lantern Festival or 元宵節 is celebrated on the 15th day of the first month in the lunar calendar. This is not to be confused with Moon Festival, which is celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month in the lunar calendar. Traditioanlly, 元宵節 marks the end of the Chinese New Year celebration as it’s the first full moon of the new year. Once again, families gather together for one last time before returning to work and “normal” life. During the gathering, everyone is to enjoy some 湯圓, tāng yuán, made out of glutinous rice. As you have seen from our previous posts, Chinese people believe in symbolic food, the circular shape of the tang yuan reminds family members to stay together and be united. So don’t forget to eat your tang yuan on 2/28 this year!

For the first time, there is a DS games based on the popular kids show Ni Hao Kai-lan. Based on Nickelodeon’s educational entertainment television series for preschoolers and designed for the youngest of gamers, Ni Hao, Kai-lan: New Year’s Celebration is a collection of easy-to-play mini-games featuring six-year-old Kai-lan and her young animal friends, Rintoo the tiger, Tolee the koala, Hoho the monkey, and Grandpa YeYe.

The games, developed by 2KPlay, (given to us to try) involove gentle and engaging activities such as cooking Chinese dumpling, making almond cookies, and marching in parades. This game is designed with young gamers in mind, (3-5 years old), so it’s relatively easy for them to play independently. I only had to show my 4 year old once before he got the gist of the steps. In addition, the game also provides encouraging hints whenever help is needed. My 4 year old was so happy there is a game for him on the DS. He has already asked for one for himself!

While this game is designed for preschoolers, my 7 year old also enjoyed playing the game. It also provided him something common to share with his little brother. It was cute to watch the two of them huddled over the screen while coloring, and clicking through the shapes. According to them, their favorite activity was cooking dumplings as they both love to eat dumplings!

Many of you know I fly often with my boys to visit  families in California. I’m so looking forward to bringing this game with us on our next trip. Anything to contain 3 boys on a 6 hour flight is a lifesaver in my opinion! Oh yeah, it offers some Chinese culture  and words they can buff up with before seeing my parents!

Ni Hao Kai-lan: New Year’s Celebraion game is available at retailers nationwide including Toys R Us and Target.

Geek Chic may seem like an oxymoron, unless the name is Vivienne Tam and HP. In this 2nd generation netbook Tam designed for HP, it is exactly that, Geek Chic.

This month, the designer introduced a champagne gold HP Mini netbook emblazoned with eye-catching butterflies. it is scheduled to hit the market in early Spring 2010. Tam sent these digital cluches down the runway as the modern girll’s must-have accessory. The butterflies desgin, is inspired by the traditional Chinese love story “Butterfly Lovers”. In addition to the outside motif, a single Chinese character, the word for double happiness is also featured on the Enter key.
This is what I call tradition meets functionality meets high fashion!

Happy New Year Everyone!

We took a week off, following the traditions and to fight all the evil spirits and not wanting to bring any bad luck.  Right!  Actually, kids were off last week, and combined with all the snow and Chinese New Year celebrations, we were too exhausted to blog.  

During the week off, I ate a lot of gāo.  The literally translation is cake, but most gāo that I ate was not the sweet ones that most people are accustomed to.  Chinese people eat these gāo a lot during Chinese New Year.  The word cake, or gāo, sounds the same as the word “High” or 高.  Therefore, eating a lot of gāo has a symbolic meaning of raising oneself higher.

Some of the 糕 gāo our family likes to eat during Chinese New Year are:

• Radish Cake – 蘿蔔糕 – This is not a sweet kind of cake, and a lot of dim sum places have them on a regular basis too.  It is delicious and it is usually cut into rectangular pieces and pan fried before serving.  My boys love them!  I found this recipe from Tasty Treats, check it out.
• Sticky Rice Cake – 年糕 – This literally means year cake, and my parents only make them during Chinese New Year.  Wemake the Cantonese version, which is sweetened with brown sugar.  It is also pan fried before serving.  My Dad makes a really good one, I will have to make sure I put that into my family recipe blog.
• Taro Cake – 芋頭糕 – Very similar to radish cake, except the change of taro instead of radish.  It offers a different texture than the radish cake, slightly denser.  Here’s a good recipe from Chow Times.

It’s a snow day here in NJ today, actually, it’s more like a blizzard day.  I was supposed to present Chinese New Year to two kindergarten classes today, but I guess that’s not happening.  Well, here’s the craft I was going to have the class made.  It’s a very cute dragon, and the boys definitely enjoyed making them.  Chinese people see dragons as power and goodness, and Dragon dance symbolizes the bringing of good luck and success in the coming year.

I found the craft from Oriental Trading.  The only warning is that there is a lot of pre-assembling work, especially for my 5 year old class.  I spent a few hours putting the ribbon through the hole and pre-packaging the pieces together.  I do love the result though, so it is worth it!

Have fun!

Good Fortune – 福 – fú

The Fú Character may be one of the most popular Chinese New Year symbols for modern Chinese people. The Chinese character Fú means fortune.

It can be posted either in normal position or upside down like in the above picture. Why post it upside down? In Chinese language, the character “upside down” is pronounced exactly the same as the character “arrive”. So this is a homophone rhetoric to mean “Fortune arrives”.

In one of our previous posts, we talked about Half the Sky Foundation, a non-profit organization who offers the love and concern of family for thousands of orphaned children in China who have lost theirs. By the end of 2010, the foundation will have 18 HTS Blue Sky Model Centers, 27 HTS Children’s Centers, and be helping orphaned children in 45 cities across China.

So I was elated when my bookclub decided to read Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as this month’s book selection. The title, as well as the namesake for the none profit organization is based on an ancient Chinese proverb that says “Women hold up half the sky”. With that in mind, Kristof and WuDunn chronicled their meetings of an extraordinary array of women struggling under profoundly dire circumstances—and an equally extraordinary group that have triumphed. Through their stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to progress in our world lies in unleashing women’s potential—and they make clear how each of us can help make that happen.

According to Carolyn See of the Washington Post, Half the Sky is a call to arms, a call for help, a call for contributions, but also a call for volunteers. It asks us to open our eyes to this enormous humanitarian issue.

Sherly was the recipient of the distinguished alumna from Cornell’s Asian Alumni Association 5 years ago. During her acceptance speech, she talked about the foundation and what we can all do to help save the lives of women and children in those developing nations. I hope you enjoy this book and help find hope for those in need. Please help us spread the word about this wonderful organization and the works Sheryl and her husband have started.