While I spent a few days at my parents this weekend, they made a nice pot of congee for the boys and me.  I always love congee, and even though I make it myself for the boys at home, I still love the kind I grew up with.  There’s something really comforting and soothing about it. 

For those of you who are not familiar with what congee is, it’s basically rice cooked in a lot of water with various ingredients.  Congee used to be for the poor, it was served in times of drought where food are hard to come by.  And now, it has become a popular breakfast food for many Chinese people.  There are so many ways to cook congee, some with pork, or with beef, or with duck eggs, or with vegetables, or with fish.  Maybe I will write my recipe to share with you next time.  As for now, let’s just enjoy some mouth watering pictures.

Back-to-school is right around the corner, and I found the best colored pencils to update your stationary.  Pretty and Eco-friendly, this set of of twelve colored pencils was manufactured using recycled Chinese newspapers.  I especially love that price tag of $10!  Fred Flare is the best.

Beach – 海灘 – hǎi tān

I was never a beach person, but more of a pool person.  However, now that I am a mom, I really enjoy watching the kids playing on the beach.  There’s something really tranquil about that.  I am planning on taking the kids this week, will this picture inspire you to do the same?

Grandmother – 奶奶 – nǎi nai – 外婆 – wài pó

Chinese families have historically been rather large, hence the 1.2 billion, which would have been even higher if not for the one child policy for the past 30 years. This large family structure led to a rather complex nomenclature to clearly distinguish familial relationships. While, for example, we use the same set of terms for both maternal and paternal grandmothers (i.e., grandmother, grandma, etc.), the Chinese have different terms – nǎi nai (奶奶) and wài pó (外婆) for paternal and maternal grandmothers respectively. If you think this is complicated, wait until we start discussing aunts and uncles.

I was so happy finding Perfect Pandas, a forum to share the love of pandas.  They post anything and everything about pandas.  It may be an adorable photo, or an article, or some cute panda products they found.  It’s amazing how many people love the cuddly cub. 

They are not a blog for profit, but simply doing this for their love of pandas.  100% of the proceeds made from advertisements on their site will go to various panda charities including, but not limited to; the National Zoo, Pandas International and the WWF.

I really love this illustration they posted recently, too funny.

My sister-in-law recently attended a dumpling party, and was so inspired by it that she made dumplings with her 5 year old daughter the following day.  She had such a wonderful time.  She taught my neice how to count and say different dumpling ingredients in Chinese, and told her other interesting stories from her own childhood.

I am so proud of her, and I am really proud of our work!  This is what our website is all about!!!  We want to bring the Chinese culture into other families and make this fun and interesting for both the parents and children.  It’s great to learn the language properly from Chinese school, but it’s even better to incorporate it into part of your lives.

Drop us a line if you have other fun ideas to share with us!  Go!  My Panda Paws!