Growing up in Hong Kong, Chinese New Year means 2 weeks without school, lots of food, lots of visiting relatives, and new clothes.  It was my favorite holiday growing up, and it is still a very big holiday in my heart.  I try to pass on the tradition, and how fun Chinese New Year could be with the boys.  To make a point, when I was still working my 9-5 job (more like 7-5), I would always take a vacation day for Chinese New Year.  Hey, it is important, and I do feel that I need to set that example for the boys.

Anyway, I have such fond memories of the New Year.  My mom would start planning the meal a few weeks in advance.  I guess not that much different than planning Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.  Our home would be cleaned from top to bottom.  In our tradition, the big cleaning should be done on the 28th of December (lunar calendar).  I always got so motivated that I definitely did my big share of cleaning.  It is believed that you should clean the house to sweep away all the bad luck before the New Year begins, so that it doesn’t carry on till the following year.

Then we would decorate our house by hanging red papers with good luck writings on them.  Remember the story of Nien from previous posting, this mythical monster was afraid of anything red.

We will then eat with our whole family on New Year’s eve.  I have 4 sisters, and 1 brother, so we always had to find space for this big dinner in our little Hong Kong apartment.  This dinner is called “reunion dinner”, or 团 圆 饭, tuan yuan fan.  It is a tradition that everyone should try VERY hard to make it to dinner.  Usually there are 8 or 9 dishes, which is another topic for another day, and usually consist of chicken, pork, fish, black moss, and some other shell fish.  We will then have to clean up and sweep again before midnight, otherwise my mom restricted anyone to sweep our house until the 3rd day of New Year.

Then on New Year’s day, our parents would give out red envelopes to us, and we will say our Happy New Year to them.  It is a tradition that only married couples give away red envelope to children.  I remember opening the red envelopes at the end of day to count the money I “made” everyday, and would do a total tally to see if I did well that year.

After New Year’s day, then we would travel to go see our relatives, or they would come over to our house to see us.  I have a very big family.  My dad is one of seven kids, and my mom is one of six, so we had lots of visiting to do.  We would bring candy or chocolate.  The tradition is that you need to bring something sweet, to wash away any bitterness from last year.

Oh boy, so busy and so much fun, and therefore Chinese people celebrate New Year for 15 days.

In the past few months, we’ve heard from many of you out there regarding our website and our offerings. Most of them were congratulatory, and it made us feel really good about what we’ve been able to accompolish in the short time since we launched our business. The feedbacks have also been very positive, and the products are well received acrossed the board.

To further our goal to provide high quality educational material that are also relavent to our customer, we’ve added some new items to our website. The biggest change is that we now have a Simplified Chinese section, for those of you who wish to teach your children simplified version of the written language. We realize this is a continued debate within the Chinese community, and proponents of both have made convincing arguments. I think adding this catagory really helps us to round up the needs of our customers. We are also fortunate enough to find high quality paperbacks in both Simplifed Chinese and English, such as Harold and the Purple Crayon, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Little Pip and the Rainbow Wish. So be sure to check out these and many other titles, your children will love to read or hear these stories!

In addition, we’ve added some great note cards, for Chinese New Year or anytime you want to send a note to that special someone. These beautiful greeting cards are created by artists who mostly reside in Tianjin, China, about 60 miles east of Beijing on the Bohai Bay.  Most of the artists never received formal art training.  Their paintings reflect their daily lives, everyday events, festival, and traditional Chinese culture.

We hope you enjoy these new additions to our product offerings, and please continue to email us with your feedback. We know we can do even better with your input. Happy New Year!

Last week while I attended the PTO meeting at Chopstick’s school, they announced that the school district had decided to add Mandarin Chinese to the foreign language curriculum starting with 5th grade.  They said the decision was based on current trend, and that Chinese is going to be one of the more useful languages in the world.  This was definitely good news to us, considering most families in our school district are non-Chinese.  On another hand, I feel a little bit of pressure.  Being one of the few Chinese families in school, my kids will definitely have a certain expectation of them to excel in these classes.  I know I am thinking way too far ahead, since Chopstick is only in kindergarten, but it’s never too early to plan ahead, right.

Anyway, coincidently, there was an article on New York Times last week that talks about this Chinese trend allover the country.  Pretty interesting stuff.  The estimation is that roughly 1600 schools in America now teach Chinese compared to 300 about a decade ago.  I am always proud to be Chinese, and now I am REALLY proud.

Chinese New Year is one of my favorite holidays.  It is a major holiday for the Chinese, and we spend days to prepare, and days to celebrate.

I am sure there are many stories about Chinese New Year, but I started telling my kids about this fable when Chopsticks asked me about Chinese  New Year at the age of 2.  My parents used to tell me this story when I was little too.  I hope you like my version, and please do tell, and share your version with me.

A long time ago, a beast called Nien (年, nián) had a very large mouth that could swallow many things and people in one bite.  Nian always live in deep sea, but it would come out every New Year to attack food and animals.  Nien would eat up all the food, and even people in the village.  Everyone would be really scared and would hide until after New Year.  As years go by, the villagers discovered that Nien is scared of a few things.  Nien is scared of the color red.  Ever since that discovery, everyone would put something red all over the house to scare Nien away.  People would put red paper all over on the doors and windows; villagers would dress in red; red lanterns would be hung all around the houses.  Then some people also accidentally discovered that Nien was afraid of loud noises, and therefore, firecrackers were used to frighten Nien away.  The villagers were so happy, as they saved themselves from this beast, and Nien had never come back ever since then.

We still carry these traditions nowadays for Chinese New Year.  For example, we would put red banners around the house with good luck writings; everyone would wear something red; and of course, the fire crackers too.  My children definitely love hearing these stories, because now everything that we do for Chinese New Year makes sense to them.  I hope you can pass this or other versions onto your children too!

I want to share the story of Baby Learns Chinese with you.  Our website carries their DVDs, and we chose them out of the thousands out in the market place is that we found these DVDs effective, and most importantly, the kids enjoy them.  What I also love about it is that you can pick either traditional characters, or simplified characters!  I love this story , and I hope you enjoy reading it too.

With two adopted daughters from China (and another little one that we will bring home early in the year), I’m continually asked how I integrate my children’s Chinese heritage into our observant Jewish household where Hebrew is the second language. Baby Learns Chinese has been an amazing asset for my girls.  With over ten different products, the system allows young children to gain a basic grasp of the language.  The system is comprised of DVD’s and flashcards. Baby Learns Chinese teaches children over 400 words in Mandarin (Putonghua) through the six DVD’s. As the series unfolds, children learn to read and speak the Chinese language.  English subtitles help guide the parents. There is also a two disk DVD set for kids to learn how to pronounce Chinese words through an alphabet-based phonetics system (Pinyin). This is geared to slightly older children ages 4-12.

Baby Learns Chinese is the only Chinese language immersion program for young children, it’s the Hebrew Ulpan equivalent for the young kids to learn Chinese. Studies have shown that children are more open to learning languages at an early age, and Baby Learns Chinese is geared to educate young minds ages 0-6, but rest assured my 9 and 11 year olds both find it fun. The music and animation provide a rich experience and kids enjoy playing games with the flash cards.

Beyond our targeted group parents with adopted children from China, the program works for all families interested in developing their children’s potential and gaining a head start with Chinese. Chinese language learning has become the premiere language learning for our children.

The program was created by Yama Chan to teach her two young boys the language.  According to Ms, Chan, “I created the program to teach children of native and non native speakers the language. Our program has had strong success in Hong Kong and we are excited to share the learning with parents in the US.”   Ms. Chan currently serves on the Board of Governors of Bring Me a Book Foundation and serves on the Board of Directors of City Contemporary Dance Company in Hong Kong. She maintains residences in Hong Kong and Los Angeles.

By Gina Raphael, daughters Danielle 11 and Sydney 9, awaiting the arrival of Mia (age 1)

Red Envelope – 紅包 – hóng bāo

紅包 is the quintessential item for any Chinese New Year celebration. 紅包 is a small little red envelope, decorated with good luck Chinese characters or symbols. It is used to place money and given out to kids. Traditionally, married adults will give 紅包 to all the kids that great them on the New Year. There are many differnt kinds of red envelopes these days, so you can really have a lot of fun picking out the best one. This design is cute for the kids and a little more contempary, it also has the tiger, so perfect for the new year.

Start the new year with a little bit of a bling! Check out these adorable chinese take out box in gold from Estee Lauder. Boasting beautiful crystallized swarovski elements, intricate details, and decorative enamel, this special take out box is the newest entry in Estee Lauder’s limited edition collection of solid perfume compacts. The fragrance is Plesures, a sheer floral.  They are available for $89 each at www.esteelauder.com.

Well, I promised I didn’t go out of my way to find these cupcakes, I think they found me!  These cupcakes were made by Celebrate With a Cake, the only catch is that this company is based in Malaysia.  However, I thought these are such great ideas though, especially if you are thinking about a Chinese New Year party.  Who will say no to these beautifully decorated cupcakes?  I think I will be printing these pictures out and see if my local bakery can do copy them!

In keeping with our theme for this week, Chinese New Year is only about 6 weeks again, and this year, it will be the Year of the Tiger.  People born in the year of Tiger is said to be completely honest about how they feel and expect the same of you. They will be  On the other hand, they seek approval from peers and family. Generally, because of their charming personalities Tigers are well liked. Often, failing at a given task or being unproductive in his personal or professional life can cause a Tiger to experience a depression. Criticism from loved ones can also generate this type of Tiger reaction. Still, like all felines, Tigers always land on their feet, ready for their next act in life, pursuing it with unyielding energy and hunting it infallibly.

To get ready for the New Year, why not get these adorable tiger slippers for your kids? They are cute and cozy. Slippers are also a Chinese tradition.

Like I promised, the holidays aren’t over until Chinese New Year.  If there’s something you had wanted to resolve by the end of year, give yourself a little break, and extend it till Chinese New Year’s eve.  My goal this year is that I desperately need to shred about 15 lbs.  I’ve had a very “satisfying” holiday!  However, I will have to at least share this eye candy with you.  I found these Chinese New Year cupcakes from Cupcakes Take the Cake blog, and it made me feel so much better when I found out that one of their founders is a personal trainer!!

Enjoy!!