Year of the Monkey

The Year of the Monkey started last Monday.  The celebration usually lasts 15 days so we have two weeks to mark this significant Chinese festival.

As with last year, Tiger and I found an Chinese New Year-related activity to do in London.  This time, the National Gallery had a short workshop on decorating the Peking Opera mask, so we went along and did that.

Although the workshop emphasised creativity, which Tiger exercised plenty of, his mask doesn't look particularly Chinese in colour or design, so I asked him to read the Origins of Chinese Art and Craft as well as Lianpu in order to look into the significance of the design and colours of the various traditional Peking opera masks to understand that they are not chosen randomly.  We also found the following clip useful to give us a better understanding of this art form:

From the National Gallery, we walked to Chinatown to buy a few special items in preparation for the Chinese New Year as well as to eat a hearty meal.  It is interesting to see that we have chosen exactly the same food as last year.

Once we got home, we started decorating the house by putting up various decorative items around the house, much like what people would do to decorate their homes for Christmas.

Many of the Chinese decorations have symbolic meanings that usually mean well-wishes and the ushering in of good fortune and prosperity for the family.  Unlike a child who grows up in the East who will understand the symbolism behind the various Chinese decorations through sheer exposure to the culture in his environment, Tiger does not have such luxury so he has to find out about the symbolic meaning of the various decorations through reading books.

This year's New Year's Eve dinner was quite special in that I bought the 'Yu Sheng' (鱼生) from Chinatown.

This dish is like a raw salmon salad that is only eaten during the Chinese New Year period, and is a tradition of Chinese living in Southeast Asia.  It is a dish to be eaten with family and friends as a way to welcome prosperity for everyone in the new year:

*Disclosure: some links are affiliate links, which means I earn a commission if you click through and buy something.


This post is linked up to:

1. Finishing Strong #76
2. Collage Friday
3. Multicultural Kid Blogs
4. Hip Homeschool Hop 2/16/16 - 2/20/16
5. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one that started with an amazing Valentine gift
6. Practical Mondays Link Up Week #2

Year of the Goat

Last Thursday was Chinese New Year's day.  With everything that went on during last week's half-term, I very nearly forgot all about it because there was no hint of it at all where I live.  Luckily, I have written it down on the calendar.  Even more luckily, I looked at the calendar on Wednesday morning and realised that it was Chinese New Year's eve, which means that I ought to prepare a dinner that is more sumptuous than usual to honour the tradition of the reunion dinner, even though it was just the three of us having dinner together that night.

A last-minute panic grocery shopping trip ensued, followed by three hours in the kitchen.  The result turned out acceptable:

The dishes we had for this year's reunion dinner are (with a few adjustments made for our dietary requirements):

1. Roasted ginger, chilli and soy duck
2. Crispy Chinese pork wrap
3. Noodle, rice & pork soup
4. Spicy Sichuan chicken

The next day, Tiger and I spent the day celebrating Chinese New Year in our own way.  First, we went to the Museum of London Docklands where Tiger listened to a few Chinese myths told by a very engaging English woman.

I always find it slightly weird listening to traditional Chinese myths told by a non-Chinese.  Often, despite the best intentions, subtleties and forms of expression are lost in translation and there is certainly no denying the fact that a mind brought up on the Western traditions thinks very different from one brought up on Eastern traditions.  The experience would be as authentic as having a Chinese person tell the story of Beowulf.  Nevertheless, I am still very grateful to be able to find such opportunities for Tiger to be exposed to one-half of his culture, and for me to feel a sense of connection back to my own culture.

We also watched two traditional dances performed by a Chinese dancer.

The first was a peacock dance, a minority ethnic (傣族) dance:

the second was a ribbon dance, which is a traditional dance of the majority Han (汉族) ethinic group:

Tiger also made a red packet while we were at the museum:

After that, we headed to the sensible place to be on Chinese New Year's Day: Chinatown!

As it was raining, we ducked into one of the restaurants and had a delicious meal of not-quite-traditional Chinese food.  We had the nian gao (年糕) in a fusion, "newly improved" form, and our main meal was the Nasi Lemak, which is a popular Malay rice dish found in parts of Southeast Asia.  Even though we did not have the full traditional Chinese meal, we were very  happy to tuck into what was in front of us.

Finally, I am sorry to say that, due to my poor organisational skills this year, we did not manage to make even one Chinese New Year card to send to our Chinese relations.  It is really bad manners, and would have been perceived equally badly as not sending Christmas cards to our English relations.  Mercifully, our Chinese relations have been very forgiving and accepting of our appalling lack of social graces.

We have since made up for my lack of logistical coordination by drawing something related to this year's theme:

by following the instructions from the clip below:

As always, Tiger has his own idea of what he wants to include in his drawing.  It is not quite what I have in mind as a substitute for the Chinese New Year card (with a fighter jet flying over the goat and a massive explosion positioned strategically behind the goat's bottom), but at least he has the goat in there.

Chinese New Year is traditionally celebrated for 15 days, so we still have about a week to enjoy the festivity.


This post is linked up to:

1. Hip Homeschool Hop - 2/24/15
2. Finishing Strong #44 
3. The Virtual Refrigerator
4. History & Geography Meme #155
5. My Week in Review #26
6. Hearts for Home Link Up - February 26 
7. Collage Friday: The Well Rounded Homeschooler
8. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with the really awesome snow
9. Creaive Kids Cultural Blog Hop #24

A Week of Duality

It has been a week of:

1. being at home and going out; and
2. learning about two very different cultures

At Home with Chinese
We spent most of this week at home focusing on Chinese. 

As the school year is coming to a close, Tiger has to prepare for his end-of-year Chinese exam and to complete the end-of-term projects set by his Chinese teacher.

There are six projects to complete, which contribute to 20% of his yearly assessment:
1.  to draw and label various parts of the body;
2.  to construct sentences using specific words;
3.  to translate a Chinese nursery rhyme into English;

The nursery rhyme that we chose to translate is a traditional one to Chinese children, in much the same way as Jack and Jill is to a Western child.

4.  to make a greeting card based on a traditional Chinese festival and write appropriate greetings inside the card;
5.  to research and write about a traditional Chinese festival;
6.  to research and write two sets of questions and answers about some geographical aspects of China.

Tiger wanted to make a Chinese New Year card because, being a typical boy who seeks the shortest way to get a job done, he finds that the illustrations of this year's (Year of the Horse) card can be easily done by a few brush strokes so that was what he did, using a reference photo from a google search and following along using gold paint.  The result turns out alright, as seen in the red card above.  The illustration shows a combination of the year 2014 with the word 'horse' in traditional Chinese character.

We decided to look into another traditional Chinese festival for our research project.  There are so many festivals to choose from, but we decided to learn more about one that has just passed (the Dragon Boat festival) quietly in our household because I couldn't get all the ingredients together to make the rice dumplings...

Note to myself: please stay on top of the festivals!

Why the dragon boats and rice dumplings?  Many traditional Chinese festive customs have to do with actual historical accounts.  It is no different on this occasion:

Outside with the Vikings
We just managed to catch the last bit of the Vikings exhibition at the British Museum before it closed.

Although we're not officially studying the Vikings at the moment, the flexibility of homeschooling has allowed us the opportunity to visit this rare exhibition -- the first Viking exhibition in England in 30 years -- and to see for ourselves the longest Viking warship that has ever been found!

Hence, even though Vikings are not on our current schedule, we feel it is certainly worth taking a little time out to refresh our memory about what we've learnt about the Vikings (we studied them two years ago) in addition to looking at real Viking artefacts that we hadn't seen before.

While we were at the exhibition, we were treated to additional interaction with the learning coordinators, both inside the exhibition and afterwards, who provided more directions and suggestions on looking at the exhibits to the children.

I wasn't sure whether Tiger remembers what he learnt from two years ago, but he apparently does, as shown by his enthusiastic and accurate responses to the quiz at the end of the visit.


This post is linked up to:

1. Hip Homeschool Hop - 6/24/14
2. History & Geography Meme #123
3. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with the relaxing week at home
4. The Homeschool Mother's Journal (6/28/14)

Chinese New Year: Dumplings and Lanterns

After the zodiac workshop at the British Museum, Tiger and I went around Room 33 to have a more detailed look at the artefacts and decided to each draw an item that caught our eyes.

Tiger also learned to make a simple Chinese lantern there, which was really timely for the Yuanxiao Festival (元宵节), which is also called the Chinese New Year Lantern Festival and falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month.  This year it falls on Friday, February 14th.  It marks the last day of the Chinese New Year celebration.

Since we are celebrating the 15 days of Chinese New Year, we decided to find out more about this festival.

We learned about the origins of the festival from different clips:

and also about the significance of the lanterns to the Chinese, and to the festival in particular:

We also learned about the riddles that accompany the lanterns:

And how the festival is celebrated slightly differently in different parts of the Chinese region.  For example, the celebration in Beijing would consist of visiting the temple markets, fireworks, and admiring the displays of lanterns:

Whereas in Taiwan, the same festival is marked by the release of Sky Lanterns to the night as a sign of prayers to the heavens:

Armed with all the information that we have learned, Tiger and I decided to make a few lanterns to hang at home to mark the occasion.  We followed the instructions from the clip below to make the basic shape of the lantern

before making a few improvisions of our own:

1. we added strips of gold cards and gold holographic cards to the top and bottom rims of our lanterns to make them look more like the traditional ones that we have seen;
2. I stuck strips of yellow yarn to the bottom rim of the lanterns to make them look like tassels that usually line the traditional Chinese lanterns;
3. I printed out the riddles from Marie's post and cut them into strips using an craft scissors that has interesting patterns; and
4. I threaded and sewed the riddle strips to the lantern handles with red thread so that each riddle hangs in the middle of the lantern.

Tiger enjoyed looking at the riddles and trying to solve them.  I told him that they are meant to be pondered over for the night, rather than being solved immediately.  He has been slightly tormented by a few of the riddles since they were hung up.

The other significant aspect of the Yuanxiao Festival is the eating of dumplings, called yuanxiao (元宵) in Northern China, and tangyuan (汤圆) in the South.  From what I understand, the Northern version is usually savoury with its filling being marinated minced meat, while the Southern version is sweet with fillings such as red bean paste, sesame paste or peanut paste.

Tiger made some tangyuan following the instructions found in video above.

While Tiger's tangyuans were cooking, I added the packet of commercial tangyuan that we bought from the oriental supermarket on Tuesday to let him make some comparison.  The tangyuans were served in a bowl of hot, sweet soup made from boiling together 100g honey, 500ml water, and six slices of ginger.

I decided to also make the Northen yuanxiao for Tiger to compare them to the sweet tangyuan above.

Yuanxiao (Northern savory dumplings)

Ingredients:
DOUGH

• 50g sago, soaked for 6 hours in cold water
• 225g glutinous rice flour
• cold water

FILLING

• 225g minced lamb
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 tablesppon organic ginger wine
• 1 spring onion, finely chopped

Method:

1. Drain the sago in a sieve for 30 minutes and mix with the glutinous rice flour.  Ad the cold water slowly and knead until the dough is smooth.
2. Mix together all the ingredients for the filling.  Set aside for 35 minutes.
3. Roll the dough into a long sausage shape, about 2.5cm in diameter, and cut into 1cm pieces.  Flatten each piece of dough and place about half a teaspoon filling in the cnetre.  Carefully draw the edges of dough over the filling, seal and shape into a small ball by rolling between the palms of your hands.  The dumplings may be made in advance and refrigerated.
4. For four servings: bring about 1L water to a rolling boil, add 1 teaspoon sea salt and any leftover fillings to make a savoury soup.  Drop in the dumplings, one by one, and stir very gently to prevent them from sticking together.  Cook vigoursly until they all float to the surface, then reduce the heat and simmer for 5 more minutes.  Scoop them into individual bowls and cover with some of the soup.  Serve hot.

Our verdict:

1. We prefer the savory yuanxiao, which tasted like normal dumpling soup.  Its dough is thin and has a nice slightly-chewy texture.
2. The tangyuan was dough was overly chewy and thick, which spoilt the taste for us.  However, we liked the sweet ginger soup very much.
3. We think the harder texture of the tangyuan is caused by adding the normal rice flour to the glutinous rice flour.  Next year, we shall improve our tangyuan by using only glutinous rice flour, as we have done when making the yuanxiao.

This post is linked up to:

1. Chinese Activities Link Up
2. Hip Homeschool Hop (2/11/14)
3. History and Geography Meme: Fun Ways to Use Maps with Your Kids
4. Educational and Entertaining - Chinese Activities for Kids
5. Collage Friday - All About Love {and Ice}
6. Weekly Wrap-up: The One with More Snow
7. The Homeschool Mother's Journal (February 15, 2014)
8. Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop #13

A Chinese New Year Taster

Being the last-minuter that I am, I must be asking for trouble by declaring on Monday that we plan to learn more about Chinese New Year this year, when the big day is only days away.  That is a sure way to work myself into a frenzy!

Luckily the V&A came to my rescue yet again, with a whole day of Chinese New Year related activities!  Woo hoo!  With many varied cultural activities prepared by professionals, all we had to do was to show up and work our way through them -- such an arrangement is this homeschool mum's best-case scenario.

The museum's central courtyard has a large landscape installation by a modern Chinese artist.  The landscape is of major significance in Chinese art, as seen in the art of bonsai and traditional Chinese landscape paintings.  While the pre-Impressionistic Western landscape paintings' emphasis is on realistic representation, the Chinese landscape paintings have always been non-representative, with its emphasis being on conveying certain philosophical and spiritual aspirations (most notably due to the influence of Laozi's philosophy as expressed in Taoism).

The first craft that Tiger made at the museum was the Chinese Opera mask.

The mask is made entirely out of paper and looks like this when completed:

Traditional Chinese Opera masks are painted directly onto the actors' faces, using specific colours and patterns to represent well-known operatic characters.

After the craft session, the museum even had a short "Introduction to Chinese Opera" workshop to take the children through a few of the uniquely-identifiable stage gestures and movements of each character.

Other activities Tiger was to do that day included:
(1) Making a mini kite out of lollisticks, craft tissues and coloured cards.

(2) Watching a paper cutting demonstration.

(3) Practising Chinese calligraphy.  The practice in Chinese New Year is to write certain auspicious wordings on a piece of red paper and stick them around the house to signify bringing good luck and prosperity into the home.  A very common word that is used is "fu" (福), that embodies the meaning of good luck and good fortune.  There are many different styles or schools of Chinese calligraphy, hence there are numerous ways to write the word "fu", as you can see Tiger practising below.

The day ended with us attending a traditional Chinese instrumental concert, performed by the musicians from the UK Chinese Ensemble.

The style, sounds, and atmosphere of traditional Chinese music is very different from those of classical Western music.  The concert gave the audience an excellent experience with a wide repertoire of solo pieces, duets, as well as ensemble pieces.  For example:
(1) a zither or guqin (古琴) ensemble:

(2) a yangqin (扬琴) solo:

(3) an erhu (二胡) and yangqin (扬琴) duet:

(4) a guzheng (古筝) solo:

(5) a xiao (萧)solo:

(6) a pipa (琵琶) solo:

(7) an ensemble piece:

The finale was a traditional Chinese New Year piece titled <<喜洋洋>>, loosely translated as "Beaming with Joy":

The score for this piece of traditional Chinese New Year music was rearranged for the ensemble performance at the V&A.  It was originally written for a full Chinese orchestra:

The day has been a good introductory overview to the Chinese culture.  To do justice to the depth and breadth of the Chinese culture (as it is with any culture), we will have to spend more time to study the individual components of this one-day "crash course" individually.


This post is linked up to:

1. Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop #12
2. Hip Homeschool Hop - 1/28/2014
3. History and Geography Meme: Ancient Greece activities
4. Entertaining and Educational - Energy
5. Collage Friday: Thankful for Homeschool
6. Weekly Wrap-up: The One with all the Snow
7. The (New) Homeschool Mother's Journal (2/1/14) 
8. Chinese Activities Link Up