Children learning Mandarin Chinese as a second language need stories about them - their voices and their experiences. This blog is dedicated to creating and telling those stories.
It’s been a while since I posted a story. Good news,
though. I’m working on my first book deal to turn the four seasons series into
a set of talking books. I re-working the text and taking photos and I am quite excited about that. Learning photography has
been the most rewarding experience so far. Emilyn and Chantal will often join
me. Even though they need to be my subjects most of the time, what ends up
happening is the two taking their own toy cameras and mimicking what I do. It’s all
fun and produces creative photos at the end. What more can I ask for?!
Dao
tou zai is a Taiwanese slang and it has a clever and mischievous connotation to
it. This short poem is all about Chantal. She really is an up
side down girl. That means she has more fun with her head down and her feet up.
I often ask her why she likes to be up side down so much. She just gives me a
grin and says: it’s fun 好玩 Hao Wan This up side down game also reminds me of how we need to
turn our head around once in a while and look at things from a reversed
perspective. It really gives you a different perspective, doesn’t it?
I never consider myself as having a green thumb. I started with 10 strawberry plants about 5 years ago. When they all survived my care that first year and spawned numerous baby strawberry plants, that was enough to give me confidence to expand my garden, adding tomato plants, blue berry bushes, bok choy, brocoli, cucumber, and even corn just last year. Now we have a sizable garden and the harvest throughout Summer and Fall is just too delicious.
Chinese with Pinyin
Our encounter with a snake was a true story. I completely freaked out when I saw the slithering creature. I'm not sure why but I had this phobia toward snakes ever since I was a kid. Emilyn was only 3 at the time and she sat there, watching the snake for a good half hour or so. She very much wanted to "pat" the snake and keep it as a pet. To this date, she still loves snakes. She had her chance of patting them at a zoo and an aquarium. I'll continue with my vegie garden and I won't mind a snake's visit once in a while. But just like the story line, snakes have to stay outdoors.
I’m not a fan of
snow and cold but this year I really wished we can have some white magic for
this story. Well, we had just enough snow and the snow lasted just long enough
so we could make a snowman and have a snow ball fight.
Chinese with English Subtitles
We celebrated
Chinese New Year this weekend, the official start of the Spring. Looking out
the window, all the snow has melted away. But the memory of this winter – a day
off from school and work, my surprise that Chantal fit into her older sister’s
snow suit, a foot of snow on the driveway that became a toboggan lane, and the
children’s attempt to eat snow – is sealed with this short poem. It also
completes my Four Seasons series, one poem for each season.
Again, Emilyn read
this poem without difficulty. Her reading is improving and she is also
interested in Chinese books that she can read on her own. It’s not easy fitting
all the languages into our daily routine. She reads French books assigned by
her school teacher, and loves Roald Dahl’s series of The Big Friendly Giant in
English.I am in continuous search for
Chinese books and story ideas. Well, this is a good problem to tackle.
Here is the poem. Happy
reading!
你好, 雪人先生! nǐ hǎo, xuě rén xiān shēng!
Hello, Mr.
Snowman
冬天到了，下雪了 dōng tiān dào le, xià xuě le
Winter is here, it is snowing
雪是白白的 xuě shì bái bái de
snow is white
從天空飄下來
cóng tiān kōng piāo xià lái
drifting down from the sky
軟軟的 ruǎn ruǎn de
snow is soft
停在樹上、草地上 tíng zài shù shàng, cǎo dì shàng
landing on the trees, on the grass
也停在我的頭上、手上 yěi tíng zài wǒ de tóu shàng, shuǒ shàng
