奇奇的祕密任務 The Secret Mission of QiQi

Watch the video.

QiQi is a squirrel. "Hao Qi" means being curious in Chinese. So we name the squirrel QiQi.

It has been almost two years since our encounter with a squirrel trapped in a chimney. That was the summer when we travelled to Kimberley and stayed at our friend Erica's cottage. A squirrel fell into the chimney in the kitchen and screeched, in pain I thought at the time, the whole night. My imagination ran wild: an injured bird, a hurt squirrel, bloody feather and mangled fur?  Erica had to call in her neighbour to help. We were happy that we freed a very scared but healthy squirrel after several hours of dismantling the kitchen fan under the chimney. The kids had a frenzy trying to chase the squirrel out of the house. It was all for a good laugh at the end and Erica said: why don't you write about it. Here I am: two years later, I finally finished the project. And I owe Erica a big THANKS!

As always, the writing part is easy. I wrote the story shortly after the trip. The art work and the video production always take a long time. We had a "draft" hand-made story book before I asked Emilyn to re-do all the illustrations. That proved to be a challenge for an 8 years old to keep a consistent design and style. She had to learn how to draw a squirrel from different angles with different actions. She settled on a grey squirrel, the same kind that frequent our backyard, and researched the habitat and food habit of this creature. Quite a process and an accomplishement for Emilyn. The voice recording  also took a while as the story lines are longer and more complex linguistically. Fortunately, days of recording got Chantal, the 4 years old, interested in the production and she sang the opening song with all the enthusiasm she had. Perfect sound effect I was looking for.

This is the spring break week so I am very pleased that this story is finally on the blog for all the kids to enjoy. I am still busy with the upcoming publication of my first series of story books. Camera in hand, the kids and I are in search of flowers in the woods or gardens. Every time we run into a squirrel, we say "hey look, QiQi is busy with his secret mission".

種菜 Planting Vegetables

種菜 Planting Vegetables

Chinese with English Subtitles

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.

你好,雪人先生 Hello, Mr. Snowman

Chinese with pinying

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

also landing on my head, my hands

看一看  kàn yī kàn

have a look

雪花亮晶晶  xuě huā liàng jīng jīng

snow flake is sparkling

拿一拿 ná yī ná

take a hold

雪花結成一個球  xuě huā jié chéng yī ge qiú

snow forms into a ball

打雪仗！ dǎ xuě zhàng

snow ball fight!

滾一滾  gǔn yī gǔnr

roll it up

雪球變大  xuě qiú biàn dà

snow ball grows bigger

一個、兩個，疊起來  yī ge, liáng ge, dié qǐ lái

one, two, stack them up

加兩個石頭眼睛  jiā liáng ge shí tóu yǎn jīng

add two pebbles as eyes

兩個樹枝手臂 liáng ge shù zhī shǒu bài

two twigs as arms

別忘了肚子上的鈕扣 bié wàng le dù zi shàng de niǔ kòu

don’t forget the button on the belly

你好, 雪人先生! nǐ hǎo,  xuě rén xiān shēng!

hello, Mr. Snowman!