Kita wrote from China a couple of days ago about how she hung up banners with Spring Couplets on them around her door for the Chinese New Year : "Tonight is Chuxi. (Chinese New Year’s Eve.) This afternoon, my grandpa and I pasted up spring couplets. My grandpa makes the paste with flour. We mix flour and...

Laba is a Chinese festival that has traditionally started off the Chinese New Year preparations. It’s on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Agnes wrote about it from China: "We eat Laba Rice Porridge and Laba Garlic for the Laba Festival. Laba Porridge is made of mixed grains and corns, like peanuts, chestnuts, dates...

Open Culture has a page of free language learning links covering 40 languages. Here are some of the languages you can find links for… Arabic, English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Bulgarian, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, Gaelic, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Maori, Norwegian, Portuguese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swahili,...

Emperor Cuckoo is a new site about human interest stories in China.  Articles from mainland Chinese-language newspapers are posted on this blog in Chinese with English translations. You can read stories about ordinary Chinese people who speak about their traditions, values, interests and beliefs. The latest post The Storyteller is about a 92 year old lady...

Monique, who’s from France, went to a wedding party in China when she visited friends there last year.  Here’s what she wrote about the party and about weddings in China in general… Marriage formalities consist of filling out some forms and bringing them to some office, then you go back to get them back some days...

The Idiom: The Frog in the Well – 井底之蛙 (jǐng dǐ zhī wā) – is a Chinese idiom that refers to a narrow-minded person who doesn’t see the larger world around them.  The Story: The story is about a frog who lives happily in a well.  He has no idea what’s outside of that well. ...

Yesterday, I helped at a Chinese New Year event at my daughter’s school.  Red is a lucky color in China. Nane, the mother who ran it, had all of the helping Mom’s wear red. The tables were all decorated with red tablecloths. Oranges were placed around the room for decorations – like centerpieces on the...

Today is the start of the Chinese New Year. It’s the Year of the Rabbit. Below you can read some articles about the Chinese New Year. Thanks to Lila for the rabbit sketch! Happy New Year! Mama Lisa

This is the Year of the Rabbit according to the Chinese Zodiac. The Chinese Zodiac is followed in China, as well as Japan. Ayako wrote to me from Japan about the Year of the Rabbit… We have twelve different signs (animals) in Chinese lunar calender called “干支”. We call the men of the year “toshi otoko –...

My daughter made a Chinese lantern in school last year.  Chinese lanterns are made out of paper and normally there is a light inside of them.  They’re popular in China and Japan. Here’s how you make a Chinese Lantern out of construction paper: 1. Draw a picture in markers on a piece of 12 x 18" construction...

Last month a ship from the 1700’s was found in the Ground Zero construction site in New York. The ship was probably sunk at the site in an effort to extend the land in Manhattan in the early 19th century. It’s called The Mystery Ship and it’s now being studied at a lab...