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Contents
Posts
Mother Goose Rhymes translated into Chinese
Monday, March 15th, 2010Alison is translating traditional English nursery rhymes into Chinese on her blog. Check it out!
-Mama Lisa
Happy Chinese New Year of the Tiger 2010 – Let’s Sing a Popular Chinese Rhyme “Two Tigers”
Sunday, February 14th, 2010Frank wrote…
Hello Mama Lisa,
I came across your web page, excellent site! Attached please find two mp3 files of two kids song of Two Tigers.
Two Tigers MP3
Two Tigers MP3 #2The lyrics and translation are as follows:Traditional Chinese:
兩隻老虎 兩隻老虎 跑得快 跑得快
隻没有耳朵
隻没有尾巴 真奇怪 真奇怪
Simplified Chinese:
两只老虎 两只老虎 跑得快 跑得快
只没有耳朵
只没有尾巴 真奇怪 真奇怪
Two tigers Two tigers Run fast. Run fast.
One doesn’t have ears. One doesn’t have a tail.
Really strange! Really strange!Happy New Year of Tiger – 2010!Frank*****
Here’s the Mandarin Transliteration:
liang3 zhi3 lao3 hu3
liang3 zhi3 lao3 hu3
pao3 de kuai4
pao3 de kuai4
yi4 zhi3 mei2 you3 yan3 jing1
yi4 zhi3 mei2 you3 wei3 ba
zhen1qi2 guai4
zhen1 qi2 guai4James Yannucci gave us this key to the numbers in the transliteration:
The numbers are the tones used for each word. The Chinese use 4 different tones:
1. Is a high level tone (almost like your singing the word)
2. Is a high rising tone
3. The tone starts at a neutral point then drops down low then returns.
4. Drops fast and abrupt*****
Thanks to Frank for this rhyme and recordings and to James Yannucci for the transliteration!
Happy Year of the Tiger!
Mama Lisa
Modern Poetry Around the World
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009Cross Cultural Poetics has podcasts featuring modern poets from different countries around the world.
The first podcast features Egyptian poets Mohamed Metwalli and Maged Zaher and Chinese poet Zhang Er. They compare Chinese and Arabic poetry to English poetry.
Zhang Er points out that Chinese poetry has no tense – so it has an eternal feeling to it. It has no plurals, no articles and no pronouns. Whereas English poetry is more static – it’s set in time.
Maged Zaher points out that the spoken Arabic language is different from the written language. He said the written Arabic language is more ornamental and rhetorical and that made his poetry more sentimental. To be free of this he writes his poetry in English.
Mohamed Metwalli said he writes in Arabic because that’s the language he dreams in. He speaks English and studied English literature growing up, so there is an influence of it on his poetry. He writes in a modern Arabic form that’s influenced by English.
You can listen to the 1st podcast here.
Qingming Poem by Du Mu with an MP3 Recording
Friday, April 3rd, 2009Yesterday, I posted the poem Qingming by the poet Du Mu (803 – 852) that mentions the Qingming Festival (also called Ching Ming). I asked my friend Ray Lee about it. He grew up in Hong Kong and I wanted to hear his impression about the poem and also my translation of it (below). Here’s what Ray wrote:
This is indeed a very well known poem. We were taught this poem when we were in school. I don’t know if they still teach this in school. Even if they don’t, the school kids are bound to hear it from their parents or on TV or read about it somewhere.
The translation you have is pretty good. I am not sure about the second line though. I have always thought it said, “pedestrians on the road are like ghosts,” because of the rain.
Below you can find the Chinese text, the Pinyin and an English translation I had done of the poem Qingming plus an mp3 of Qingming being recited…
Ching Ming
It’s raining hard at the time of the Ching Ming Festival,
The mourner’s heart is overwhelmed on the road upland.
May I ask where there’s a tavern to drown my sorrows?
The shepherd boy points to Xinghua Village in the distance.清 明
清 明 时 节 雨 纷 纷，
路 上 行 人 欲 断 魂。
借 问 酒 家 何 处 有，
牧 童 遥 指 杏 花 村。
qīng míng shí jié yǔ fēn fēn
lù shàng xíng rén yù duàn hún
jiè wèn jiǔ jiā hé chù yǒu
mù tóng yáo zhǐ xìng huā cūnRay later wrote to me about the second line:
There is another translation on the Internet that is somewhere between my translation and yours. This one says something like travelers all look gloomy and miserable.
Thanks, Ray, for letting us know more about this poem!
The poem was read by Jia Zhou for Librevox.
If anyone would like to comment about the translation, please feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below or to email me at lisa@mamalisa.com .
Below you can read posts about the Chingming Festival…
-Mama Lisa
Qingming Festival in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009The Qingming Festival is on April 4th this year in China, and on the 5th in Taiwan. In Taiwan it’s called Tomb Sweeping Day.
This day is a remembrance of ancestors – it’s similar to All Saints Day and The Day of the Dead. People clean the tombs of their ancestors and offer them food, drink, joss (paper gifts) and spirit money (not real currency). Some people carry willow branches to ward off the evil spirits that are thought to roam the earth on this day.
Qingming is also a celebration of the spring. People have picnics, play on swings and fly kites.
There is a well-known poem by the poet Du Mu (803 – 852) that mentions this day. Below you can find the Chinese text, the Pinyin and an English translation I tried my hand!
Ching Ming
It’s raining hard at the time of the Ching Ming Festival,
The mourner’s heart is overwhelmed on the road upland.
May I ask where there’s a tavern to drown my sorrows?
The shepherd boy points to Xinghua Village in the distance.清 明
清 明 时 节 雨 纷 纷，
路 上 行 人 欲 断 魂。
借 问 酒 家 何 处 有，
牧 童 遥 指 杏 花 村。
qīng míng shí jié yǔ fēn fēn
lù shàng xíng rén yù duàn hún
jiè wèn jiǔ jiā hé chù yǒu
mù tóng yáo zhǐ xìng huā cūnBelow you can read other posts about the Chingming Festival…
Feel free to share your holiday photos or traditions by commenting below or emailing me at lisa@mamalisa.com.
Mama Lisa
The poem was read by Jia Zhou for Librevox.
Can Anyone Help with a Mandarin Song with the Line “Xiao me xiao er lang”?
Thursday, March 5th, 2009Heather wrote asking for help with a Chinese folk song…
Lisa,
I’m not sure if you can help me but I am searching for the lyrics for a children’s folksong in Mandarin that is about a little boy who carries a backpack on his back and doesn’t want to disappoint his father. I sang this about 13 years ago with my college choir. I remember the melody but only parts of the words.
Phonetically, the first line is: Xiao me xiao er lang
If possible, your help will be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Heather Ramirez
Houston, TXIf anyone can help with this song, either with the transliterated Mandarin, the Chinese characters and/or an English translation, please either let us know in the comments below or by emailing me at lisa@mamalisa.com .
Thanks in advance!
Mama Lisa
UPDATE: Evan wrote: “Ah! The good ol’ days… I sang this as part of my elementary school music class, quite some time ago. With the repetitions, it goes…”
小呀嘛小二郎
背着那书包上学堂
不怕太阳晒
也不怕那风雨狂
只怕先生骂我笨
没有学问无颜见爹娘
没有学问无颜见爹娘
小呀嘛小二郎
背着那书包上学堂
不是为做官
也不是为面子管
只为穷人要翻身
不受人欺负
哎不做牛和羊
不受人欺负
哎不做牛和羊
小呀嘛小二郎
背着那书包上学堂
不怕太阳晒
也不怕那风雨狂
只怕先生骂我笨
没有学问无颜见爹娘
没有学问无颜见爹娘
小呀嘛小二郎
背着那书包上学堂
不是为做官
也不是为面子管
只为穷人要翻身
不受人欺负
哎不做牛和羊
不受人欺负
哎不做牛和羊
小二郎嘛小二郎
小二郎嘛小二郎
小二郎嘛小二郎
小二郎嘛小二郎
小呀嘛小二郎
背着那书包上学堂
不是为做官
也不是为面子管
只为穷人要翻身
不受人欺负
哎不做牛和羊
不受人欺负
哎不做牛和羊
不受人欺负
哎不做牛和羊Thanks Evan! If anyone can provide a transliteration, the Pinyin and/or an English translation, that would be great! Thanks! Lisa
Movie Recommendation – Kung Fu Panda
Sunday, January 25th, 2009
Kung Fu Panda is a really great movie. I’d highly recommend watching it with your kids. It looks pretty. It exposes your children to another culture (it takes place in China). It’s funny and has a nice moral to the story (one being, be true to yourself).
You can get an idea of what Kung Fu Panda’s like in the trailer below…
Beware, at the end of the film you’ll find yourself singing the Kung Fu Fighting disco song from the 70’s… Everybody was Kung fu fighting, those kids were fast as lightening, in fact in was a little bit frightening, but they fought with expert timing…
Enjoy the Show!
Mama Lisa
PS This movie is available on DVD now so you can take it out at your local library or rent it.
Chinese New Year
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009The Chinese New Year starts on January 26th this year. It’ll be the year of the Ox.
Here’s a composition by David W. Solomons that he created in honor of the holiday.
If you’re interested in learning more, you can read previous posts about the Chinese New Year.
If you’d like to find a festival near you, check out an article about some Chinese New Years Festivals around the world. If the weather permits, I’d like to bring my family to the one in Chinatown, in New York City.
The Dragon Boat Festival
Monday, June 9th, 2008
The Dragon Boat Festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth moon (month) in the Chinese New Year. This year that’s today!
According to Andrew Sullivan, it falls on this day, “in remembrance of Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet who committed suicide in the Miluo River on the day in 221 BC.” Depending on which story you follow, Qu Yuan was either protesting the corruption of the government, or was so depressed by it, that he killed himself!
The legend is that the villagers raced out onto the river to try to save Qu Yuan, but it was too late. So they threw rice into the river to keep the fish from eating his body. They also beat the water with their paddles to scare away the fish. This race in search of Qu Yuan’s body became the tradition of the dragon boat race.
Every year on the fifth day of the fifth month the villagers threw rice in the river to feed Qu Yuan’s spirit. According to the legend, the spirit of Qu Yuan appeared one night and told the villagers that he was eaten by the river dragon. He said the river dragon was eating the rice they were throwing into the river. So he asked them to wrap the rice in silk and tie it with different colored strings before throwing it in (this became known as zongzi). The colors will scare away the dragon and he won’t be able to untie the strings. He said they should also throw in loose rice. The loose rice would be to feed the dragon and the zongzi would feed Qu Yuan. Today, the tradition is to eat zongzi for the Dragon Boat Festival. Nowadays, zongzi is typically made with rice wrapped in bamboo leaves.
The Dragon Boat Festival is known as the Duanwu Festival in China and Taiwan. It’s known as the Tuen Ng Festival in Hong Kong and Macau.
The Photo is from Dragonboat Racing Festival in Macau 2005 by Iidxplus on Wikipedia, and was slightly edited by Mama Lisa.
Multilingual Kids Books on the Web
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008I’ve been asked twice in the past week for free multilingual books.
Here’s a link I found called Books in Multiple Languages. They have English children’s books with translations in Spanish, French, Polish, Italian, Romanian, German, Chinese, Finnish, Swedish, Maori, Greek, Dutch, Farsi (Persian), Afrikaans, Croatian, Turkish, Russian, Japanese, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew, Pennsylvania Dutch, Sloven, Indonesian, Malaysian, Hungarian, Dari, Hindi and Filipino.
If anyone knows of any other good multilingual book links, feel free to let us know about it in the comments below.
Someone was also looking for children’s books with animal sounds around the world. There’s one called Who Says a Dog Goes Bow Wow? by Hank de Zutter. You can click the link to see it on Amazon.
-Mama Lisa
Can Someone Help with a Chinese Song from an Album called “Children’s Folk Rhymes in Beijing”?
Friday, November 9th, 2007Kel wrote:
Hi,
I just found your web page and am interested in finding a song and lyrics. The song is called is “Looking at the Sights With My Small Eyes” (in Chinese its “Xiao Yan Jing Kan Jing Zhi Er”). It’s from an album called “Children’s Folk Rhymes in Beijing”…..
I’m trying to find somewhere I can download it and also the lyrics (in English) please.
Thank you in anticipation.
Kel
If anyone can help Kel (we’d also love to receive the lyrics in the original language if anyone knows them) – please comment below.
Thanks!
Mama Lisa
Chinese Musical Notation – Music without a Staff!
Thursday, June 28th, 2007I recently received a song from China called Little Swallow. The sheet music was very different from the notes on staffs that we use in the West. It consisted of numbers with dots and lines. Here’s what it looks like:
I asked Wang Li, who sent me the song, about it. She said, “In China this kind of sheet music consist of numbers 1-7 and is quite popular:
1-do (C)
2-re (D)
3-mi (E)
4-fa (F)
5-sol (G)
6-la (A)
7-ti (B)It’s called numbered musical notation (”jianpu” in Chinese – simple sheet music) and used to be the only musical score for the ordinary people.”
A dot above or below a number raises or lowers the note an octave.
A plain number is a quarter note. A line under the number cuts it in half – so if it has one line under it – it’s an eighth note.
A dash after the number adds a quarter note – so if it has one dash after it – it’s a half note.
Here you can hear the midi tune of Little Swallow
I can see an advantage to musicians using the Chinese numbered notation as a type of shorthand.
If you’re interested in more details, you can read about Chinese numbered musical notation on Wikipedia.
You can see the song page for Little Swallow with the lyrics, midi and staff sheet music by clicking on the link.
Many thanks to Wang Li for the Little Swallow score and to Monique Palomares for creating the midi music.
-Mama Lisa
I Need Help with the Chinese Text for a Kids Song called “Count Ducks”
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007I received a wonderful Chinese children’s song recently called Count Ducks. The text I received is a scanned in image – I had a hard time making it look crisp and clear. If anyone can send me the computerized text in Chinese, I’d be grateful. Here’s the graphic, followed by an English translation.
Count Ducks
(English)In front of the
Door under the bridge there are ducks.
Come on count them
Two four six
Seven eight.
Quack, quack
So many ducks.
Countless ducks.
Countless ducks.
Grandpa with a white beard
Chases the ducks away,
Sings in the local
Opera and tell jokes.
Kids, kids, go to
school quickly,
Don’t get a duck egg* on your exam and
Come home with it.
Don’t get a duck egg on your exam and
Come home with it.*This is using a duck egg to represent a score of zero.
Many thanks to Hanchao for contributing and translating this song. Thanks also to Ray Lee for help with the translation.
If anyone can provide the computerized Chinese text for this song, please email me. Thanks! – Lisa
Yuan Xiao and the Lantern Festival in China
Monday, April 16th, 2007
Yuan Xiao is a traditional food for the Lantern Festival in China. The Lantern Festival is at the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations. People go outside with lanterns, watch the dragon dance, set off firecrackers, and they eat Yuan Xiao. (Yuan Xiao is also called Tang Yuan.)
There’s a sweet version and a salty one. The sweet version is made of sticky rice wrapped around black jasmine, white jasmine or peanuts with sugar. Sometimes there’s something else like fruit inside.
Recently, Hanchao, a woman from China who lives in my neighborhood, treated me to a luncheon that featured Yuan Xiao. Xuemei (also from China) was there, as was Rae from Taiwan.
Hanchao made Yuan Xiao with black sesame paste, and Xuemei made it with red beans. Both were wonderful to taste!
I mentioned how I would love to share the recipe for Yuan Xiao with my readers.
The ladies told me they don’t have cookbooks in China like we have in the West. Recipes are passed on from mother to daughter, from sister to brother and from friend to friend. They were amazed at how we have such precise measurements in our recipes and how we can duplicate the exact same recipe each time. They teach each other recipes by cooking the meal together.
Hanchao said she would try to write down her recipe for us. Here is what she sent me…
Hanchao’s Yuan Xiao Recipe
3 cups sticky rice flour
1 1/2 cups chopped black sesame seeds
1/2 cup sugarThe black sesame seeds that I bought were fresh. You can put the sesame seeds on a cookie sheet in the oven on 375 F. Stir a few times while cooking. Cook until it tastes good – about 30 minutes.
Mix chopped sesame with sugar in a blender until smooth. This is the filling. Set aside.
Put 1 – 2 cups of water into the sticky rice flour and mix to make the dough. You can use up to a total of 3 cups of water. Add the water slowly, because if you add to much, it will be too gooey – in which case you can add more flour. You want it to be smooth like pie dough or playdough.
Shape the dough of the sticky rice into half balls, put a teaspoonful of filling into the half ball. Close the half ball to form a full round ball and smooth out it by rolling it between your hands.
Put the Yuan Xiao into boiling water. Cook until all the Yuan Xiao float on the surface of the water. Cook for 30-60 minutes. Serve in the water it’s cooked in, like a soup.
Some people will serve Yuan Xiao in a sweetened broth. I asked Hanchao about this and she said she only uses water.
Yuan Xiao (Tang Yuan) are a symbol of family unity and happiness. People serve them to their family on the last day of the Chinese New Year celebration. It’s a symbol that the family will be happy and complete in the upcoming year.
Many thanks to Hanchao for sharing her recipe for Yuan Xiao with us!
Here are some links for other recipes:
Taiwanese Tang Yuan in an Egg Drop Soup
A Recipe for Pork Tong Yuen and one for Black Sesame Seed Paste Tong Yuen
Recipe for Glutinous Rice Balls with Salted Egg Yolk and Peanut Filling
Qingming – Festival of Pure Brightness – 清明節
Thursday, March 29th, 2007The Qingming Festival takes place on April 4, 5, or 6th – whichever is the 104th day after the winter solstice. It’s celebrated in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
Qingming has many names and spellings: Qingming, Ching Ming, Ch’ing Ming, Qing Ming Jie. In English it’s been called Clear Brightness Festival, Remembrance of Ancestors Day, Grave Sweeping Day, and Spring Festival.
Qingming is a festival to honor the dead – similar in some ways to The Day of the Dead in Mexico. It’s thought that it’s important to keep ancestors happy in order to have good luck. Qingming is a good occasion to fulfill this obligation.
First, people go to the graves of their family members and clean them. They sweep away debris, pull up weeds and sometimes plant flowers.
I asked Ray Lee about what he did for Ching Ming Festival growing up in Hong Kong. He said, “That’s when we would go to the grave site of our grandparents and leave flowers for them.”
Hanchao from China said she would also go and clean off the graves of her relatives who had passed away. Sometimes her family would burn paper money. The money is for the deceased to use in the afterlife. (It’s not actual currency – it’s called spirit money.) It’s also traditional to burn incense.
People also put out food and drink near the tombstone for their ancestors. Hanchao said, “We put steamed buns, fruits, and wine and food at the grave, that the people who passed away liked when they were alive, and we light incense.”
Qingming is also a day to celebrate the Spring. After tending the grave and offering food, the family will sometimes have a picnic and enjoy the fresh air. People sometimes play games and fly kites.
Please feel free to let us know what your family and friends would do for Qingming in the comments below.
-Lisa
“Delighting in Rain on a Spring Night” – A Poem by the Chinese Poet Du Fu
Monday, March 26th, 2007Du Fu, also known as Tu Fu (712-770), is one of the best-known poets of China. Many of his poems are about nature and the seasons.
Here’s Delighting in Rain on a Spring Night in simplified Chinese and with an English translation by Brendan O’Kane. After the translation, I posted the traditional Chinese text.
春夜喜雨
Delighting in Rain on a Spring Night杜甫
Dù Fǔ好雨知时节，
A good rain knows its proper time;
当春乃发生。
It waits until the Spring to fall.
随风潜入夜，
It drifts in on the wind, steals in by night,
润物细无声。
Its fine drops drench, yet make no sound at all.
野径云俱黑，
The paths between the fields are cloaked with clouds;
江船火独明。
A river-skiff’s lone light still burns.
晓看红湿处，
Come dawn, we’ll see splashes of wet red –
花重锦官城
The flowers in Chengdu*, weighed down with rain.*Chengdu is now a large city in southern China. Du Fu lived in Chengdu for 4 years and composed over 200 poems there.
Here is the poem in traditional Chinese text:
春夜喜雨
好雨知時節,
當春乃發生。
隨風潛入夜,
潤物細無聲。
野徑雲俱黑,
將船火獨明。
曉看紅濕處,
花重錦官城。Many thanks to Brendan O’Kane for letting me post his translation of this poem. Brendan is a translator living in Beijing. He also has a blog called Bokane.org. Check it out for translations of some other Chinese poems and general posts about Chinese culture and life in Beijing.
The Chinese New Year – The Year of the Pig
Friday, February 16th, 2007February 18th is the first day of the Chinese New Year. This coming year will be the year of the Golden Pig. It’s considered to be a very lucky, prosperous year. The pig is considered the symbol of fertility. People born in the year of the Pig are thought to be honest, lucky and warm-hearted.
Here’s some info about writing Happy New Year, Pig and Good Luck in Chinese characters…
Happy New Year in Chinese characters is:
You pronounce it in Cantonese as Kung Hey Fat Choy, and in Mandarin as Gong xi fa cai. Both sayings mean “Congratulations and Prosperity!”
Here is the symbol for good luck:
In Mandarin it’s pronounced “fu” and in Cantonese it’s pronounced “fook”. It’s often hung on doors on a red diamond shape banner. Some people hang it upside-down. That’s because the word for upside-down in Mandarin sounds like “dao”, which also sounds like the Mandarin word for “arrive”. So it’s like saying – let good luck arrive.
The Chinese character for Pig is…
Here’s a link with an animation that shows how to write pig in Chinese
Pig is pronounced as “zhu” in both Mandarin and Cantonese – You can hear how to say pig in Cantonese!
You can find more about how to say Happy New Year in Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Korean in my post from last year.
Here you can hear the pronunciation of Happy New Year in Mandarin and Cantonese.
Many thanks to Ray Lee for help with the Chinese characters!
恭喜發財!
Great Link for Language Learning
Monday, December 4th, 2006If you’re trying to learn a new language, I’d recommend checking out LanguageGuide.org.
Users visit different theme related pages (i.e. about insects, the family, the farm). Each page has images related to the theme. You place your cursor over the images and hear their names pronounced and see them spelled out in the language you choose.
Because it’s visually based, these pages can be used by anyone in the world, regardless of your native language.
Here are the languages they have:
English (English)
Italian (Italiano)
Arabic (عربي;)
Spanish (Español)
Portuguese (Português)
Mandarin Chinese (普通话)
French (Français)
Russian (Русский)
Japanese (日本語 Nihongo)
German (Deutsch)
Hebrew (עברית)So if you’re interested in learning any of these languages, or improving your skills, check it out!
-Lisa
Can Anyone Help with a Mandarin Chinese Tongue Twister?
Wednesday, May 24th, 2006Yi Lin from China sent me a tongue twister in Mandarin about soldiers. Here are the pinyin Chinese characters with a phonetical version and an mp3 of this rhyme.
MP3 of this Chinese Tongue Twister
I’d be grateful if anyone can send me either the traditional Chinese characters or an English or French translation of this tongue twister. If you can help out, please email me or comment below.
Thanks!
Lisa
UPDATE: Check out the comments below for the Chinese text and a translation!
Why Does the Chinese New Year Move Around?
Monday, January 23rd, 2006By Raymond Lee
Every year, the Chinese New Year comes several days earlier than it did the year before. If you’re wondering why, it’s because the Chinese year is shorter than the western year. Of course, something has to be done or the Chinese New Year will just keep moving up. The Chinese calendar compensates for that by having a leap year every 12 years (I think). And during a leap year, there are actually 13 months. That’s why if you look at the movement of the Chinese New Year from year to year, you will see it come earlier and earlier, and then suddenly, boom, it gets pushed back by almost a month, and the cycle repeats.
Come Visit Mama Lisa’s Chinese New Year Page for more about the Chinese New Year.
Come visit the Mama Lisa’s World China Page for Kids Songs from China and
The Mama Lisa’s World Taiwan Page for more Chinese Children’s Songs
________
