Mama Lisa's Books

Make a Dragon Card for The Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year is on February 10th this year. It's the year of the Dragon! The dragon symbolizes power, nobility and ambition. Since dragons are so cool, I decided to make homemade cards featuring them. Fortunately, there's a free tutorial online showing how to draw one. You can purchase [...]

The Mid-Autumn Festival in Hong Kong

The Mid-Autumn Festival has been celebrated in China for over 3,000 years. It's held in autumn when the moon is thought to be at its fullest and brightest, specifically on the 15th day of the 8th month on the lunar calendar. It was traditionally a harvest festival. Recently I asked Ray Lee, who [...]

Recipe for Chinese Almond Cookies

Chinese Almond Cookies are great to make for the Chinese New Year and other Chinese holidays.It's very easy! Here's the recipe... Recipe for Chinese Almond Cookies (Makes 48) Ingredients 2 1/2 cup All-Purpose Flour (325 g.) 1/2 cup Almond Flour (50 g.) 1 cup Sugar (220 g.) 3/4 teaspoon Baking [...]

Immigrants Preserve Songs from their Homeland

I was recently corresponding with my friend Ray Lee who came to the U.S. from Hong Kong back in the 1980's. We were discussing how sometimes immigrants preserve songs that have been forgotten in their homeland. I've noticed this several times in my work with songs from around the globe. Ray's [...]

Chinese Mother Goose

There's a Chinese Mother Goose Book from 1900 that features Chinese nursery rhymes with English translations. We have some of the rhymes on our Chinese Song and Rhyme Pages.  A while back, Pete Paradiso wrote about some of the rhymes on Ben Seeberger's blog Easternity.com. I asked Pete how [...]

The Chinese Year of the Monkey

The Chinese New Year begins on February 8th this year. It will be the Year of the Monkey. There are 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac and the Monkey is the 9th animal.  Every 12 years it's the year of the monkey. There are also 5 elemental signs given to each year. They are Gold

The [...]

Board Games from Hong Kong

Ray Lee, who grew up in Hong Kong, wrote, "We played all these when we were kids... The bottom right is Chinese Chess. Adults play that too. The other three are for kids. They don't really have English names. Top left is (Jungle). It's like chess in that there are two opposing [...]

' Chinese Poem about Early Winter by Meng Haoran with Recording

Here's a Chinese poem about early winter by Meng Haoran , a Chinese poet who lived from 689 or 691 to 740.  First you'll find the simplified Chinese text, followed by an English translation.  Then you can listen to a recording of the poem in Mandarin and follow along with the Pinyin [...]

Happy Chinese New Year of the Tiger 2010 – Let's Sing a Popular Chinese Rhyme “Two Tigers”

Frank 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 #2   The lyrics and translation are as follows:   Traditional Chinese: 兩隻老虎 [...]