Today we learned how to greet people and how to introduce one's nationality. We also played the number games. You are all getting better and better with your accounting. Today you are going to do some research about a Chinese festival, which is called Moon Festival. You need to develop a power point, showing the following points:
1. Special holiday food.
2. The origin and story behind the festival.
3. Main characters in the story
4. Different ways of celebration for this holiday.

再见！

We discussed the assignment about the three candidates in the film Please Vote For Me and you all did a great job analyzing their strength,weakness and characters. The homework today is for you to write up a election campaign plan for yourself, imaging yourself to be a 3 or 4th grader running for Class President in America.  Please cover the following topic:
1. Your campaign plan.
2. Are you going to enlist your parents for help？
3。What do you think democracy should be like in a election like this?

再见

We watched a Chinese documentary file called " Please vote for me". In this movie, three 3rd grade students are running for Class Monitor in a elementary school in Wuhuan city, China.  This film vividly shows how the Chinese interpret the concept of "democracy". Today, you assignment is to write out a small paper analyzing the three main characters: Luo Lie, Xu Xiaofei, and Cheng Cheng.  Please focus on how each one of them interpret and act out on the following: carry out Democracy in their own way; understand Authority and Power; dealing with their parents' value and influences.


Please be ready to present your paper in front of class next time.

Today we learned Chinese characters for numbers. You all did a great job. Please keep practicing them so that you can come back to the class on Tuesday ready to be quizzed.  We are going to talk about education system in China next week and hopefully, if the kitchen is fixed, we can start to cook some Chinese food.

zaijian!

You all did a great job presenting your findings on the research topics I posed last class.  During class, we finished watching the Beijing Olympic Opening Ceremony and talked about the cultural symbolism behind each program. You next two research topics are:
1. differences between Northern and Southern Diet in China
2. Please find out the storyline about 5 Chinese martial art movies in the United States and comment on it.


Hopefully by next week, our kitchen area can be cleaned out so we can start cooking some Chinese food.

再见

Today we talked about the Chinese 2008 Olympic game and watched the beginning of the opening ceremony. The performances are very rich in cultural notes and symbols, such as characters, water painting, opera, and silk road.

Here are two topics for you to do some research on. You can choose one of them to do an oral report on them:

1. What are the Four Biggest Chinese inventions in history?

2. What is the current situation of the Olympic facilities in Beijing?


You can list our bullet points for your presentation during class, but you don't need to do a written report on it.


zai jian ! 再见

Welcome to MPH Chinese Kaleidoscope for year 2012-13. I am looking forward to spending a great time together with our students.  Here is a brief description about our class:

This class is designed to give you an interesting and general introduction about one of the fastest growing nation in the world: China.  You will have a quarter to study this, which is roughly 9 weeks long. During this time, we are going to learn the following four topics:  1. Chinese language system 2.   History and Current affairs . 3.  Art and culture 4. Cooking. Each topic will last for about two weeks.

For the Chinese language system, we give students a brief introduction about Chinese phonetic system, character writing system as well as some of the most commonly used expressions covering greeting, numbers, names, and self-introduction.  Students will learn how to write their names and some basic Chinese characters.

For History and Current affairs, we will introduce the formation and development of the concept of China and Chinese, and then watch movies and films which will reinforce students' understanding about the political and economic development in China as well as critical social issues around China and East Asia.

For Art and Culture, we are going to practice Chinese calligraphy using ink and brushes. Students also have opportunities to learn how to do origami and paper cuts.

For cooking, we are going to learn more about the Chinese culinary art. We will start from scratch and learn how to do food preparation, using species and use various cooking methods. Students will learn how to make some of the most representatives of the Chinese dishes, from dumplings to scallion pancakes.