Chinese Learning Community

Nice E-Mail asking for an intro... Web site looks interesting.

I saw your blog and website, and I just wanted to introduce you to italki.com. It is in some respects, similar to livemocha.com. We are a social network that is trying to harness the web for social language learning. We have lots of language partners that are interested in language exchanges, tutoring, and simply making friends. We also have functions like social questions and answers (ask any question about learning Chinese and get an answer from a Chinese person), shared files (downloading of open source textbooks), and more.

I just thought I'd make the introduction. Especially in the case of Chinese, we have a huge amount of Chinese users that are really interested in meeting English speakers. It's worth checking out just to see the effect. I thought it might be worth mentioning for your users.

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Kevin Chen
co-founder
italki.com

Warrior Mulan Costume

One of the adoption bulletin boards was asking where to get a Warrior Mulan Costume, since her daughter did not like the Princess one. Disney discontinued it along with most of their Mulan merchandise (which I don't agree with).

Mulan Warrior Pattern I just found:
http://sewing.patternreview.com/cgi-bin/patterns/sewingpatterns.pl?patternid=16608

This brings back memories! My daughter was lucky enough 8 years ago to get the cool Warrior Mulan. Everyone else had the Princess one. We even got a great picture of her on top of my Aunt's Black Horse in her Mulan outfit.

Mulan books and other information on my site:

Fa Mulan, Herione of China information about including Mulan Books in English and Chinese, and a bit on the Disney DVD

Chinese Color Symbology and more!

At EliteDresses.com, my wife has been super busy and has put together some excellent information. Feedback is appreciated!

• Chinese Color Symbolism - Chinese Color Symbolism and meanings focusing on QiPao's including Holidays, Religious, and cultural beliefs.
• Chinese Symbol Meanings - Chinese Symbol Meanings for Dresses and Cultural References
• Chinese QiPao Cheongsam Dress History - History of the Chinese QiPao Cheongsam Dress and symbolism of colors.
• Dress Terms - Guide to dress guide to terms, definitions, and cultural references including holidays. Solves the mystery of what's Organza, a Pastel, and more!

References:

• Chinese QiPao Cheongsam Girl's Dresses

VCD's - What are they?

I just put up on www.childbook.com a bunch (50 or so) of Chinese VCD's for kids. Children songs with kids dancing, some animation, some series, etc. Some as low as $2.99.

So a customer asks - What's a VCD? Is that a new technology?

VCD or Video Compact Disk is video stored on a compact disk. They never took off in the US, but were very popular in China and Taiwan. They can be played on a computer, and some DVD players.

My favorite VCD's (limited to stock on hand):

				Great Chinese Archaeological Discovery. 33 VCD set. Mandarin with Traditional Chinese subtitles.
				Our Price: $89.99
				Great Chinese Archaeological Discovery. 33 VCD set. Mandarin with Traditional Chinese subtitles.

				Three Kingdoms, 24 VCD set. Animated. Mandarin with Chinese subtitles.
				Our Price: $77.99
				Three Kingdoms, 24 VCD set in Mandarin with traditional Chinese subtitles. Animated based on the historical novel, Romance Of The Three Kingdoms. Bonus: 20 music CDs of Taiwanese, Japanese, and English songs.

Teaching Chinese using Skype

Skype, and other VOIP Technology is being used to teach Chinese and other foreign languages over the Internet. This way a native language speaker can teach a student at less of a cost. Win win for both parties involved.

For both sides it's important to get the right headset. I suggest Plantronics and look into noise cancellation (this way the person you are calling hears you, and not all the background noise around you). Plantronics makes headsets for call centers for people who are on the phone all the time. Their are even wireless headsets.

Some articles that cover teaching Chinese using VOIP:

• NY Times - Learning From a Native Speaker, Without Leaving Home

• Infoworld - Skype your way to learning Chinese

• Tapei Times - Learning Chinese the Skype way

If your interested in Learning Chinese via a tutor using Skype send me an E-Mail, I know a Chinese teacher who is interested in teaching using Skype. She documented a project for me (that I need to post) and I feel I owe her (but she says all the free stuff she got off my site is payment enough).

Olympics in China

Article from the SF Chronicle - Will a changed China emerge from the Olympics?

China's government is doing their 110% to give the best impression to the world of China. Airline tickets are super expensive around the time of the Olympics. I hope the Olympics there go well. The Wall Street Journal had an editorial about the Olympics by Mia Farrow. Another article explains China's relationship with Sudan and Darfur.

Related Posts:

• Cost puts damper on this Olympic event
• Chinese Adoptee Mother to carry Olympic Torch!
• Counter Chinese Olympic Logo
• Wary US Olympians Will Bring Food to China
• China's 2008 Rose Parade Entry - Dissent Rains on Pasadena

Huntington Library - Chinese Gardens Open

The Chinese Gardens at the Huntington Library is now open!

There is an old connection between the Huntington Library and Chinese. Any guesses? Huntington 's fortune came from the building of the Transcontinental Railroad that many Chinese worked on. Huntington, along with Stanford (University), Crocker (Bank) and another made up the big four that made such an impact on California.

Older post on Chinese Gardens in the US

Related Item:
Ten Mile Day - Railroad that linked the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Over 6000 Chinese worked on it at one point. Building of the Transcontinental Railroad. From the tunnels through the Sierra Nevada's to the final joining in Utah of the two railroads.

All text, without the pictures for middle school is:

				Dragon's Gate by Laurence Yep. English. Paperback.
				Our Price: $6.99
				Dragon's Gate by Laurence Yep. Sailing to California in 1865, fourteen-year-old Otter leaves China to meet his father and legendary uncle on the transcontinental railroad, an adventure that challenges his survival on the mountains of the Sierras. English.

Buying a Piano - New Chinatown

We just finished the Grand Piano Search. My daughter has been playing for 10 years, and her piano teacher suggested it's time to upgrade the piano.

The piano industry seems to be a boom and bust industry. Right now, it's in a bust. There are also a lot of Chinese made pianos, some of them have become pretty good. The challenge is many made in China pianos have fancy European names on them. Such as Vienna. If you get serious about Pianos, the book to get is The Piano Book - Brookside Press. For finding out the age of piano, the site Bluebook of Pianos has a lot of good information. Next project is to sell our console/upright (if your in the Los Angeles area and need a good starter piano...

We visited 10+ piano stores. The Chinese focused ones were two in Arcadia focused more on Chinese, one in West Covina, and another in Rowland Heights. We had a great experience at www.pianogallerie.com in Arcadia, the owner came across as among the most truthful of everyone we spoke to. Most experiences were not that great on going to a piano store, especially how many of them knocked the competition. Amazing the amount of people who claim how great their piano is! And why this brand is so great! If you talk to enough sales people, read The Piano Book and get the supplement, you get pretty educated. For a high end piano, the Chinese made ones are not there yet. Some of the Chinese made ones are very good, but it's hard to tell which ones are great and which ones are not. Steinway is nice, but at a price! The German made ones are amazing, but even more than Steinway. Yamaha and Kawai are good, safe piano's. We ended up with a Kawai. Our old piano is an American made Schafer and Son which is a great starter piano.

Piano Claims that are suspect:

1. Grey market Kawai and Yamaha are not made for the US market and have a problem of cracking (huge source of controversy in the industry). There was a problem with early Kawai and Yamaha's imported into the US back in the late 60's and early 70's.

2. This Chinese made piano is made to German design, which makes it excellent. Maybe... Hard to tell without a track record of a couple years.

3. This Chinese piano is better because it is all wood. Kawai's use plastic in them, so are not as good. The right type plastic in the right location is not an issue.

4. You should always buy new for Pianos (not true, if a good brand name piano it's not an issue. But it's always a good idea to pay for a Piano technician to look at it before purchase. New pianos have a 30-40% premium. Plus piano's take time to season. You can also take out the action and look at the hammers to see how heavily used the piano has been. The major worry is cracks in the soundboard (expensive to fix).

Cute book about music:

				Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear by Lensey Namioka
				Our Price: $4.50
				Nine-year-old Yang and his family have immigrated from China to Seattle and the father is a professional Violin Play. He has been giving Yang Violin lessons for years, and Yang hates the Violin. Yang discovers Baseball! A great story about fitting in and getting used to a new country and culture.

China and a faked photo

This article says a lot about China, but not directly. China Eats Crow Over Faked Photo Of Rare Antelope Wall Street Journal -Feb 21, 2008. The photo was of a herd of antelope running under a bridge with the new Tibet/China high speed train on it.

Important Points:
1. Bloggers have a huge amount of power in China. China has 210 Million Internet users, 3X that of India, and 86% of them have a blog.
2. The Chinese Government is open to admitting mistakes.
3. The fake photo was discovered by Chinese.
4. The photo was heavily used in China, including in subways and won the CCTV prize for best photo. This indicates a sensitivity to the Environment.
5. The photographer/reporter has been blacklisted from further work. Translation - don't embarrass China.

I believe some good will actually come out of this, even with the photographer making a bad choice photo shopping the picture.

Table Tennis in the US

NY Times story - A Table Tennis Star in China Now Uses Her Paddle for the U.S.
Forest Gump gave the impression the US had a pretty good table tennis team. Guess not :-)When I was in China on the All-American Ping Pong team, I just loved playing ping-pong with my Flexolite ping pong paddle.

My wife and her brother are so much better than I am at Ping Pong. When ChildBook expands, we need to get a Ping Pong table for the break room!

Why Learn Chinese

Michigan's former State Education Superintendant blogging from Tibet on Why Learn Chinese. A Small World indeed! TOM WATKINS: It's a small world after all

Key Points:

1. More people are know English in China than in the US.
2. Learning another language gives you another viewpoint. The word he uses, that is full of meaning, is Kaleidoscope.
3. Learning Chinese will give a student a competitive advantage.
4. Mandarin Chinese is the most used language on the Internet.
5. 1/5th of the world's population lives in China.
6. China is determined to be a world super power again.

50th Anniversary of Pinyin

Feb. 10, 2008 was the 50th Anniversary of Pinyin. Pinyin. Wade Giles is the other method that is used for romanitizing Chinese. Here is a conversion table of Wade Giles to Zhuyin to Pinyin. Zhuyin is symbols that are phonic that were used to teach Chinese Characters. Zhuyin, also called Bo Po Mo, is still used in Taiwan. The advantage of Pinyin is if you know English, it's easy to read. The problem is the pronunciation of some letters and combinations is different, where Wade-Giles is closer on the pronunciation. Due to politics, you still don't see a lot of products from Taiwan using Pinyin. Luckily, I do have one that is selling well the 10 Level Learning Chinese System also called Practical Chinese that includes books, Cd, and Workbooks.

Currently I have 90 products that use Pinyin, and 120 Bo Po Mo Products.

On which one is best to use for Learning Chinese, Zhuyin Bo Po Mo vs. Pinyin. The argument for Zhuyin Bo Po Mo is the pronunciation is better. The argument for Pinyinis it's easier. The problem I have seen is there is no good material in English for Learning Chinese I have yet that uses Zhuyin Bo Po Mo. Schools in the US that are run by Taiwanese (most Chinese Schools) use Zhuyin Bo Po Mo.

Canadian Chinese New Year Stamps

Canada has some cute stamps for the Lunar New Year with a cute mouse on them. The book, A Mouse Bride is very popular since it's the year of the Mouse (or some say Rat). Disney says Mouse. Canada has some cute stamps for the Chinese New Year!

				The Mouse Bride
				Our Price: $16.95 Sale Price: $15.99 You Save $0.96!
				The Mouse Bride. The mouse leader is searching for the mightiest husband for his daughter, someone strong enough to protect her and the village from the cat. Story characters are illustrated in Chinese clothings. Fun book to read. Award winning illustrations. Bilingual in English & Traditional Chinese. Hard Cover.

Irritating Education Expert

Article I enjoyed from the Washington Post - The Most Irritating Education Expert on Chester E. "Checker" Finn Jr. who's new book, "Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik," just came out.

Key Points:

1. No Child Left Behind should have focused on getting nationwide standard results. Instead of letting each state set their own standards (rewarding the states with low standards, since more students would meet them).

2. Great Quote: "Republicans say they care about standards and choices, but their own constituents are at best smug about today's schools and, at worst, hostile to reform that might help poor and minority kids to enter their suburban enclaves. Both parties have screwy ideas about how to balance freedom and regulation in the K-12 domain, with Republicans shunning uniform standards but tolerating government micro-management while Democrats seem to care more about where the money goes than whether kids are learning."

My 2 cents. There are schools that have a 60% drop out rate in the US. There are other schools in K-12 that are world class in the US. As a society, it's important to give all children a chance, and school is a great tool for doing that. Many parents do a lot of extra study work with their kids, paying after school, getting books to improve Grades Study Skills. Even College Admission Books with advice into getting into the best colleges, including Harvard.

China's College Degree Challenge

LA Times Article - Degree no Job Guarantee in China.

The complaint is many colleges in China do not do a great job of educating. Same issue in India. So of the mass of Engineers that are graduated from a Chinese univeristy, per a McKinsey report, only 10% would be suitable to work in a multi-national.

Education is extremely important in the Chinese culture, including going to the right university. In the US, that has built a booming industry for study aids, academic advice, and college admissions.
A huge interest in China is getting into Harvard. A book about how one parents got their Child into Harvard became a best seller. I don't carry that book, but one I do in English is 50 Successful Harvard Application Essays that is a a great read. So is How They Got Into Harvard by The Staff Of The Harvard Crimson. Softcover. My daughter dreams of going to Harvard , and if she gets in her Grandmother has promised to pay the tuition. She has been on the Harvard campus tour twice.

				50 Successful Harvard Application Essays
				Our Price: $12.95
				50 Successful Harvard Application Essays. What worked for them can help you get into the college of your choice. A compilation of fifty effective and diverse college application essays that offer students insights into what makes an essay compelling. English. Paperback. 180 Pages.

				How They Got Into Harvard by The Staff Of The Harvard Crimson. Softcover
				Our Price: $12.95
				How They Got Into Harvard by The Staff Of The Harvard Crimson. 50 successful applicants share 8 key strategies for getting into the college of your choice. Softcover

iPhone - What does this say about China

There has been a mystery with iPhones, on why are only 2/3rds of them have been activated. 3.7 million were sold last year, and only 2.3 million activated. So where are the other 1.4 Million Phones. It seems at least 400,000 are in China. NY Times article that gives some insite into the issue. Smugglers Return iPhones to China Business Week's article, Inside the iPhone Grey Market is interesting.

So what does this huge amount of phones being exported to China, say about Chinese society today?

Some semi-educated guesses:

1. The latest Electronics (especially Cell Phones) are status symbol in China.
2. Cell Phones are very visible symbols of your wealth. Which is why they pay $555 and more, for an iPhone that costs $400 in the US due to the status.
   
3. Lots of Internet is viewed on mobile phones in the cities, unlike the US.
4. Apple has great branding, even in China.
5. Apple has a better interface than other competitor phones, even in Chinese.
   

Learning From a Native Speaker, Without Leaving Home

NY Times Article - Learning From a Native Speaker, Without Leaving Home about online services you can use to Learn Chinese and other languages. I am surprised at the amount of users they get each month.

Importance of Playing

NY Times Article Taking Play Seriously. The worry is children spend to much time inside, and not enough playing. 11 page article which is worthwhile reading.

Chinese Children Game Instructions for something different!

Knowledge Connection

Thought provoking essay by E.D. Hirsch Jr. in the Washington Post, the Knowledge Connection. He also has a web site. Politics aside on Why No Child Left Behind has not lived up to it's expectations, the essay talks about the importance of giving children more exposure to different materials helps them in school.

My belief is reading is a great way to expose children to more vocabulary and concepts through books, especially ones they may not get in school. School is so limited in the time they have with a child, so reading is often left to be done at home. Of course with competition from TV and video games, it's a challenge to bring up a young reader. One tactic is unplug the TV, to force the child to not watch TV. I am lucky that where I live, we have poor TV reception and we don't have cable (the horror according to my daughter). This enabled my wife and I to better control what my daughter watched on TV growing up, such as DVD's, or then it was also Video's. Another great way to help reading is by subscribing to a newspaper. I also believe in starting very young reading to children, to get them used to the concept and expose them to new ideas.

Virus in Picture Frames

Sad. It seems some Digital Picture Frames made in China have a virus on them, that steels passwords and such.

So far the list of goods made in China that have had issues:

• Toys
• Jewelry
• Food
• Electronics
• Medicine
• Dog Food

This is not helping the made in China brand. China has a lot of hackers and the government has the attitude that as long as the attacks are outside of China, it's fine. Since they are a potential resource if a cyber war ever happened with another country.

China Drug Supplier - Non-Licensed

Wow! China Didn’t Check Drug Supplier, Files Show per a NY Times article.

I guess this is a good news/bad news:

Bad News
1. China did not check the drug supplier. It was not certified.
2. US company in a joint venture ran it and did not get certification by China. Question is why?
3. FDA did not inspect plant.
4. Baxter did not ask to see records to see if company was certified by Chinese Government.
5. Chinese exports for drugs did not fall under the Chinese Government perview.

Good News:
1. In January when the FDA and Chinese Government signed an agreement to start requiring certification of some plants (question is how much).
2. In the future, I am sure Baxter and other related US Drug makers will take care of this type of supply issue.

Related Posts:
FDA and China Drug Companies
Chinese Drug Contamination - 4 Deaths possible linked

Clearance and New Products

The number of items on ChildBook.com has doubled in the past few week as many one of kind items were scanned in and descriptions written. 390 items were added! Some of these have instantly gone to Clearance that has some great deals if you don't mind cassettes (4 cassettes for $7.99) and some video tapes.

FDA and China Drug Companies

My earlier post today on Chinese Drug Contamination - 4 Deaths possible links was eye opening. This NY Times article shows even more:

Key Points:

1. China has 700 Drug Factories exporting to the US.
2. The plant that made Heparin was never inspected by the US FDA, even though it was supposed to when it started production to send to the US.
3. The FDA only inspects 10-20 Chinese Drug plants per year. At this rate it will take 40-50 years.

Adopted Chinese Parents - Learning Chinese

There are some Families with Children from China who work hard to keep their children bilingual in Chinese and English. The majority don't (my 10 years experience selling Learning Chinese Products). There are probably slightly more adopted parents who are having their children learn Chinese than the general population.

With a new baby/child in the family, parents are usually just trying to keep their head above water as they adjust to how their entire life has changed. Their is also the fear that if they try to keep up being bilingual, it will somehow hurt their child's ability to learn English. My High School daughter is bilingual, as is many of her friends, and their English is better than mine (who is monolingual). There is so much Learning Chinese Material out there, and more and more schools are teaching Chinese. Many non-Chinese are also learning Chinese and sending their kids to school to learn it.

Here is a list of reasons to learn Chinese I wrote up

At a minimum, I suggest keeping them exposed to the Chinese culture. There is so much wonderful cultural history from China and materials from English, there is no excuse not to. There are more Chinese restaurants in the US than their are McDonalds!

Girl's/Women's in China's Status

From an economic viewpoint girl's historically in China have been of less value. This is because when the daughter marries, she becomes part of the son's family. I still see this even in the US, where sons of the family will get an inheritance, and the daughter's nothing. This is probably part of the reason that China has the highest suicide rate for women.

Two sad quotes from the article on suicide:

"In a woman's lifetime, she does not have any family love from the day she is born," said Song, who has carried out in-depth journalistic research into the phenomenon.

Opportunities for personal development and education were also lacking, Song found. "Girls are not sent to school, either," she said. "My impression is that in rural areas, a woman's whole life only revolves around others as long as she lives. There is not a single day that she thinks about herself."

article from the Washington Post.

China will have an issue that will grow, is boys who will not be able to marry because of a shortage of women. China has the greatest imbalance of boys to girls, 120 to 100. And the women who are there may put off marriage due to career reasons. The reasons for the imbalance are cheap ultrasound machines, 1 child policy, and abortions that are legal to the 9th month. Korea and India have similar issues with an imblance of males to females.

I have already seen where Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese will go to other countries, such as Vietnam to marry. Taiwanese men will often go to China to find a bride.
Conference on the subject


China's women in cities are getting better. An example is the richest Chinese is a woman, worth $3.4 Billion dollars.

Two books I like for self esteem are:

Empress of China (about the first empress)


The Seven Chinese Sisters

New Nick TV Cartoon - Ni Hao Kai Lan

NY Times review of Ni Hao Kai Lan and the Nickelodeon Page. Cartoons are based on Karen Chao's experiences growing up with the Chinese and US culture. Her goal is Kai-lan “to be a Chinese-American role model, to be independent, to have a voice, to take the initiative and to not always have to follow others.”

The show is especially for the 60,000 children adopted from China and the 100,000 children learning Chinese.

A couple of books that deal with the challenge of mixing cultures are by Lensey Namioka, Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear, Half And Half, and Yang the Third and the impossible family. For learning English, I Hate English by Ellen Levine is a wonderful book.

Chinese Spies in the US

Recent stories in the US papers have mentioned how three spies for China in the US have been caught.

I am not going to argue the point if China has spies in the US or not (my opinion is they do). Much of it is Economic, such as copying Cisco equipment. Canada, Britain, and Japan have also had issues. I also have the opinion that Wen Ho Lee was innocent of the charges and treated dishonorably by the US (the judge even apologized to him).

What worries me more is the comments in this Wall Street Journal blog.

Chinese Drug Contamination - 4 Deaths possible link

Page one from the Wall Street Journal - China Plant Played Role In Drug Tied to 4 Deaths - There blog has some comments.

Key Points:

• The drug thinner Heparin had production halted by Baxter, which has 50% of the market share
  
• FDA may only inspect around 7% of foreign drug-making facilities in a given year.
• FDA has not inspected the plant ever, and it has been making the drug ingredient for Baxter for 20 years.
• China is now the world's largest producer of active pharmaceutical ingredient
• The Chinese plant may not be the reason for the 4 deaths.
• This is scary - FDA "cannot provide the exact number of foreign establishments that have never been inspected."

Product Reviews - So Helpful

Product Reviews - So helpful! I hope I can get more. For some reason, it's hard to get customers to do reviews for Childbook.com (most sites have this issue I have noticed, which is probably why unless you are a super large site, most sites just don't bother with reviews).

A product that I have been selling for two years, finally got it's first review yesterday (actually two).

The Great Voyage of Zheng He, Bilingual Book - Nice book about a famous Chinese Admiral. Great English, Chinese, and Pictures. Not to mention the story.

Beautiful artwork and enjoyable story
Reviewer: MMBaillie
I was looking for a book to reinforce language studies that would be appropriate for my college age son. He has been studying beginning Mandarin and I was very happy to find this Chinese Character/English bilingual book. My son loves history and he said he was able to recognize many of the characters in the book. I was pleased with the beautiful artwork and I enjoyed the story as well.Was this review helpful to you?


good history book
Reviewer: Gary from Phoenix
I bought this book because I want to learn more about the Chinese heroes (real people, not legend). The book is in English and Chinese, both myself and my son can read it.