My Early Start: Learning Chinese

Cultural Detectives: Trying Greek Food

Hey, it’s Wesley again.  During my week long vacation in Washington D.C, I was also able to try out many more different types of food.  There were plenty of restaurants all around our hotel and so every night we chose someplace different to eat.  When it was my mom’s turn to pick where she wanted to eat, she picked a Greek restaurant called Zorba's .  Sometimes my natural reaction to things that I have never tried before is just to say I don’t like it and that's exactly what I did.  My mom told me that I would like it and that I should always try new things.  I didn’t really know what anything was on the menu, so I just picked whatever looked best to me which was the Yero plate.  Yero ( or Gyro )is thinly sliced pieces of beef and lamb.  They served it with a yogurt sauce on top of a tortilla. 

They also had a different type of french fries that were hand chopped and cooked differently.  I was hungry when we got the food and it looked delicious.  I quickly started eating my delicious Yero sandwich.  It tasted really delicious.  The meat was a bit salty and it was juicy.  The sandwich was very messy and the tortilla started to rip because there was too much meat in it.  I ended up not being able to finish it but it was still very tasty.  All of their food was very good looking and great tasting.  I was glad that my mom showed me this new type of food and I should always try new things.  I liked it so much that we decided to eat it again later on in the week!

Global interest in learning Mandarin

Teresa and I formed Ni Hao Productions three years ago, to provide other families a fun way to introduce their children to Mandarin.  We had both searched for similar DVDs, but neither of us liked the selection we found.  I think that my children would have found their transition to a Mandarin immersion school much easier, had they had some exposure to the language beforehand. 

Our first DVDs were released in June, 2006 and the positive response has been overwhelming.  We have shipped our DVDs to families in almost every state and to most of the provinces in Canada.  Most recently, we have received requests for our products from families in Hong Kong, Australia and Canada.  We are thrilled that two new vendors have begun carrying our products, www.xihaha.co.uk in England, www.AsiaBookRoom.com in Australia. 

We love our most recent review from Karen Cheng in Australia!  Please visit www.karencheng.com.au to read it!

I don't think that Teresa and I had expected our company to grow this quickly.  We are thrilled that Bao Bei and her little peng yo are edutaining children all over the globe.

Maintaining Balance in Your Body, Chinese Style

Huo chi, the direct translation is fire air, breath, or gas. It is frequently translated as an energy flow within the human body that needs to be “balanced”. This balance of the yin and yang can be achieved by eating the right types of foods. For example, if you consume too much of the foods that are considered “hot”, or “yang”, then your huo chi will be too high. As a result of the high huo chi, you may experience acne break outs or other illnesses. You must bring yourself into balance by eating foods that are considered “cold” or take traditional Chinese medicines. Of course, the same works in the reverse. Eating too much “cold” foods can bring on aches and pains.

I’ve heard these comments all my life from my mom, grandparents, and aunties. Growing up, our intake of certain foods was limited due to this belief. We loved mangos, and were always told that if we ate too much, we would get nosebleeds because our huo chi would be too big. Of course we didn’t listen and would invariably eat too much and get nosebleeds. To this day, when we have mangos at home, I limit my children’s intake.  The words seem to come out of my mouths automatically, even if I try to stifle it.  If I don’t, they will get nosebleeds that evening. I wonder if any scientific studies have ever been done on this. Even though I’ve never read anything on the subject, there must be something to it after five thousand years of practice by the Chinese. What do you think? I guess it doesn’t hurt to practice balance. After all, isn’t this the same as consuming all foods in moderation?

 

Some foods that are considered “hot”

Mangos

Grapes

Fried foods

Red meat

 

Foods that are considered “cold”

Crab

Bitter melon

Chrysanthamum tea

 

Do you have anything to add to this list? What have you heard from your mother, grandmother, and aunties?