My Early Start: Learning Chinese

My Favorite Chinese Dishes

Hey it's Wesley, and I'm here to tell you about some of my favorite Chinese dishes.  Before I moved to San Francisco, I lived in Los Angeles with my grandmother.  Every morning for breakfast she would cook me a delicious Chinese meal.  And for dinner, she would always ask me what I wanted to eat and she had a few recipes that I liked the most.  One of them is called fān qié chăo dàn, 番 茄 炒 蛋, which is basically scrambled egg with green onion and tomatoes.  That is my favorite because it tastes really good.  Another one of my favorite Chinese dishes is called jĭu cài dòu fŭ gān, 韭 菜 豆 腐 乾 , which is baked tofu cut up into strips and served with chives.  I also liked it when my grandmother makes dumplings for me and she sometimes even makes her own dumpling wrappers to hold the dumpling meat.  Another favorite dish is called gān là miàn, 乾 辣 麵.  It is a bowl of noodles mixed in with lots of green onions and a spicy sauce.  These dishes are my favorite over all the other ones I've had.  I'm definitely going to learn how to make these dishes so that I can cook them for myself.  What are some of your favorite dishes?

Wesley

"kid friendly" restaurant and food

It seems some restaurants think that only adults go to their restaurant, or that if kids show up, they should just be able to pick from the menu.  I remember when I was younger, when I was taken to a restaurant without a kid menu, I would get pretty upset and have a bad impression of the restaurant.  Now my taste buds have changed a lot, and I eat most of the food that is on the regular menu.  Besides the fact that my tastes have grown up a bit, the serving sizes from the kid menus are sometimes not enough to fill me up. 

What I consider to be "kid friendly" food is a menu with a selection of simple food served in smaller portions.  One thing that I really liked in kids' menus was a simple macaroni and cheese.  It is just some boiled elbow pasta mixed in with cheese.  One of the restaurants that I think is really "kid friendly" is Denny's.  They have a large kid menu where kids can choose their main course.  Like a hamburger, macaroni and cheese, or some chicken nuggets.  Then they can choose their side dishes to go along with their main course, like fries, grapes, or goldfish.  This way, every kid can get exactly what they want.  What do you think a restaurant should do to be "kid friendly"?  What is your favorite kid friendly restaurant?

Wesley

Changing Tastes

It's Wesley, and right now I've noticed that my taste buds have been changing an awful lot.  I now love mushrooms which I hated and refused to eat when I was younger.  Another type of food that I have changed my opinion about is Japanese food.  Before, when I went to Japanese restaurants I usually would not eat the fishy sushi but instead I would just eat some of their noodles or something else.  But now I really enjoy and crave the taste of sushi and the sizzling fish that they serve.  I also have lost a lot of my interest with many desserts and would prefer savory food.  Just a short while ago, I would consider skipping dessert to be unthinkable.  Is this what happens as you get older?  How has your taste changed over the years?

Wesley

The Inca, the Maya, and the Aztec (architecture)

Hey, it's Wesley again.  I'm back with lots more information about the Inca, the Maya, and the Aztec.  In the past week I've been learning a lot more about the three civilization's architecture.  One thing about all of their architecture that is the same is that they all built large cities and religious temples.  They all used rock and other types of materials. 

The Maya built all of their temples out of limestone because it was one of the closest and lightest rocks around.  The Aztecs built with all sorts of stones that were close and available.  Also, the height of their building varied to what type of stone they used to make it balanced.  The Aztecs also believed strongly in sacrifice for their gods and like other cities built a large and well designed sacrificial temple.  The Aztecs wanted to make their temple better than any other city's so instead of taking their old temples down and rebuilding it, they would do something called layering.  They built a new layer over their old temple and they made every layer more designed and intricate. 

The Aztecs and the Maya all had great architecture, but I think that the Inca are the ones with the best architecture.  The Inca lived on the steep, tall mountains of the Andes mountains.  There was no stone very close by their villages and the only major stone source was all the way down the mountain.  The Inca built their buildings with large stone blocks that weighed several tons that were shaped and fit together like puzzle pieces.  Many wonder how the Inca were able to carry the several ton stones up the mountains and then shape them perfectly to fit together.  They shaped and polished the stone until it was smooth and shaped to perfection.  They also represent a group of their buildings as an animal sometimes to show their religion too.  Inca, Maya, and Aztec architecture is all very complex and very interesting to see.

Wesley

The Inca, the Maya, and the Aztec (farming)

I'm Wesley, 12 years old and currently in 7th grade.  For my past trimester we have been studying three of the greatest ancient civilizations, the Inca, the Maya, and the Aztecs.  We learned how different things were built and what it was like back in their time.  All three of these civilizations obtained power somehow and when they defeated another city, they would demand large amounts of tribute to get excess amounts of resources for trade.  Back then , there was plenty of gold to spare and all of the civilizations in power would have surplus gold, jewelry, and other unneeded goods.  Some similarities between these civilizations is that they all ate mostly fruits and vegetables. 

The Maya diet was based on corn because they thought that God made them out of corn and they had lots of open farmland for growing.  The Inca and the Maya did not have much convenient land for farming though.  The Inca lived high up in the Andes Mountains where things would often freeze and the air was thin.  The Inca made space for farming by forming thin terraces on the steep mountains by their house.  The Inca main food was potatoes because they were one of the few foods that could withstand frequent frosts.  The Aztecs were put in a swampy area with a lake with too much water and almost no dry land.  The Aztecs managed to farm by inventing their famous floating gardens called the chinampas.  They were able to make floating strips of thin land with soil and grass for farming.  This way they were able to make enough food and resources to last their population.   As you can see, there are many different types of ways to farm and all types of things you could do with that food.

Wesley

Hot Lunch

I'm in 7th grade attending Chinese American International School.  The school has a "Hot Lunch" program.  Some kids at my school bring their own lunch from home into the school.  Then everyone would sit down at the cafeteria tables and eat their lunch.  Our hot lunch program is basically provided by a Chinese restaurant and an Italian restaurant in town.  On Mondays and Wednesdays, hot lunch is a variety of Chinese food.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the hot lunch is always pasta.  Then on Friday it is always pizza.  You can sign on by semester.  Usually I start off the year ordering hot lunch, but by the second semester, I'm tired of it.  I think I've found the best combination now, which is I bring my lunch from Monday through Thursday, and on Fridays I get Chinese food delivered from Mandarin Villa, which is just across the street from the school.  What do you do for school lunch?  Lunch is wŭ cān, 午 餐 in Chinese.

Wesley

Christmas

Christmas is coming up! Lots of gifts are going to be passed around and you're going to get a lot of presents, and give lots of presents out as well.  Christmas in Chinese is called shèng dàn jié  聖 誕 節.  Lots of gifts are also coming from "Santa" who knows exactly what  you want for Christmas just by reading the list you sent him.  Santa in Chinese is called shèng dàn lăo rén  聖 誕 老 人.  Every year for Christmas all schools have a winter break, my winter break is two weeks long but usually teachers ruin the point of the break by giving you lots of homework.  For my two week break I go down to L.A with my family and spend my time at my grandmothers house.  I stay there for one week until Christmas morning, then I go to my dad's house and spend the rest of the break there.  Since I have two different family sides I get to visit for both parts of Christmas, I get lots of presents and I get to share my Christmas spirit with everybody.  I think that this is one of the best times for me to get together with all of my family members who live in L.A.  That way we can still keep in touch and Everyone can exchange gifts.

Wesley

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is an important holiday where lots of people come together to be thankful for all of the things that they have.  Like many other big holidays, Thanksgiving involves lots of families gathering and enjoying large portions of food.  There any many different types of food that you can eat during this time. 

Some commonly eaten foods during Thanksgiving are turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie.  Turkey in Chinese is huŏ jī, 火 雞.  I did some research and found out that in the very first Thanksgiving, they actually didn't have mashed potatoes which now is common at Thanksgiving.  Back then, they didn't have ovens or only had ones that worked with making bread.  So they would capture a turkey and pluck it, but instead of baking it and making it taste super good.  They boiled it in a pot of water and made it into a bland stew.

Many of the Chinese families I know don't like the taste of turkey.  So even though they celebrate with family gatherings, they will have lots of Chinese food, including roast chicken or duck.  In my family, we frequently have a mix of Chinese and Western food.  For example, the stuffing we like to have is made with sticky rice and Chinese sausages, which I really like.  What kind of food did your family enjoy during Thanksgiving?

The Inca, the Maya, and the Aztec (farming)

I'm Wesley.  For my past trimester we have been studying three of the greatest ancient civilizations, the Inca, the Maya, and the Aztecs.  We learned how different things were built and what it was like back in their time.  All three of these civilizations obtained power somehow and when they defeated another city, they would demand large amounts of tribute to get excess amounts of resources for trade.  Back then , there was plenty of gold to spare and all of the civilizations in power would have surplus gold, jewelry, and other unneeded goods.  Some similarities between these civilizations is that they all ate mostly fruits and vegetables.  The Maya diet was based on corn because they thought that God made them out of corn and they had lots of open farmland for growing.  The Inca and the Maya did not have much convenient land for farming though.  The Inca lived high up in the Andes Mountains where things would often freeze and the air was thin. The Aztecs were put in a swampy area with a lake with too much water and almost no dry land.  The Aztecs managed to farm by inventing their famous floating gardens called the chinampas.  They were able to make floating strips of thin land with soil and grass for farming.  This way they were able to make enough food and resources to last their population.  The Inca made space for farming by forming thin terraces on the steep mountains by their house.  The Inca main food was potatoes because they were one of the few foods that could withstand frequent frosts.  As you can see, there are many different types of ways to farm.  I'm really enjoyed learning about these cultures.  I wonder what the ancient Chinese did and how it was different or similar.

Wesley

Chinese & Western etiquette #2

Hey it's Wesley again, and I'm back with some more opinions about differences between Chinese and Western etiquette.  One thing that I always thought was appropriate to do was in Chinese etiquette, you could hold your bowl up to your face and eat from there.  I would always get confused and I sometimes would start putting the bowl to my face in Western restaurants.  When I eat at home though, I have a mix of Western and Chinese etiquette rules.  In Chinese etiquette you are also allowed to slurp your food into your mouth which Western etiquette does not find too appropriate.  My mom likes me not to slurp because she does not like the noise it makes and she also does not appreciate me burping after my meals.  But she does not mind me bringing the bowl up to my face and eating from there.  There are lots of other ways that Chinese and Western etiquette differ.  It can be confusing.  Do you live around different etiquette rules?

Wesley