Cuisine & Culture the Chinese Family Way
At our Chinese club, we regularly play matching games as this is an easy way to get the children recognise the words and to keep their attention. In the next lesson, we are teaching the children the auspicious greeting words to use during the Chinese New Year. This Chinese New Year Matching game is suitable for aged 7 and above.
Last week, one of my son’s classmates brought a hedgehog made out of a book to school. It was made by her and her mum. She was so proud of it and brought it to school to show everyone. Since then Mr K had been pestering me to get him a book to make it.
We looked around our home but most of the children’s books are paperbacks or books we are still reading. So earlier this week, I went to the shops to look for cheap hardback book for this project. Luckily, I managed to find a bargain from my local bookstore at just 50p per book. They are new too! I bought one book for Mr K and one for myself as I also fancied trying to make one.
After googling it online, I found this easy folding method that can make into any animal. This is our book folding sheep.
This is my first challenge as a Bostik Blogger and looking through the crafting box, I decided to make a Chinese New Year Paper Plate Drum as part of the Chinese New Year theme.
Kikkoman have kindly shared one of their favourite recipes for my readers: Classic Sweet and Sour Chicken. This is also one of my favourite childhood dishes. It’s a dish that my mum always cooks for me whenever I visit.
A huge welcome to week 3 of the Tuesday Tutorials Pintorials Pin Party! I can’t believe we are in the 3rd week already and there’s not long before it is going to be Valentine’s day and Chinese New Year.
This is my Chinese New Year ang pow flower lantern tutorial. If you would like to learn about other lantern designs I had made previously, do take a look at my Pinterest board for Chinese New Year.
I had mentioned in my previous blog post that I would be sharing Chinese New Year’s craft ideas and different types of sheep crafts with you. Today, I am sharing eight different types of activities that you can do with your children.
I always wanted my children to learn and understand our Chinese culture. But living in the UK, it is quite hard to expose my children to our Chinese culture. So I decided to bring it closer to them by showing them the different types of crafts I made when I was young and let them taste different types of New Year’s food like Nian Gao and other types of goodies. One day I will bring them to Singapore Chinatown for Chinese New Year.
It is the time of the year to start making some Chinese New Year crafts! This year, the first day of Chinese New Year falls on the 19 February 2015 and it will last for 15 days. Last year, I had made quite a few Ang Pow lanterns, taught the children simple ways to learn the Chinese zodiac, did various paper cuttings and also made a 3D Chinese “Spring” character. Click on the title Chinese Culture to look at my previous Chinese New Year crafts.
This coming year is the year of the Sheep. During these next few weeks, I will be sharing different types of sheep crafts with you!
Today, I am showing you how to make a Chinese character sheep 羊 using ang pow (red packet). This is a very simple way to decorate your wall and teach your children Chinese words.
Many of you might recall that I had recently written a series blog posts for Chinese New Year and that this year is the year of the Horse. In the Chinese zodiac, the horse came in seventh out of the 12 year cycle of the animals.
Sadly tomorrow is the last day of the Chinese New Year celebrations and this is also my last post for the Chinese New Year theme. Hope you all have fun reading my blog posts from making Chinese New Year lantern crafts to foods!
A reunion dinner is held on the eve of the Chinese New Year, during which family members get together to celebrate. It used to be dinner time where all family members gather around but due to work or other family commitments, it can be any time of the day as long as it is on the eve.
My mum is very particular that everyone is home on time and start at the auspicious time/hour. Since I moved to the UK and started my own family, I’ve adopted this practise this and hope I can pass on this culture to my children.
Today, I would like to take you on a journey to see Chinese New Year goodies found in Singapore Chinatown. Living there for over 20 years and going to Chinatown in Outram Park is one of my highlights and recommendations to soak in the new year atmosphere.
Since I moved to the UK, I miss the opportunity to shop for the full range of Chinese New Year goodies. Some of these goodies can be found in UK Chinese supermarkets though so take a closer look if you get chance!
Now here are the streets in Chinatown. These goodies can only bought a month prior to Chinese New Year. All the street stalls will close after 1 – 2 am on Chinese New Year. So if you want to join in the festivities, make sure you time your travel before the New Year!
I have no idea why these varieties are only available for this limited time, like waxed salted food such as duck, sausages, ham etc. Maybe during the olden times, the only presents/gifts you can bring to visit your family and friends are preserved food. Hence the reasons of them being popular.
These are the varieties of waxed salted duck, salted ham, salted fish and Chinese sausages:
