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.
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. If you would like to find out more about the Chinese zodiac animals, click here to read more. Why does the horse come in seventh in the cycle? Legend has it that the sneaky Snake hid itself on the Horse’s hoof. Before crossing the finishing line, the Snake frightened the Horse and took the 6th spot and left the horse in 7th.
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.
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!
As many of you will know, I’ve been writing a series of Chinese New Year posts from crafts to foods. Check out my Chinese New Year’s Pinterest board for ideas!
Many Chinese will cook a fish dish on Chinese New Year Eve reunion dinner as it represents 年年有余 (Nian Nian You Yu) meaning abundance through the year. It is a great auspicious dish for all to eat. It is also traditional to serve fish with its head and tail intact to symbolise a positive beginning and end to the New Year.
This is another post for my Chinese New Year series and today it is about craft. Last week, we made 3D Paper Cutting Chinese New Year Spring 春 and today we cut the 旺 (wang in hanyu pinyin) Chinese character. In Singapore during Chinese New Year, you will often hear people say/shout Huat Ah (in Hokkien language) in the street, dinner party or when they want to win the lottery! It means to prosper and be wealthy. So people adapt 旺 into Chinese New Year culture. 旺 is the translation of Huat.
Lunar New Year is also know as Chinese Spring Festival. It is a quite a long story as to why it is called Spring Festival but the short version is that it is mainly based on mainland Chinese ruling. Spring 春 is widely used on the Chinese New Year theme or Auspicious words on Festival Couplets (New Year’s wishes on pieces of red papers) like:
迎春接福 Yíng chún jiē fú – Greet the New Year and encounter happiness
春回大地 chūn huí dà dì – Spring has come back to the earth
