Paper Folding

Origami is the word for Japanese paper folding, but there is a (perhaps longer) tradition of paper folding in China. Some historians believe that it started not longer after Ts'ai Lun invented paper in China in A.D. 105. Many say both paper and paper folding were introduced to Japan in the late 6^th century by Buddhist monks. Unfortunately, there are no records of Chinese paper folding, and the oldest Japan records are from 1797 (in the 18^th century). Separately paperfolding originated in Spain (Arabs brought the secret of paper to them in the 12^th century).Children can benefit from origami in many ways – the listening skills, sequencing, fine motor, attention, math skills (geometry, congruence, symmetry). Last year, I saw an article on about how it helps in using both sides of the brain. Whether you research it or not, Enjoy!

Classic Paper Crane:
Filmmaker, George Levenson won awards for his Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. You can see clips of that and of his companion video, How to Fold A Paper Crane at the Sadako Film Project. To complete a crane, read the full directions for how to fold a paper crane. I love his book, The Pumpkin Circle and think it fits in well with the Harvest theme of Mid-Autumn Festival.

Paperfolding for the Chinese Zodiac: The next "rat" year starts in 2008. Many of the directions are pdf files and require the use of Adobe Acrobat. The pictures are just that - with no folding instructions. The Japanese zodiac uses the same animals. I have heard but have not confirmed, that Mythological Creatures and the Chinese Zodiac in Origami by John Montroll has challenging directions to fold each of the characters of the Chinese zodiac.

Rat -Simple mouse, Great rat origami picture, Directions for a mouse, Picture of mice that I can not fold. Or select this mouse.

Ox - Cow picture, No directions

Tiger - Tiger picture, No directions

Rabbit - For the youngest, consider this origami rabbit face, or select one of Waterfordpress' origami rabbits. For the more dexterous, try these instructions for rabbits at Fishgoth.com or select the Thinkquest rabbit. Or look at Joseph's Wu's Rabbit for Chinese New Year (picture only). Some fold origami rabbits in school during Mid-Autumn Festival, although it is not traditionally done in China on that night.

Dragon - Dragons are generally harder to fold. My friend Lorna found some simple ones from Tammy Lee. One based on the fortune teller you probably learned in school and a basic dragon puppet. When you are ready, Marc Kirschenbaum’s Rearing Dragon (page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5, page 6) is a high intermediate dragon. This Eastern Dragon [PDF file of instructions] is a also high intermediate. Joseph Wu has done great multi-piece dragons including this Grand Dragon, and Stephen O'Hanlon has some wonderful dragons in his Fantasy Origami Gallery.

Snake - Ronald Koh and David Derudas have folded incredible cobras, but that is well beyond most of us! No directions to fold a snake yet.

Horse - Incredible folded Horse picture from Ronald Koh, Horse directions, *** Horse Directions, Seren's Horse picture. Or select this horse. Directions for this Front Flip Horse might only print on A4 (UK paper size) but you can still read them online.

Sheep/Ram/Goat - Not an easy goat, *** sheep

Monkey - Kirikomi Monkey - cuts are an essential part of making this model, No easy directions.

Rooster - Rooster picture, No directions.

Dog - For a simple origami dog face you need only a square of paper and a pencil or something to draw the face. You can also make it "talk". This dog's head uses a different approach. I also found an 8 minute video on folding an origami dog if you really want to see each step - or a quick review of them all starting around 7:50 into the clip.

There are some (easy but) harder dogs too. The "Patient dog" can be folded two different ways, one with a tail and one without. One might be easier for you to do than the other. To try this advanced dog you may also need to download the turkey instructions which is the base. Or try this, Stylized Dog.

Pig/Boar - Paperfold Pigs, pig's head, a picture of The World's Largest Origami Pig, ** pig, directions for a Freestanding Pig (not quite the wild boar fold that I adore).

Other Origami
Bubble Balloon Box
Teapot

33 schools in and around Portland teach Mandarin

Southeast Portland started what will become the nation's only kindergarten-to-college Chinese immersion program in 1998 - a public school with an immersion Mandarin program! Of course the area has pre-schools and weekend Chinese schools teaching Mandarin too.

If you want to read it all, The Oregonian might ask you for your zipcode and year of birth - but you can at least start the Mandarin Rising article without sharing anything.

1 Feb. 2007 addition: maybe I should retitle this "Cheers and Jeers"

Meanwhile according to today's New York Times Palo Alto Board Rejects Classes in Mandarin. (After a certain amount of time, only subscribers will be able to see the whole article.) Only part of the issue seems to be that since it could not (or would not) be offered to everyone that it might "give the small group of students in them an unfair advantage."1

1 - quote from Palo Alto Board Rejects Classes in Mandarin, By Jesse McKinley, February 1, 2007, The New York Times.

Sichun Panda babies

(news from December 2006) SICHUAN, China --
Sixteen baby pandas were born at the Sichuan Wolong Panda Protection and Breed Center between July 2005 and December of 2006, including 5 sets of twins. In the wild, only own twin usually survives but in zoos and breeding centers, with human assistance, both twins should be fine.

The cubs are weighed and measured every five days. YouTube has clips of the cubs, perhaps before being weighed and then at about 6 months, playing outside. (What I like best is hearing the pandas!) Scenes like those would never happen in the wild as pandas are solitary creatures.

The pandas should start to walk and stop nursing by February 2007, but the breeding program continues and there should be more little ones there.

There is also an email bouncing around the internet with a China Foto Press photographs attached. To see some of their original photos, see Happy Life in the Panda's Kindergarten and Chinese Giant Panda.

Sources included:
NBC
Panda International

Do blogs have a monetary value?

Business Opportunities has an applet to calculate what a blog is worth in US dollars. How much is your blog worth?. It was inspired by Tristan Louis's research into the value of each link to Weblogs Inc. If links add value to the site, the value of his must be shooting right up, because it is interesting.

According to that, this blog and my Chinese New Year blog are each currently worth $564.54 but my Mid-Autumn Festival Blog, is worth $1,129.08.

Chinese Games

Some places list Chinese games as "Hunting, Polo, Parcheesi, Chess, and Backgammon". Some how that is not exactly what I was thinking when I wanted to introduce Chinese games to children - or when Girl Scout troops ask what Hong Kong or Taiwanese game they can teach others for World Thinking Day. I don't think of paper-cutting, origami and Chinese knotting as "games" but they are fun crafts that Chinese children do. Ideas originally for Chinese New Year in the schools which can be adapted for any time of year, include Chinese Games (Catch the Dragon's Tail, Lame Chicken, and ideas for 3 - 9 year olds), Crafts and activities, and Crafts for upper elementary.

A bit of History: Yoyos and dolls may have been the world's first toys. China invented or discovered: yoyos, tops, kites, playing cards, Mah jong (Mahjongg), and Chinese Chess (Xiang Qi, similar to Wei Qi, known in the USA as a Japanese game "Go").

Probably most of the oldest Chinese card games were also played as gambling games, and certainly many multi-player mahjongg games today have a gambling component. (Japan and Hong Kong have different scoring rules for the game.) Mahjongg was originally a solitaire game - and now you can find software versions to download and play it on your laptop or PalmPilot. Chinese dominos are a differn tgame and use different tiles.

Chinese board games include Xiangqi and Go, a strategic board game for two players (known as Weiqi in Chinese).

The "Shuttlecock", Chinese Yoyo or Chinese jump rope are all fun and good games to present.

Some call the shuttlecock (pictured here) a "helicopter rotor", "propeller top" or "bamboo dragonfly". If you do not have or do not want to use feathers, you can make your own shuttlecock with a coin, some facial tissue or tissue paper and a rubber band. An American quarter is about the right size. It is bounced off your foot and body - the rules remind many Americans of hacky-sack.

Games needing space - These take up a fair amount of room to move:
Eagle and Chicks, Catch the Dragon's Tail, Lame Chicken and Forcing the City Gates (which sounds a bit like "Rover, Red Rover" to me...) Fang Bao also takes up some space, but maybe it could be kept to a long side of the gym (or where-ever your event is held), or possibly even down a hall if you have enough adults for supervision?

Chinese Jump Rope - You can make your own Chinese jump robe with rubber bands or elastic cord. (WARNING: rubber bands contain latex, and are sometimes 100% latex. You may want to check for latex allergy issues before you bring this into a school community gathering.)

From Losing the games of their parents?, look how high the Chinese jump rope is in the picture!

Last Updated: September 2007

Mandarin & Music

Food for thought - excerpts on Mandarin & Music

1. Mandarin Language Is Music To The Brain Science Daily 13 December 2006 — It’s been shown that the left side of the brain processes language and the right side processes music; but what about a language like Mandarin Chinese, which is musical in nature with wide tonal ranges? . . . Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of California - Irvine.

2. Mandarin Chinese speaks volumes in giving the young an ear for music Ian Sample in San Diego and Faisal al Yafai - Thursday November 18, 2004 - The Guardian

Scientists have discovered an unusual tip for parents who want their little darlings to grow up to be musical geniuses - teach them Mandarin Chinese.

Psychologists at the University of California in San Diego found that children who learnt Mandarin as babies were far more likely to have perfect pitch - the ability to name or sing a musical note at will - than those raised to speak English. Perfect pitch, though common among the great composers, is extremely rare in Europe and the US, where just one in 10,000 is thought to have the skill.

3. Tone Language Translates To Perfect Pitch: Mandarin Speakers More Likely To Acquire Rare Musical Ability Science Daily 15 November 2004 — Could it be that cellist Yo-Yo Ma owes his perfect musical pitch to his Chinese parents? While we may never know the definitive answer, new research from the University of California, San Diego has found a strong link between speaking a tone language - such as Mandarin - and having perfect pitch, the ability once thought to be the rare province of super-talented musicians. . . . Or read the study yourself, with graphic figures of the results and sound files of the test.

NJN's Unbroken Thread

I just found New Jersey Network's interesting Unbroken Thread page. Ignore the fact that season 2004-2005 is in the web link, it is current stuff, referring to a December show and Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company's upcoming "Year of the Boar" Show. I love their study guides, even to older shows.

The NJN site describes itself:
"State of the Arts explores Chinese celebrations of the New Year, marriage, and death and how they form an “Unbroken Thread” of ongoing importance to Chinese Americans today. "

Of interest: the spread of Mandarin

Recently a child asked, “Why we don’t speak Chinese since China is so big?” What a huge question.

China is a billion people but Chinese has 8 major dialects (in mainland China alone). China was isolated from the rest of the world for many years and that certainly contributed to the fact that Chinese is mostly spoken by those of Chinese descent, although that is changing.

Mandarin Chinese is the #1 spoken language in the world at 13.7% of the world's population, Spanish is 2nd at 5.1%. English is #3 at 4.8% (according to the 2006 CIA World Factbook). 785 million people in the world are illiterate (CIA World Factbook, 2005 estimate). That is about about 12% of the world, but almost 17% of those over 15. India and China have most of the world's illiteracy (going along with their massive populations).

April 2006's WIRED magazine had an article titled "The Mandarin Offensive: Inside Beijing's global campaign to make Chinese the number one language in the world." by Michael Erard that may also be of interest.