Articles for helping kids learn about china culture

Lingo Bus, the service offers one-on-one Chinese language classes for kids over the Internet. According to its website, the service is intended to pair learners of Mandarin outside China aged 5 to 12 with qualified language instructors based in China, “wherever and whenever is convenient” for the learners. Tea houses can also take a more relaxed setting, turning into a place to hang out with friends and play games like mahjong. A buffet fee allows you free flow of your favourite tea, snacks and a private room to leisurely spend an afternoon. But of course, with busy careers we might not have time to spare for such relaxing activities and get our tea fix! But not to worry, tea is everywhere, I can’t walk more than 500 meters without reaching a popular tea brand such as Gongcha, Coco, and It’s time to. Some are so popular you might have to wait 1 plus hours to get your tea… These major tea brands cater to the young with new teas such as my favourite bubble milk tea or cheese mi

Chinese characters are the worlds oldest form of written language, it’s also the worlds most widely used language today in terms of user number. The earliest confirmed evidence of Chinese characters discovered is that of the inscriptions carved on oracle bones from the Shang dynasty. Online learn Chinese  platform Lingo Bus is interesting.  Chinese characters are a logogram, that means each character  can have a meaning tied to a word or even a phrase. A single character can have a big meaning. If we are to believe the legends, then Chinese characters were first invented by a bureaucrat who worked for the deity the Yellow Emperor. He was so enamored with his studies of the world and its beings that he created the first characters to describe them. This is called zi. You can see how Chinese characters have evolved by looking at their change through the centuries but even now some still look like the thing they are describing. There are many helpful books that introduce

In our last post we talked about the overall history of Chinese characters but today we have the chance to explore deeper into their special features.   Help kids learn Chinese characters in a traditional format or in the simplified format with less strokes and more of a focus on the radicals. We won’t talk about Pinyin since this is just a Romanization of Chinese characters.   Some places in China still use traditional characters but overall most places use simplified Chinese as it’s easier to write. In traditional art forms like calligraphy many masters might still use traditional characters. Different strokes that are made to create a character have different names and rules on the order they should be placed. Because of this each character has a specific way it should be written, a stroke out of place could change it’s meaning. Each character also has something called a ‘radical’, we can call these the key ‘stroke’ of characters. Characters with similar qualities

Online Chinese teacher is very responsible. With interesting games and professional teachers, kids will have a wonderful time at Lingo Bus. On our last two articles we talked about auspicious and inauspicious numbers. But what about the rest of the numbers between 0 and 10, do they have a special meaning? Or are we neglecting these and turning them into ‘leftover’ numbers? Although we focused on the auspicious numbers last week, other numbers between 0 and 10 also have very positive meanings.   Let’s look at 3 (sān). The cultrual source of "3" comes from “ Tao Te Ching ” . There is one sentence that is expressed as" 1 generates 2, 2 generates 3, and 3 generates the world"( 一生二，二生三，三生万物 ). Therefore, "3" generates the whole world. And also it’s associated meaning ‘ 生 ’ (shēng) the character for birth. It’s thought that there’s no moment as special as giving birth. These numbers can sometimes be overlooked as they have both negative a

Teach kids to learn Chinese with  online platform Lingo Bus is really interesting. ‘ Food is what brings us together ’ (not music), look at social media or even at the social events in our lives, they all have something in common, food. In U.K., eating out is very expensive and thought of as unhealthy. Nevertheless, every week as a family we had a Sunday takeaway night ritual. People would take turns each week deciding what to eat and then share the food as family. In China there isn’t really a concept of ‘takeaway night’, as almost  everyday you will order takeaway food , especially at work or at school. Although there are always plenty of restaurant and canteen choices available  they tend to be overcrowded and have long waiting lines, by the time you get a seat and are ready to order food you have to be back at work! Food ordering has  become a multi billion industry , it’s hard to get away from it. Especially if you think about savings, with all the ongoing c

What do people do on the famous Chongyang Festival in China? Learning the culture is the most interesting part of  online Chinese learning .  Originally on this festival people come together to climb mountains, in the  past  this was to bring protection against diseases. It was thought that by ascending to a high altitude you could avoid future illnesses. A s people ascended to high places on the Double Ninth Festival, the Chongyang Festival is also known as the Height Ascending Festival. This custom was supposedly started during the East Han Dynasty when people usually climbed mountains or towers. During Chongyang it’s hard to resist the mouth watering aroma of Chongyang cake. A steamed healthy two-layer cake made up of nuts and jujube.  People will make a special cake for this festival by sticky rice.  On its top should be two sheep made from flour. Some people place a small red flag on the top of cake and light candles.     The beautiful Chrysanthemum plant is linke

In China, there are a lot of special holidays tied to the lunar calendar, with each having its own significant meaning. When you want to find resources for online Chinese learning for kids , you will usually find many interesting articles about Chinese culture. T he 9 th  day of the 9 th  lunar month  is known as the  Chongyang festival.  Usually falling in October in the Gregorian calendar, the festival is linked with keeping bad health omens away on the hopes of staying healthy. But now the festival is also used to celebrate seniors’ day.     The number 9 is regarded as Yang, meaning positive and masculine (whereas 6 is Yin and feminine) Chong means double and so we have the name “Double (Chong) nine (Yang)”. It can also be called Chrysanthemum festival, as Chrysanthemum usually blossoms during this festival.   Originally on this festival people come together to climb mountains, in the Past this was to bring protection against diseases. It was thought that by ascendin

Numbers are probably first few things you will learn in  M andarin for beginners  classes.  In China, numbers are very important and are tied to every aspect of your life. They are taken so seriously that people will even go as far as  avoiding apartments or giving birth on dates  with unlucky numbers.                    Chinese numbers are thought to be auspicious or inauspicious based on the Chinese word they sound similar to.  Therefore 4 (Sì) and 7 (qī)  are avoided at all costs because of their relationship with other words. Four is regarded as the unluckiest number in Chinese as it’s associated with death ( 死 sǐ), they both have the same sound but with different tones. The number 7 is also considered unlucky as it has the associated meaning of gone, and a similar pronunciation to ‘ 欺 ’ (qī), which means to cheat or deceive someone. It makes sense, no one wants an early grave, and it’s not nice to be cheated, these are things we actively avoid, so why not avoi

In China, children  work very hard in school , although students  leave school by 3.30 pm,  they have  little time to  spend on hobbies. This is very different from children in the US. For some taking  online Chinese classes , I believe they still have plenty time to hang around and relax.   Since most parents are at work they are unable to pick up their children from school.  Extra classes or care centres  are the best options available to parents who  want their children taken care of  but also to  develop their education. As the fact that the competition of Chinese children is super fierce, parents prefer to send children to study extra knowledge out of class which will make their children much more competitive. For this reason, students are very smart in how they use up their spare time,  making every minute count . Activities are picked not just for fun but for practicality. Some choose to learn how to play an instrument or take on some fun and healthy ex

Do you know that, in China the e-commerce market was topped $1.1 trillion by 2017? What led this rapid growth?  The online education develops at a great speed in China, there are Chinese online teachers that can teach you.  Let’s take a look: Easy Payment With everything you could ever want just a fingerprint-scan away, emptying your wallet, your savings account, and your emergency fund, has never been easier. Chinese consumers don’t need to worry about the war raging between WeChat Wallet and Alipay, because whether they’re with team Green or team Blue, they’re winning – or losing, depending on how you look at it. Speedy Delivery Online shopping in China is easy. Step aside Amazon Prime, because Chinese people in most metropolitan areas can order daily necessities and plenty of other odds and ends on one of a few different apps and have them delivered to their door by motorbike (or motortrike) within the hour. Wealth Given the conveniences mentioned abo

Do you know the basic “rule” of giving gift in China? This is quite important when you pick gifts for Chinese kids . Cultural misunderstandings happen when gifting, we need to be cautious to avoid cultural misunderstandings. In China giving gifts in inauspicious numbers (4 and 7) is avoided. There are also inauspicious gifts because of their assigned meaning, similar to inauspicious numbers. One of these gifts is a clock. This is because to ‘give a clock’ sounds just like ‘to bury’, you are wishing death to that person. Maybe not the greatest idea for a gift after all. Green hats have a double meaning of cheating, giving someone a green hat means they have been cheated on. Other gifts to avoid include sharp objects (like knives and scissors), shoes, and green hats. Sharp objects portray the intention that you want to sever that relationship and shoes that you will walk away. But no worries, there are plenty of good gifts with auspicious meanings to fall back on:

What do you picture when you think of traditional Chinese clothes? Please don’t say karate clothes! Your children can go to some very good websites to learn Chinese online for kids , you can also get to know Chinese culture by reading this blog!  China has a rich historical history, with each new Imperial era a new fashion trend building up on the existent was founded. Your clothes could show your status, but to make it simpler if we think about traditional clothes, we can split it into two categories, men’s and women’s fashion. Arising under the Manchu rule during the Qing dynasty it was quite common for men to wear a Changshan (长衫). The Changshan is a type of long jacket or robe. Although popularity for this fashion dropped during the cultural revolution, even now you can still find some men wearing it as part of their daily wardrobe. The Changshan equivalent for women is known as the Qipao (旗袍). Seen in many Hollywood films, the Qipao is a tight fitted dress, but originally

L earning  Mandarin Chinese  is popular in recent years! Take the first step towards learning it. One you may find fun is called  Year Hare Affair  or  Na Nian, Na Tu, Na Xie Shi （那年那兔那些事儿） , which covers recent Chinese history in the form of cute talking rabbits. Over the past few years, home-grown Chinese animated series have been gaining in quality and popularity. Some are based on popular comics like Xiong Chu Mo （熊出没） while others draw from history. Series like Spongebob Squarepants and Fairly Oddparents however, which have little basis in reality or previous works, are very uncommon. Many Chinese children like to watch foreign animation. Shaun the Sheep and, more recently, Peppa Pig come to mind. You may even run into these series playing on television screens on Chinese subways. To get an idea for the popularity of these series: Over the past two years, Peppa Pig has beenwatched  over 34 billion times .

In China meals and dishes are shared communally, because of this it may seem at times that there isn’t really any etiquette and that it’s a ‘free for all’ scenario. But that’s not the case, China has hidden etiquettes that you may not have noticed. It also depends who you are dining with. Learning Chinese with online platform Lingo Bus. Teach your children to speak and write Mandarin Chinese with Lingo Bus, your children very own personal online Chinese tutor. In formal dinner meetings, although it may be unspoken the sitting arrangement will be based on a hierarchy, with the seat of honor saved for the oldest or the host. This person is also the one who will get to eat first. Don’t take a bite before them if you want to avoid embarrassment. In all dining settings you need to be careful of how you use your chopsticks. Don’t repeat my mistake. Never leave your chopsticks left standing upright on a dish, in my case rice. This is how food offerings are done for the dead

Historically,  Buddhism was pretty popular among the Mandarin Chinese . It is now the second most popular religion in China, claims to have 1.87% of the population as believers. (Believe me or not, this is a big number for a pantheistic/atheistic country) The problem (well, a problem to theists) is, we have a lot of “believers”, but not a lot of “monks”. People, even those who “believe” in it, do not “follow” Buddhism. My mother likes to read about Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, yet claims herself to be atheistic. Buddhism is thought to have been brought to China by Indian missionaries during the Han dynasty merging with the local religion Taoism. Buddhism is China's oldest foreign religion. The main difference between Chinese Buddhism in regards to its original beliefs is tied to Buddha. Chinese Buddhists believe that Buddha is not just a teacher who taught disciplines how to live their life but that he is a god to be prayed to for help. Most Buddhist rituals are al

More and more kids are learning Chinese . What do you think of Confucius sayings? Do you think they are helpful for today’s society and education? Are there any similar quotes to those found in the west? Confucius (孔子, kǒng zǐ ) was a government official, teacher, and philosopher, he lived through a chaotic period (551- 479 BC) and decided to take it upon himself to fix a broken system and create a better society. He developed a new moral code based on strong family and societal bonds, respect, honesty, and education. His moral code still has strong lasting effects in the social structure of Chinese society. zhī zhě bú huò ，rén zhě bú yōu ，yǒng zhě bú jù “知者不惑，仁者不忧，勇者不惧” Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace. Guò ér bú gǎi ，shì wèi guò yǐ “过而不改 ， 是谓过矣” A man who has committed a mistake and doesn’t correct it is committing another mistake. 

Some people have been saying that pinyin isn’t really necessary. They say they have been able to get their point across without knowing the pinyin for what they are saying. If your goal is to learn how to speak Chinese fluently , please ignore these people. If your goal is to learn half-assed, minimum viable Chinese, then by all means, skip the pinyin. Here are 8 reasons why you should learn Chinese pinyin: 1. You need pinyin to look up words in the dictionary. If you hear Chinese words and phrases in everyday speech and you would like to look it up, then you need to know the hanyu pinyin equivalent. If you encounter them online, then you can copy and paste the character into a dictionary. (Of course, if you are tired of looking things up in the dictionary, you can always use the FluentU smartphone app, which has Chinese audio and interactive transcripts that you look up and see examples for any word by tapping on it. 2. Digital Chinese input is best done through pinyin. You

Students will participate in formal English and Chinese lessons on a daily basis . There are over 40,000 kinds of plants and over 4,000 species of vertebrates in China, many of which feature predominantly in local art and literature. Like most areas of the world, some animals are at risk of extinction so don’t miss this chance to look at some of them. Here’s a list of some famous animals native to China! Panda Let’s get the most well known animal out of the way, the Panda! As soon as anyone says China the Panda always comes to mind. There’s good reason for it, The Giant Panda is considered one of China’s natural treasures. Although endangered many natural reserves have been set up to protect them and their environment. Pandas and other animals are followed in the film ‘Born in China’ a Disney documentary about the amazing wildlife in China, it’s a great way to introduce different Chinese ecosystems to children. Otherwise, good old Kung-Fu panda has a star studded Ch