In celebration of the year of the dragon, brighten up your classroom with these easy-to-make lanterns. There’s nothing more iconic than the lanterns that light the streets in China during their New Years celebration. The tradition can be traced as far back a 250 B.C. when Buddhist monks carried torches on New Year’s Eve, hoping to spot the Buddha himself. Today, some locals make bamboo frames and cover them with silk, but for your classroom, construction paper should do just fine!
Posts Tagged ‘china’
Educational Travel in Asia: Chinese New Year Craft
Thursday, January 19th, 2012Educational travel in Asia: Learn about New Year’s traditions
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012
Looks like it’s time for resolutions…
We, at Explorica, resolve to keep bringing you more and more cultural insights, of course. And while some of us are still settling on goals (eat healthier, exercise and read more), another part of the world is just beginning their countdown to the New Year. January 23rd is the big day that starts the year of the dragon for the Chinese and the Tet celebration for the Vietnamese. This week, we’ll take a peek into how these Asian cultures may ring in 2012—from traditional decorations to holiday foods. And while we’re at it, we’ll show you how to join in the festivities and brighten up your classroom by making your own New Year’s paper lanterns.
Chinese New Year
Where the Western world celebrates the New Year overnight, the Chinese take a full 15 days to ring it in with family fun, fireworks and a whole lot of holiday…cleaning. You heard me. Talk about “out with the old”! Once the house is in tiptop shape, families decorate their doors and windows with red paper-cuts (simply, paper with cut-outs to make intricate designs) to welcome all that good luck floating around. Why red? The color symbolizes good fortune and joy. Symbols of good fortune, happiness, wealth and longevity fill the air during the Chinese New Year. They literally hang in the air, as families suspend pairs of poetic lines called couplets around their homes crafted around those ideas.
These themes run so deep that they’re even present in the food. The holiday feast, called reunion dinner, is filled with varieties of chicken, pork and fish. (You might say it’s a gathering for omnivores.) But, no matter how scrumptious the feast or how hungry the diners, the Chinese never finish the prized “lucky fish.” Some of the fish is stored overnight because the phrase, “every year there’s fish leftover” is a homophone for the Chinese phrase that means “have profit every year.”
Closing their 15-day celebration, the Chinese claim to fame is their magical lantern festival. A Buddhist rite established by a Chinese emperor during the Han Dynasty, the grand festival has since expanded into a country-wide celebration. Streets, homes and storefronts fill with silk, paper and even glass lanterns. The night is capped off with beautiful firework displays all over China. If you happen to visit China during the festival, don’t forget to wear your red. It’s believed that the New Years monster, “Nian,” who comes to destroy crops and homes, fears the fiery color.
Tea for Three: China, Japan and Morocco
Wednesday, January 11th, 2012
Some say that tea is one of the world’s most popular drinks (second only to water). In Britain it’s considered the national drink. Americans and Canadians drink 80% of their tea iced. And people in the United Arab Emirates out-drink the rest of us by far. In 2009, they drank a whopping 220 ounces of tea per person—almost twice as much as the second largest tea drinking nation in the world, Mauritiana. Although historians have found records of tea drinking in China as early as 900 B.C., it wasn’t until the 16th century that Europeans began exporting it from its origins in Southern Asia. And it was well worth the wait! Come and join us for a very international tea party in this three-part series on traditional tea culture. (It’s sure to be teatime somewhere in the world). We’ll pour a cup in China, one in Japan and a last in Morocco.
Tea in China
According to ancient Chinese legend, tea was an accidental invention. The story goes that Emperor Shen Nong (from as far back as 2737 B.C.) instructed his subjects to boil water before drinking it so that they wouldn’t get sick. One day, the Emperor was traveling with his entourage to a distant land when he stopped for a refreshing cup of boiled water. And as luck would have it, the leaves from a nearby camellia bush fell into his cup. From then on this pleasant new brew quickly became one of the Emperor’s favorite drinks. (Incidentally, the word “tea” comes from the Chinese word “cha” meaning camellia. Because European tea exporters misheard the word “cha” when they brought it home, they gave it the name “thee.”) Yet it wasn’t until the time of the Tang Dynasty that tea drinking in China became a real art form. In 780 A.D., a tea connoisseur named Lu Chu (who once ran off to join the circus) wrote a book called Tea Classic that was filled with tea drinking tidbits. These included best brewing techniques, top utensils to use (such as fire chopsticks, cauldrons and tea tongs), and information on the tastiest tea growing regions of China. If you’re visiting China today you’ll find that drinking tea is an integral part of Chinese life. It’s even used to express thanks, to apologize and as a sign of respect. So be sure to brush up on your tea drinking table manners before you travel. For instance, if you find yourself being the first to pour the tea, ensure you serve those around you first. And if someone pours tea for you, you can thank him or her by lightly tapping your index and middle fingers on the table.
Fall Festivals Around the World
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
Chinese Mooncakes
Depending on where you are in the world, the fall season conjures up a time for harvests, changing foliage or…in some places, the height of art and culture. Though autumn darkens the evening sky sooner in September and October, over 120 cities around the world light up “White Nights” to showcase galleries, museums and other spaces that display right-brain creations. Similarly, in Hawaii, there’s a six-week celebration of culture called Aloha Festivals. And around the same time, China lights up with its Moon Festival. From east to west, here are a few illuminating events around the world where it’s worth hitting the streets in the fall.
Coffee Culture
Friday, August 26th, 2011
Sugar or the fake stuff? Cream or milk? There’s lots of personal preferences for a cup of coffee but spin the globe and the coffee culture nuances get nitty-grittier—and not just on the serving. The blending, roasting and grinding of the bean to the time of day coffee’s drunk or even the nibbles accompanying it all vary. If you lived in Europe you might get a short, strong brew with a piece of candy. In Asia? Something that goes down sweeter. It’s probably no surprise that the largest market for coffee is the United States, but did you know Brazil is the world’s largest producer of the “black gold” bean? And here’s an eye-opener… Coffee is the world’s second largest generator of wealth, losing only to oil, and generates about US$ 91 billion per year worldwide. Explorica gets behind the brew to learn how different countries see and sip this hot beverage—from the raw pod to the porcelain cup.
