Fundraisers and Chinese Monsters

Daniel's iPAD2 fundraiser is almost over.  You still have a few days left if you still would like a chance to win the iPAD2 and you haven't had a chance to enter.

Here's a little video Daniel put together. He did a little interview with his dad.  Please remember we are not professional actors.  Ha ha!  We all learned a little something while we put this together.  But most of all, we learned some interesting facts about China and had fun!!  

Be sure and go down and turn the music off on my blog so you can hear the "interview". 




We will be announcing the winner on Valentine's day sometime!  Click here to see the original fundraiser post and to enter the giveaway. 

Because Daniel mentions the Chinese New Year in his video, I thought I would give you a little bit more information about it.  Chinese New Year is an important celebration in China. 

And since we are going to have 2 Chinese daughters, we feel it is important to be finding out all we can about the culture, food, celebrations, and any other information about China we can acquire.  

We really enjoyed learning about the Chinese New Year and it was more meaningful to the kids since it was something that had just happened a couple weeks ago. 

Chinese New Year is a very old celebration, a time for repaying debts, enjoying feasts, giving "red envelopes" of lucky money to friends and relatives, and remembering ancestors.  There are many ancient and delightful superstitions surrounding this holiday.  Here is one I wanted to share for anyone who might be interested.  This is the story that Daniel read:

Long ago, in Han times, there was a monster whose name was "Nian". This monster came once each year to a little village and scared everyone! One day, just by luck, the villagers discovered that "Nian" had a couple fears of his own. He was afraid of the color red and even more afraid of scary loud noises!

The villagers prepared. When "Nian" appeared, everyone in the village ran for the red banners and noise makers they had made. They waved their banners and rattled their noise makers.

This scared "Nian" so much that "Nian" ran away and was never heard from again!
Which all goes to explain why people in China believe the color red signifies joy and luck, and why noise makers are rattled on Chinese New Year.

At midnight, firecrackers, paper dragons, noise makers, the waving of red ribbons and banners all help to drive away any lingering evil spirits from the old year. (In case "Nian" is still lurking about somewhere!)


The video below is a cute version of the story Daniel read in his video. I like it because it is in Chinese.  :)



And as Daniel said in his video, "we hope you enjoyed the story and learned a little something about China as well."