Ni Hao Kai Lan

Let's talk about one of my favorite TV show for kids: Ni Hao Kai Lan.

One of the most obvious reasons I love it is because it teaches kids Mandarin! Kai Lan is just a little girl who is living the average Chinese-American lifestyle. She speaks in English and speaks Chinese, teaching all of her friends new words, too.

I had the fortune of catching the show yesterday and was taken aback when I heard all the Chinese being used. There was an entire exchange done completely in Chinese -- no subtitles, no re-iterating in English what was said.

I'm assuming that if the children have followed Kai Lan through her two season's worth of episodes they can also understand the exchange. I know some people my age who are Chinese-American and wouldn't even understand what was said!

With shows like Ni Hao Kai Lan and her predecessor Dora the Explorer, Nickelodeon is really working to expand a child's mind with two very important languages to Americans, I'd say. Having exposure to these new languages allows kids to be open to very rich cultures. Hopefully it's a stepping stone to open-mindedness and a future of global awareness.

Nice!

Funny Image

I wish I had an owl.

Education

Again, I'm struck and intrigued by an article and want to share it with the world (or, the few of you who found my blog). NYTime's Tom Friedman wrote an op-ed piece, "Steal This Movie, Too", which discusses the issues behind the American education system as will be revealed through the upcoming documentary Waiting for Superman.

The United States has long been seen as the super power of the world, right? While I was in China, many of the Chinese people I interacted with still thought of America as the perfect place. But, why is our public education system not helping students? China, too, has problems with their education system because their children are merely test-taking masters; however, during a discussion of school systems, I told the teacher that America is also in need of reform. Then she shot back, "then why are there more nobel prize winners in America than in China?"

China's trying to model its education system to the American system where kids can do creative projects and be more like kids. You know which Chinese-speaking places are doing things right, though, is Taiwan and Hong Kong. Both countries score high in reading, math, and science.

I was very fortunate to have been part of a decent public school. California's not the type of place that has too many private schools like in the East Coast, so, at least in the suburbs, public schools can be worthy. (Although, it may be thanks to the massive amount of Asian kids we have here, too.)

Everyone should be able to get a decent education through a public school system. Teachers should be more valued because they're supposed to be enlightening and guiding the future generation to greatness!

In any case, it would be lovely if we could focus more on the education system and improve the quality of education for our students, lest the US wants to (continue to) be the laughing stock of the developed world.

Coffee Cups

I love this coffee cup grid.

Here's My Card

Tonight I was with Stephanie at Yogurtland (aka my favorite dessert place ever) playing Phase 10 when this kid comes up to us and says, "Are you by any chance playing Uno?"

"No, this is a game called Phase 10." We reply. When he asks, what's that? we try explaining the complicated-ness of him, half trying to convince him that we don't want him to join in in the middle of our game.

"Oh, that seems really intense," he says. "How about I give you my card so that we can schedule a Phase 10 play/learning date?"

Um, you're like 16...

But, we say, OK. He goes back to his table with his friends and a minute later comes back with two cards with his twitter account and e-mail address and in a Sharpie marker he has written his name and phone number quite sloppily. "I'm going to have my website up soon," he assures us.

"Are you still in high school?" I ask him.

"Yeah."

"You know that we're not, right?" I say.

"Oohh most of my friends are in college, I usually hang with the older crowd." The Older Crowd? Have we already aged that much? That we're the "OLDER" crowd?

"But, we've already graduated from college," Stephanie says. To which he says, "Oh how cool. I'm actually being interviewed tomorrow for the Art Institute early decision."

...Good for you, young man. Good for you.

"I'm super excited," he explains. Then he bids us farewell. While I don't like that he calls us the older crowd, what moxie! He can really succeed in life if he is aggressive like that. I'm serious.

I'm full from yogurt.

Internet Privacy

This morning I read the weekend Wall Street Journal and was really intrigued by the cover story of their Weekend Journal: "The Great Privacy Debate". For the past week, I've been reading the journal's coverage of internet privacy as they've been spreading the word about tracking cookies and data mining.

As you'd expect, one writer took a positive stance of web tracking having its benefits, and the other was anti-web tracking.

The first article, about being web tracking and its benefits, has a lot of good points. As users of the internet, we should know that part of us being online means that we're giving up some information and, in turn for giving information, we're getting a personalized experience while we surf the internet.Ads made just for you!

I don't know about you, but sometimes the ads scare me.

That's why, I'd have to agree more with the second stance that says we shouldn't take web tracking so lightly. The writer made a good point in fearing the way we seem to care less and less about our privacy and treat the internet as a diary – something we can confide our secrets and information in – without considering the consequences. “Personalization’s evil twin is manipulation,” he states.

I think that we should be wary of the information we choose to post on the internet. Unless you really don't mind people being able to track you down through your internet history, then you can carry on. However, it would be a shame if our world turned into the one Cory Doctorow depicted in "Scroogled".

Another Dating Site

You know how I'm fascinated with the way new media bring people together. Whether it's just through a niche social networking site, or another niche dating site, I like it.

Read about another dating site exclusively for virgins. Why not, right?

(Question: does phone sex, sexting, or cyber sex exclude you from being a virgin?)

Biopsy-doodle

Got a biopsy on a mole-like thing on the scalp of my head.

My head is very sad. It feels like my scalp is being pulled together by force...

My hair is also sad because there's gook in my hair from the antibiotic cream.

Another fine day...

Birdie

For the past few weeks, there has been a bird nest nestled next to the front door awning of my parents' house. We see the Mama bird sitting there and how she flutters away whenever we walk too close to her or when we open the door. Personally, I find the bird nest to be charming because there must be baby birds in the making, and who doesn't love babies?

One evening I happened to be by the front door and I see that the cleaning lady is spraying the awnings down with a hose (we do have a dirty house, I suppose. The eggshell-shade it originally was has turned rather rotten through the years) and you see all of this black dirt cascade down. Then suddenly, I notice something from the tree come crashing down from the nest as a result of high-pressure water being shot at it: a little bird had fallen down. Wet and vulnerable, it quickly hopped into a little crevice.

I pull out the poor little guy whose whole body is shivering and his feathers are completely soaked. I coax him and temporarily put him into a little flower pot (sans flower) with leaves.

(Look at the little guy! Isn't he cute...but sad?)

Needless to say, the cleaning lady stopped hosing. Then suddenly I see something else from the nest. It's another little bird whose head and one wing has flopped over the side of the nest.

I couldn't help him. Dramatically enough, the mother comes swooping back to the nest to find that one of her children is missing and the other one is in a very vulnerable state. I watched as she just stood on the awning, blinking her sad eyes, contemplating what to do next and how to salvage the nest.

I go online and look for ways to help baby birds. Thankfully, this one is a fledgling and can actually fend for itself in some ways. I had put the pot underneath where the nest was to see if the Mama can figure out that her baby is there. But after watching from the window inside the house, it didn't seem like he was being noticed by the mother. (I did, however, see it hopping and tweeting. Cute!)

So, I build it a new nest with a box (holes on the bottom), tissues, twigs, grass...and place the baby inside that one. I figure his brown feathers would pop out from the white tissues. I go away for a little while, and when I go back to look, the baby is GONE.

I look up to see it is miraculously back up in the nest tweeting.

Hum...

...The next morning, both babies and the mother were gone. Hopefully to a more peaceful home with less water.