We're back from China, but it was such a great trip I can't stop thinking about it! One of the things that I really liked there were Chinese seals, also known as chops. Chops are blocks that have a name or symbol carved into them and can be used to stamp documents. Chops have been used in China for thousands of years as official signatures. Originally, chops were used just by the Emperor to sign official documents, but over time other officials started using it, and now anyone can have their own chop!

We spent our last day in China visiting the Jade Buddha Temple in Shanghai. I haven't been there in many years, in fact not since before the original temple was destroyed in the 1900's (it was rebuilt in 1928), yet just stepping into the main courtyard was like stepping back in time for me.

Have you heard the legend of how tea drinking was discovered? Supposedly a few leaves from a tea plant fell into a Chinese emperor's pot of boiling water, and he decided to give it a taste. Who knows if that is actually true, but it shows that there is a long history of drinking tea in China and when we visited I couldn’t wait to learn more about it. Oh, and in Chinese the word for tea is “cha.”

What I really wanted to do when we were in China was attend a tea ceremony. You can drink tea just about anywhere, but I wanted to learn about each tea and really appreciate it. Luckily, in Shanghai we found a great one that was well worth it!

Ni Hao class (do you remember what that means?). Kiweenie Lao Shi here again with part two of my lesson about the Chinese language. We learned how to say a few helpful phrases in our last class and I hope you've been practicing them. We've been using them a lot here in China! As you've been touring Beijing with us you've probably noticed that the spoken language is not the only part of Chinese that is very different from English.

Lesson 1

Ni hao class! It's me Kiweenie Lao Shi (teacher Kiweenie). Since we've been in China I've been really interested in the Chinese language. I've even begun picking up a few words and phrases. Because you’re traveling through China with us I thought it would be important for you to learn a few words of Chinese too. Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you because the Chinese language is very difficult!

The Great Wall