|
Back to Blog
Staff Dinner22/2/2021 While we celebrated Christmas with our group classes held at Kohia Terrace School this morning, we also got our teaching staff together for a end of year dinner at Yatchun’s house. We made our home cook food which included sushi, roast meat and salad. After dinner, it was Secret Santa. It didn’t take too long for us to know who has given us our presents. Then Yatchun gave the staff their presents as a token of appreciation for their positive contribution. It has been a challenging year and the staff adapted very well to accommodate the situation. We have learnt a lot in the year 2020 and we will continue to work together to thrive for a successful 2021 year. A big thank you to all the Pistachio staff.
0 Comments
Back to Blog
Dōngzhì Festival22/12/2020 This year Dōngzhì Festival or Winter Solstice Festival falls on 21/12/20. It is one of the most important Chinese and East Asian festivals celebrated by the Chinese, Taiwanese, Malaysian, Singaporeans, Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese during the Dōngzhì solar term (winter solstice), some day between December 21 to December 23. The origins of this festival can be traced back to the yin and yang philosophy of balance and harmony in the cosmos. After this celebration, there will be days with longer daylight hours and therefore an increase in positive energy flowing in. The philosophical significance of this is symbolized by the I Ching hexagram fù (Chinese: 復, "Returning").In Northern China, people celebrate the festival with dumplings while in Southern China, it was celebrated with rice balls. The rice balls are called tāng yuán. Below are some links on the history of the festival. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongzhi_Festival https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/leisure/2020/12/21/whats-the-story-behind-dongzhi/ https://www.easytourchina.com/fact-v361-the-winter-solstice-festival Two of our students had tried rice balls before but didn’t realise that it was related to a festival. They were very intrigued to find the history and how to make the rice balls. We did a workshop with them. This is being shown on the video & photos of our students & family making the rice balls and trying out the delicious and creative panda rice balls. It was so yummy and delicious. Videos to both our students making tāng yuán and the recipe and ingreidents are shown below.
Back to Blog
Christmas Workshop19/12/2020 We celebrated the last class with our students of a mother and her two boys in their home in Auckland. The students were taught Chrstimas greetings such as: Shèng dàn jié kuàilè - Happy Christmas Shèng dàn shù - Christmas Tree Shèng dàn lǎo rén - Santa Clause and Sòng lǐwù - send a gift. Our teacher introduced a Christmas workshop by making Santa Clause toast. The video will show you how Santa Toasts are being made. What a creative idea of our teacher to do the workshop. The students were given presents by Yatchun as a token of appreciation for being loyal customers. They have made such wonderful progress in their Mandarin in a short period of time. We look forward to working with our students to develop their skill and interest in the language in the New Year. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Zhù nǐ shèngdàn jié kuàilè hé xīnnián kuàilè 
Back to Blog
Christmas Celebration at Waikowhai School15/12/2020 On the 15th of December 2020, students at Waikowhai School were taught Christmas greetings with pictures and pinyin words on the slides. This will enable them to wish their family and friends the Christmas greetings in Mandarin. shèng dàn jié kuài lè - Happy Christmas shèng dàn lǎo rén - Santa Clause shèng dàn shù - Christmas tree sòng lǐ wù - to give a present Zhù nǐ shèng dàn jié kuài lè - wishing you a Happy Christmas A Christmas video spoken in Mandarin was shown to the students. They were so engrossed in the story as our teacher explained to them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6sUvzq870Y&feature=youtu.be Each student was given an A5 paper with pictures of a Santa Clause and presents written with pinyin words. They had to colour the pictures, glue a stick to the side of the paper and hold it like a flag. From the paper flag, they learnt how to say the words of: shèng dàn jié kuài lè, Wǒ xǐhuān lǐwù (Happy Charistmas, I like presents) Parents were invited to celebrate this happy occasion with our staff and their children. Finally, a Santa Clause showed up by ringing the bell and with a bag of goodies. The children were so excited when they saw Santa. Santa used the teacher’s slides and asked the children to repeat the Christmas greetings. They spoke very well. Santa took a seat and lǐ wù (presents) were given away to the children. Yatchun would like to thank the teaching staff, parents and students and Waikowhai School for working together to develop our classes. The students have learnt a great deal and they can introduce themselves, express their feelings and be able to sing a lot of songs in Mandarin. Most importantly they enjoyed their lessons as they are interactive and fun. I hope you enjoy watching the video we have put together for the class.
Back to Blog
Christmas at Kohia12/12/2020 Christmas celebration on the last class at Kohia Terrace School 12.12.20 Students were taught Christmas greetings with pictures and pinyin words on the slides. This will enable them to wish their family and friends the greetings in Mandarin. shèng dàn jié kuài lè - Happy Christmas shèng dàn lǎo rén - Santa Clause shèng dàn shù - Christmas tree sòng lǐ wù - to give a present Zhù nǐ shèng dàn jié kuài lè - wishing you a Happy Christmas A Christmas video spoken in Mandarin was shown to the students. They were so engrossed in the story as our teacher explained to them: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6sUvzq870Y&feature=youtu.be Each student was given an A5 paper with pictures of a Santa Clause and presents with pinyin words. They had to colour the pictures, glue a stick to the side of the paper and they held it like a flag. From the paper flags, they learnt how to say the pinyin words of: shèng dàn jié kuài lè, Wǒ xǐhuān lǐwù (Happy Charistmas, I like presents) Parents were invited to join us to celebrate the happy occasion of Christmas and Kohia Terrace School Principal was our special guest. The Principal reinforced the learning of the Chinese language, its culture and the School supports the courses that Pistachio Mandarin is doing. Yatchun thanked all the key stakeholders who were, the customers being the students and their parents, the teaching staff and Kohia Terrace School for working together around the challenges of the pandemic and to make 2020 a good year. Finally, Santa Clause showed up by ringing the bell and with a bag of goodies. The children were so excited when they saw Santa. Santa took a seat and lǐ wù (presents) were given away to the children. We concluded the year with morning tea. There was a big variety of food contributed by our parents and adult students. You can see in the video that the children were ripping into the food packaging and really enjoying the party. I hope you enjoy watching the video we have put together for the class below.
Back to Blog
Mid-Autumn Festival1/10/2020 Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival, is a major festival celebrated by the Chinese culture. Each year, it falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth month on the Lunar calendar. Here, families gather together to sample autumn harvests, light lanterns and admire what's believed to be the fullest moon of the year. In China, the Mid-Autumn Festival is the second most important traditional festival after Chinese New Year. This festival is also celebrated in other parts of Asia such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and Macau. In the Gregorian calendar, the Moon Festival usually falls in September or early October. In 2020, it falls on 1st October. Pistachio Mandarin Language Centre celebrated the Mid - Autumn Festival (Zhōngqiū jié）with our students last week, which was also our last lesson for Term 3. We celebrated this festival by retelling the story of Chang E and Hou Yi, made paper lanterns and taught our students the keywords relating to this important festival. According to Chinese mythology, there were originally 10 suns which rose in the sky, scorching many crops and people to death. However, after time, Hou Yi, who was a brilliant archer, soon came to rescue the villages. He shot down nine of the ten suns and left only one in the sky. Afterwards, Hou Yi became a greatly respected hero and received an elixir of immortality from Wangmu, the Queen of Heaven. Unfortunately, one of Hou Yi's archery students, Feng Meng, tried to seize the elixir when he wasn't home. In order to protect the elixir, Hou Yi's wife Chang E drank it and immediately ascended into the skies. Through this, she became the moon goddess and left her husband. Hou Yi missed his wife so much that he made an offering to the moon. In memory of Chang E, people honoured her by eating fruit and making mooncake. Here is the link of the story of the Mid-Autumn Festival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMMU1YJadzE After the story telling, our students learnt how the Chinese celebrate the Mid- Autumn Festival (Zhōngqiū jié) nowadays. Families come together to have moon cake (chī yuè bǐng), enjoy the full moon (shǎng yuè , dine with a big meal (chī dà cān) and children will immerse in playing the lanterns (wán dēng lóng). We also learnt the greeting of "Happy Mid-Autumn Festival " ( zhōng qiū jié kuài lè). The children made their own paper lanterns (zuò dēng lóng) to celebrate, which they enjoyed very much. Everyone had a great time celebrating this traditional festival together. Through this activity our students were able to practice their speaking skills through wishing each other celebratory phrases and keywords relating to the festival. See below for some photos and video of Pistachio Mandarin's celebration of the Mid- Autumn Festival. Link for the video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vv8bHGMF1Il7mKPL_mzMcNdv0VLuMJKY/view?usp=sharing Photos:
Back to Blog
Chinese New Year27/1/2020 新年快乐！恭喜发财！万事如意！Xīnnián kuàilè, Gōngxǐ fācái, Wànshì rúyì. Happy new year everyone, may you have a prosperous New Year, and wishing you all the best. As many of you may know, we recently celebrated the Chinese New Year last month. Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival or the Lunar New Year, marks the new year of the Lunar calendar, beginning on the second new moon after the Winter Solstice and ending fifteen days later on the full moon. This year, 2020, it began on the 25th of January and ends on the 8th of February. There are many myths and customs associated with the festival. It was traditionally a time to honour deities as well as ancestors. The evening of the day before Chinese New Year (eve), is often when families gather for an annual reunion dinner. It is also very traditional for every family to clean their house, in order to sweep away any bad fortune and to make space for incoming good luck. Another custom is the decoration of doors and windows with red paper-cuts and couplets which usually represent good fortune, happiness, wealth and longevity. The older generations/those who are married give children red envelopes which contain money. The colour red symbolises good luck and is a symbol to ward off evil spirits. The Chinese zodiacs are a twelve year cycle in which an animal represents each year. There are twelve Chinese zodiac animals - Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. 2020 is the year of the Rat. On Saturday, we had our first class back at Kohia Terrace school. We taught our students about the major cultural festival. We taught them words relating to CNY, such as 红包 hóng bāo - red envelope, 灯笼 dēng lóng - lantern, 饺子 jiǎozi - dumplings, and more.
We got the children to create their own red envelopes so their parents could give it to them at the end of the lesson with a little gift inside of them which is considered to be 'lucky money', which is one of the main traditions of Chinese New Year. Our tutors showed them a video of the story of Lunar New Year and how it originated. It all started with the monster called “年Nián” when went to the villages. Nián wrecked havoc all around the villages, and as a result the people became extremely afraid of the monster. Each year, Nián would come to the villages, and the people would hide in the homes, hoping that Nián would go away soon and leave them alone. One day, a wise old man came up with the idea on how to scare the monster away. If you want to learn more about Chinese culture and the language, don't forget to sign up with Pistachio Mandarin Language Centre. Click here for more information about our classes!
Back to Blog
Tutor's Day Out15/1/2020 Hi everyone, happy new year! We hope you all enjoyed your holidays! Friendly reminder that Term 1 2020 starts on the 15th of February. If you haven't signed up yet, or have any questions, make sure to email us at pistachiomandarin@gmail.com, text on 0211846993, or click here for our "Contact Us" page. On the 14th of December 2019, the last day of Term 4, we had a Christmas staff lunch and Yatchun took the team of tutors out for minigolf. This was to thank the staff for giving their best effort to make 2019 a great year. We really appreciate their positive contribution and hard work. This Christmas function was a team building exercise and it brought all of our tutors together. It was a great time for all the tutors to meet each other if they hadn't already, and to network and share some teaching tips and ideas. Minigolf was new to a lot of us. In spite the hot weather, we learnt the game through teeing off on the Safari golf course that was surrounded by animals and obstacles. We hit and hit the ball before it finally got into the hole. We had lots of fun and laughter, and it was certainly a great experience. This outing ties into the topic of "Sports and Hobbies" that was taught in term 4 to a couple of our classes, including "Golf" 高尔夫球 gāo ěr fū qiú. Below are some photos and short videos of the Christmas lunch and the minigolf outing.
Back to Blog
Wow, what a great year! Term 4 2019 is now finished, Christmas is over and the New Year is just around the corner! To acknowledge the contribution from our students and staff throughout this year, Pistachio Mandarin decided to celebrate the last class on the 14th December, with all our tutors, students and parents. There were fun games and activities, including an exciting Christmas story told by our tutors Sylvia and Shirley lǎo shī (linked here) and the 小兔子 xiǎo tù zǐ (little rabbit) video was role played by our students (linked here). The small xiǎo tùzǐ knew not to open the door for the 狼 láng (wolf). They knew to open the door for their mummy. This time round, instead of the 妈妈兔子 mā mā tù zǐ (mummy rabbit) coming home, it was the 圣诞老人 shèng dàn lǎo rén (Santa Clause) who rang the bell with a bag of goodies. The children were so happy to open the door for Santa Claus. One of our adult students, Dorin, graciously agreed to dress up as Santa Claus. The kids all gathered around Santa, and he said in Mandarin: "我有礼物送给你" wǒ yǒu lǐ wù sòng gěi nǐ (I have presents for you). As each kid received their presents, they wished Santa a Merry Christmas; "祝你圣诞节快乐 zhù nǐ shèngdàn jié kuài lè". Thereafter there was a shared morning tea where parents, students and teachers all got together to network and to enjoy the food. Thank you to all the students, parents, teachers who have helped made this year an awesome one. We are looking forward to another great year in 2020. Pictures and a video are attached below. Merry Christmas everyone, and have a Happy New Year!
Back to Blog
Returning for Term 44/11/2019  Dàjiā hǎo (Hello everyone) Huān yíng huí lái ( Welcome back) Pistachio Mandarin Language Centre classes resumed two Saturdays ago at our Kohia Terrace School in Epsom, and we are so excited to welcome everyone back for Term 4! Due to recommencing since the holidays, we did a lot of revision of the first week back. Beginner's Junior In the junior’s class, we introduced new subjects on what is today’s date. Learning about dates is important as it is part of our daily conversation. Some content included: 今天是几月几日？jīn tiān shì jǐ yuè jǐ rì? - what is today’s date? 月 yuè - month 日 rì - day 今天 jīn tiān - today To reinforce our students' learning, we used match stick size sticks to make the character s of the month and day. This is an activity that the children love to do and it will help them to gradually learn the words, dates and characters. Our current class numbers range is from 4 – 10 students. Having a low class number benefit students enormously with the low ratio to teacher, and the tutors are able to focus more on each of the students individually. Beginner's One For the second Beginner's class, we revised the topic of the weather. This included questions such as: 今天的天气这么样？Jīntiān de tiānqì zhème yàng? - What is the weather like today? 今天的天气是... Jīntiān de tiānqì shì... - Today’s weather is ... 下雨 Xià yǔ - rainy 下雪 Xià xuě - snowy 多云 duō yún - cloudy 晴天qíng tiān - sunny We introduced the topic of sports (yùn dòng) and hobbies (Àihào). New Zealand is a sporting nation, therefore learning about sports and being able to converse in this topic is very useful. "What is the most popular sport in New Zealand?” “Rugby!" - 橄榄球 gǎn lǎn qiú The All Blacks are called 全黑队 quán hēi duì New Zealand's All Black team is the best rugby team. (新西兰的全黑队是最好的橄榄球队Xīnxīlán de quán hēi duì shì zuì hǎo de gǎnlǎnqiú duì). In Mandarin, there are words to describe whether to hit the ball or to kick the ball. To hit = 打 Dǎ To kick = 踢 Tī For example: To play table tennis is 打乒乓球 Dǎ pīngpāng qiú To play soccer is 踢足球 Tī zúqiú Click here for a video link to the lesson on sports & hobbies Beginner's Adults In the adults’ class, we introduced a current event which happened yearly in China on 1st October. This event is called the National Day (Guóqìng jié). However, this year China celebrated 70th anniversary since the People Republic of China was formed in 1949. This is a major event in China’s history. The parade was celebrated in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Here are some video links on the celebration and the fireworks display. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7395qcF2MGA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R73uSfOGna4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttwk51eCBMQ The National Day is also referred to as the Golden Week (Huángjīn zhōu). The Chinese people take a week off to travel around the country and going home to see their families. Retail and tourism are on overdrive and consumer spending brings in lots of revenue which stimulates the domestic economy. Here is a link on the National Day Golden Week. https://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/festival/national.htm Roads, train stations, public transports and airports are packed with traffic and people. Here is a link on National Day holiday travel forecast unveiled https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201909/18/WS5d81ed31a310cf3e3556c347.html Interested in joining our classes? Email us at pistachiomandarin@gmail.com or click here for further enquires. We provide group classes, private one-on-one classes, and online classes to fit your needs and objectives. Mobile: 021 1846993 Facebook: Pistachio Mandarin Language Centre |
