Malindi's Journey

How did we get here?

2010-07-27T14:56:00.000-07:00

Greetings Fellow Travelers,

Link to Map of World with Chinese character labels

Boston is the city where we started. From Boston, Alicia flew west, and landed in the city that is known as “City by the Bay.”

Looking at these two maps, can you figure out where we started from and where our first stop was? We first flew from the east coast to the west coast of the United States.

If you answered “San Francisco” which is known by that name, then you are correct!

Using a push pin and a piece of string, pin one end of the string to the place on the map where Boston is, pin the other end of the string to the place on the map where San Francisco is.

Teachers, you can actually download this, blow these maps up and put them up in your classroom. This is a good mapping activity you can do with your students. The continent labels are in Chinese characters, which is good for students to see; you can label them in English as well.

From San Francisco, we flew west again across the ocean, and landed in a city in China that is an island. The name of the island means “Fragrant Harbor” in English.

Can you guess which city it is?

Look it up on the web if you can’t figure it out! Did you get
Now, take another piece of string, and pin one end to San Francisco and the other end to…
Hong Kong!

Ok, now, what ocean did we fly across to get here?
Find it on the map, and place a blue circle of string around it!

Now, for the last stop of the flight – we flew south from Hong Kong over the South China Sea: put a blue circle of yarn around that.

We flew over the Straits of Malacca – find the Straits and put another blue circle of string around that! We finally landed in a city with the initials K.L., in a country that begins with the letter “M.” Can you find this city on the map?

When you find this city, pin another piece of string from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur.

What country is it in?

Wait! The trip isn’t done yet!

From Kuala Lumpur, we drove south by car to the city where our conference was. This city begins with an “M” and has the same name as the Straits. When you find this city, pin a string from Kuala Lumpur to Malacca, and put a big star on Malacca.

Note: Malacca is spelled “Melaka” when you are in South East Asia – so you will see it spelled both ways on different maps – it’s still the same city!

Our Presentatioin

2010-07-27T14:48:00.000-07:00

Our presentation was scheduled for Wednesday, July 7, 2010. It was the final English language session of the conference, titled “Zheng He’s Voyages: Historic Traces and Research”. The Chair of our panel was Dr. Dato’Hj. Sidek Bin Jami, of the National Archives of Malaysia. Our panel included Dr. Tan Ta Sen of the Cheng Ho (Zheng He) Cultural Museum and President of the International Zheng He Society, and Mr. Choirul Mahfud, from Surabaya Indonesia.

We thought because we were on the last panel of the conference, there would be the least amount of people attending, because usually by the end of a long conference, people go out and sightsee and shop. However, that was not the case. We arrived in the room early and hardly anyone was there, but soon, the room was full with over 200 conference participants.

We then thought that the room was full because our panel included Dr. Tan, the chairman of the whole conference. We were later told by one Mr. Clifford Pereira of the Royal Geographic Society of England (one of the participants) that he had heard people talking and that they were in fact anxiously waiting to hear our presentation. Many people were eager to hear about our research and what we had to say as teachers, and learn about our students’ work.

We presented a power point and spoke about Malindi’s Journey, the children’s book we have written that highlights the contact between East Africa, China, and the role of Islam in the ancient trade routes that were thriving along the east coast of Africa for centuries before the arrival of the Europeans. We spoke about the giraffe, which is still used today by the Chinese government as a symbol of cooperation between China and African countries. We said that as teachers, we believe it is important to link research to actual classroom practice. Alicia showed examples of how to web out curriculum for a culturally grounded thematic unit in early childhood/elementary classrooms. Lucy showed how a theme can be developed across content areas for high school. In both cases, we spoke about the importance of engaging students in the content while meeting state and national standards.

We showed slides of students and their work from Alicia’s former classroom at The Young Achievers Math and Science School. We showed pictures of students building a boat, doing observational drawings of a Swahili mtepe, engaging in hands-on geography, math and literacy projects. Lucy showed slides of her students from Odyssey High School examining artifacts and learning about evidence.

Finally, we spoke about the modern connections between Africa and China, and how Kenya and China are collaborating to investigate cultural links in the Lamu Archipelago. The National Museum of China, the Beijing University School of Archeology, and the Kenya National Museum are now engaged in a joint venture to excavate sunken ships from Zheng He’s treasure fleet. In fact, some of the members of that research team were at the conference and listening to our presentation!

We closed our presentation by talking about the importance of collaboration between teachers and researchers. During the question and answer period, we were asked many different questions about our work. They asked when the book will be published, how we have the time to do all this work and still do all our work in the classroom, more about the curriculum. Several times during our presentation and the question and answer period, people stood up and applauded because of things we said about teachers being the vehicle to bring knowledge and stories of Zheng He and his connections with Africa and Islam into the classroom in ways that impact student achievement and their global understanding.

On another note, we feel it’s important to mention how well we were received, as Boston Public School teachers. We were the only school teachers from any country to make a presentation at this conference, and people were very interested in what we had to say.

We were given first-class treatment by the conference organizers; we were picked up at the airport and given a nice hotel room. At the Zheng He (Cheng Ho) Cultural Museum, we were treated like visiting scholars and dignitaries. We spent a full day there after the conference doing research, and were given access to all the parts of the museum. The museum director was very interested in our ideas for developing learning activities that could be incorporated into the exhibits to make the museum more engaging for school children. We exchanged contact information; and promised to send pictures of our students’ work on Zheng He and Afro-Asian connections so that it can be displayed in the museum.

On a personal note from Alicia:

I was the only presenter, and in fact, the only conference participant of African descent. I’ve been wearing my hair in braids for this trip, and from the time I arrived, when I realized there were no other participants from the African Diaspora, I made it a point to wear my African beads, my cowrie shell necklaces, and the clothing I purchased in East Africa. People were very happy to see me there. Participants kept approaching me and asking me which African country I was from. I felt a sense of pride to actually be one of the conference presenters, and that I could represent the voice of the African Diaspora at a conference that was focused on the Afro-Asian World. I felt it was important that I was there. I was happy later that several Chinese scholars raised the issue that there needed to be more African voices at the conference, since the theme was of China looking outside of itself.

Zheng and the Afro-Asian World

2010-07-14T01:44:00.000-07:00

The Stage and Conference Banner

Greetings Fellow Travelers,

Sorry it’s taken us so long to post the first installment of our travels, but here goes!

We attended the First International Conference on Zheng He, in Melaka, Malaysia. The Conference title was “Zheng He and the Afro-Asian World.”

Why was the conference in Melaka?

When Zheng He arrived in Melaka, it strengthened Melaka’s position as a prosperous trade and international relations center, where traders from the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia, and East Asia came to trade. Zheng He had very friendly relationship with the Sultan of Melaka, and it was a regular stopping point for his ships on each one of his voyages.

The Conference was opened with a Bacaan Doa – a prayer in Malay language, given by Datuk Wira Haji Hamdin Bin Abdollah, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Perzim. Then there were several more welcome speeches: by Dr. Tan Ta Sen, the President of the International Zheng He Society, Tan Sri Tiong Hew Khing, President of the World Chinese Media Association, Professor Leo Suryadinata, Director of the Chinese Heritage Center in Singapore, and a lastly, a speech by the Tun Mohd Khalil Yaakob Governor of Melaka, who welcomed everyone to conference, and talked bout the importance of producing work for people to learn about Zheng He.

He’s a big fan of Zheng He, and told participants that he is a great admirer of Admiral Zheng He and has read every single publication and seen every documentary about him. He also told everyone he had read every single paper that was to be presented at the conference.

The Governor spoke about how Zheng He was a good Muslim, a scholar, and a man of integrity, who serves as a model of peace today. The governor spoke about modern Africa, the excavation of one of Zheng He’s ships that is happening today in partnership between China and East Africa. He was very happy about the title of the conference, and said he was looking forward to learning more about Africa’s connection to China. Other important points he spoke about were the importance of evidence in research, and his hope that at the end of the conference, more conclusive evidence will be available to people who want to learn more about Zheng He and his voyages. He said that all the scholarship and knowledge of Zheng He should be made available in many languages so that there is greater access for all people.

The Governor called Melaka as the melting pot of South East Asia: in Melaka there is a blend of languages, culture and people.

The conference program was printed in three different languages, and most of the speeches were given in four different languages, because of the diversity of the people attending the conference. The major languages spoken in this regions of the world are Mandarin, Malay, English, and Tamil.

The speeches were followed by drumming on a large drum like the ones used on Zheng He’s ships for communication between the ships 600 years ago.

Also on stage during the opening ceremonies was a man who is the 16th generation cousin of Zheng He.

The entire conference lasted four days. Some sessions were in Chinese, and others were in English. 400 people attended the conference!

One of the first presenters, Dr. Siu-leung Lee, is a famous calligrapher and scholar, and works on the Avatar TV Series.

History is always changing – as people find out new information, history changes. That’s why people continue to do research and to share new information that they have found out.

Here are some of the interesting topics about Zheng He and his connection to Africa that people have been researching:

- The population of Africans with Chinese ancestry on Pate Island (Kenya)
- Zheng He’s voyages to the Western Ocean and Communication between Afro-Asia
- Zheng He’s maps show his voyages contributed new knowledge and understanding about
geography and the African continent
- Zheng He’s contributions to the spread of Islam in the Malay world, and his legacy of an open-
minded, peaceful multi-ethnic, multi-relgious community.
- Good relationships he established with other peoples around the Indian Ocean
- Reconstructing one of Zheng He’s treasure ships in Nanjing from primary source documents about the measurements, design and materials

A special flag was designed for this conference:

On the front of the flag:
The character (He) is part of Zheng He’s name, and is the character for Peace and Harmony
The circle is an ancient Chinese calendar using a Chinese compass
The white color represents purity and honesty
The blue represents the ocean

On the back of the flag:
The treasure ship of Zheng He represents that this conference will be a platform for building up international understanding between nation and nation.

Monday night was the banquet to celebrate the first day of the conference. There was lots of delicious Malay food, followed by a cultural performance.

There were many different Malay dishes – here are some:

Mee goring (yellow noodles stir-fryed with vegetables and meat)
Chickeng Rendang – a spicy chicken curry
Laksa lemak – dish with prawn, tofu and egg
Lots of rice – cooked in coconut milk! Yum!
No pork was served – we haven’t seen any pork dishes on this trip at all. More than half of the population in Malaysia is Muslim – 16 million people!

For dessert:
Sago - a famous and popular Malay dessert, a kind of pudding with egg whites, palm sugar, coconut milk and red beans. It looks like tapioca [picture] – this was so good it was hard to stop eating it!!

There were also many beautiful fruits – durian, star fruit, dragon fruit, pineapple, papaya, and water apple.

Next installment: our presentation was a success!

~ Lucy and Alicia

Invited to Melaka!

2010-06-15T18:14:00.000-07:00

We've been invited to Melaka in Malaysia, to speak about Malindi's Journey at the International Conference on Zheng He ( 郑和) The conference title is:

Zheng He and Afro-Asian World 郑和与亚非世界

We are two of 74 paper presenters in total, including people from

Australia

(2),

China

(36),

Indonesia

(4),

Malaysia

(7),

New Zealand

(1),

Panama

(3),

Singapore

(3),

Taiwan

(9),

(2) and US (7).

After the conference we will travel to Singapore, and then Nanjing. We depart on July 1, and will be blogging on our journey. We are quite excited, and can't wait to begin posting our stories and lots of pictures!

We are grateful to the Fund for Teachers for supporting our travel.

Stay tuned!

Old Beijing, New Beijing

2009-04-12T11:19:00.000-07:00

Greetings! Ni Men Hao!

On our second to last day in Beijing, we had the opportunity to do some sightseeing around Beijing. We visited some historical sites that represents the history of China, and some new sites that represent modern China.

Here are some pictures of some famous places around Beijing:

The most famous, of course, is the Great Wall!

How long is the Great Wall? Different sections were built in different dynasties by different emperors. What can you find out about how it was built?
Did it really keep the Mongols out?

Rooftops of Old Beijing

Old Beijing Hutongs (narrow lanes between the traditional houses)

Nine Dragon Wall

How many toes does each Dragon have?

Tian An Men Square (the Gate of Heavenly Peace)

Whose picture is in the center over the top of the front arch?

Forbidden City, Beijing

Beijing Opera

Temple of Heaven, Beijing

Here is an important historical site that's not in Beijing, but we thought you should see it: Do you know who these soldiers are? Can you find out where you would go in China if you wanted to see them? How old are they? Who created them and why? What else can you find out about them?

Send us a post to this blog when you find out!

Through your research online and in your school library, you can find more pictures and information about these sites and their history. One day you can visit them, too!

**********************************************************************

Now for some sites from new Beijing:

You can still see the rooftops of some old traditional buildings inbetween all the tall modern buildings!

In many parts of Beijing, there are more cars and buses than bicycles now!

We visited a large local department store...

Then we went to visit the sites of the 2008 Beijing Olympics!

We were so excited to see:

The "Bird's Nest" where all the track and field events were held!

We had to buy tickets to go in...

And it was really fun to be inside!

Right across the plaza was the Water Cube, where

all the swimming events were held!

It looks like big water bubbles! And when it lights up at night, it

turns different shades of blue. Very beautiful.

Here you can see the Water Cube and the Birds Nest, both lit up for the nighttime.

Teachers: Here are three great websites your class should check out for more Global education projects:

www.iearn.com

www.Oneworldclassroom.com

www.asiasociety.org

This is our last post for our trip to Beijing. However, in August 2009, Alicia be travel to the International Reaing Association Conference in East Africa. She will be meeting lots of teachers from around the world, and will be writing and posting pictures here to this blog! So, check in with this site in August for updates from East Africa and Dubai!

And please write to us and post comments - tell us how you are using the blog, and what you are learning about China!

We hope to hear from you soon.

Zai jian! See you again!

Alicia and Lucy

School visits in Beijing

2008-11-23T09:27:00.000-08:00

Friday, October 24, 2008

We visited the teachers’ room at the Dandelion school. In China, teachers do not have their desks in the classroom, they each have their own desk in the teachers room. This is where teachers who teach the same subject can meet during their planning periods between classes, and work together, share information and plan lessons.

Dr. Zheng showed us a chart that the students made as they discussed qualities that woul lead to success for themselves and for their school.

Our last two days in Beijing, we had a wonderful opportunity to visit two schools: one elementary and one middle school. Both schools are for children of migrant workers. Both schools are extraordinary, and each is led by a school director and staff of teachers who are all committed to the mission of their school and their work with the students.

We posed for a picture with staff at the entrance to the Dandelion School.

The art teacher at the Dandelion School paints a student-designed mosiac at the entrance to the school.

Lucy, Dr. Zheng (school founder and director), Alicia. The painting artwork all around the school has been designed and painted by students!

We visited the Beijing Xingzhi New Citizen School, an elementary school for migrant children, and the Dandelion School, a middle school, also for migrant children.

Migrant means moving from place to place. Migrant workers are people who must move from place to place to find work to support themselves and their families.

In the United States today, migrant workers tend to be agricultural workers who move from place to place as the seasons change, based on the harvest time of certain fruits and vegetables. Almost 1.3 million U.S. citizens migrate between states to work and earn their living in the agricultural industry (PBS website, link below).

In China, migrant workers are typically people who leave their villages in the countryside to find work in the cities doing construction. They are considered migrant because they have left their home community, however, they may actually stay in the city for a much longer time. In Beijing, almost one million migrant workers live in Beijing, and built most of the tall new skyscrapers and the beautiful Olympics buildings that you saw on television this past summer.

In China, people have a hukou (hoo-koe), or residency permit, for the area where they live. The hukou allows them to find a house or apartment to live in, medical care, and schools for their children. Unfortunately, when people move from one place to another to find work, the government does not give them a hukou for the new city.
We could see that the schools that we visited, which are especially for the children of migrant workers, play an important role in the lives of the families. Some of the children live at the schools; at one school, both teachers and students live in dormitories. Both of the schools also had students who had been displaced because of the earthquake in Sichuan province. At one of the schools, the Director was sponsoring a young student from Sichuan province who had been orphaned.

Teachers:
For more information and background on migrant labor in the United States, check out the PBS website at http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/migrants.html

Also look for stories of Cesar Chavez, Black farmers, and others for literature connections on the topics of agriculture and migrant workers. A good children’s book is Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan.

Language mini-lesson:

In Chinese language, the word for “study” is 学. In pinyin it is written “xué,” (shweh).
According to the site http://www.zhongwen.com/, an explanation of the visual meaning of this character is of hands reaching down through a roof (covered mind) to teach.

From this one character 学, we get:

学校

xué xiào: school

学生

xué sheng: student

学习

xué xí: study

同学

tōng xué: classmate, schoolmate

Here's a different, but important word:

老师

lǎo shī: teacher

Students stay in their classrooms and teachers come to them. Students had their own desks where they can keep all of their books and supplies.

Left: Lucy poses for a picture with a student in a Math English class. His jacket says "40 Acres and a Mule Productions" - Spike Lee's company!

Center: Boys in the class wanted to know our favorite sports. Theirs is...basketball!

Right: We posed for a picture with the 8th grade class.

The Library at the Dandelion School is brand new, and has been supported by donations from teachers who have traveled to China with Primary Source in Watertown. The picture here shows an entire bookshelf full of books donated to the school by Boston teacher Kevin Freeley.

At both schools, students work together to run many parts of the school; they help keep the school clean and beautiful by designing and painting murals; they cook and serve lunch together, they run the library, and participate in other activities that keep the school going.

One school got a recent donation of computers, and these are being set up in a separate computer space in the library.

Mr. Huang, Director of the Xing Zhi School gave us a brief introduction to the founding of the school.

Mr. Huang has been commended in the local newspapers for the work of his school.

Students start the school day with group exercise: marching to music.

Alicia and Lucy march along!

At many schools in China it is common for students to wear uniforms, but at these two particular schools students do not wear uniforms.

Student work was displayed in lots of places; one school had the “Wall of Peace” , a sort of graffiti wall, where students express themselves freely; here students write words and pictures that tell of their hopes and dreams for the future.

"I hope....." (wǒ xī wàng....)

Both schools had their own art studios, where students had an opportunity to create their own art. Both art teachers we met are also artists, and devoted to teaching their students. We saw students learning paint, using many different techniques. They used regular and colored pencils, watercolor, sketchbooks, and large paper. We saw students work that included many practice sketches with pencil, and finished works that represented scenes from students’ lives and experiences.

A young artist with her painting in the Xing Zhi school art studio.

One day we hope that some of our students from Boston can visit China, and these schools - then you can write a blog and tell us about your experiences and new friends!

再见!
zài jiàn! (see you again!)

Lucy and Alicia

Our Fulbright Presentation

2008-10-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

Our Fulbright Presentation
Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Today was the International Education Task Force Plenary Session. This was the final session of the conference, and it we had a large audience. It was held in the Regal Palace VIP Room. The moderator of our panel was Jenise Englund, who is an International Education Consultant and the co-chair of the International Education Task Force. Jenise is the person who invited us to be
part of the panel for this conference.

In addition to us, other presenters included Ana Gil-Garcia, a Professor at Northeastern Illinois University, and Dr. Yun thi Hoang Nguyen, who is the Dean of the Faculty of Education at Hanoi National University of Education in Vietnam. Dr. Gil-Garcia spoke about the need for more global education at all levels: from University down into the primary grades, and Dr. Nguyen spoke about her work starting a master’s program to train educators in special education in Vietnam.

We were the first presenters on the panel, and we spoke about our research and our work on Malindi’s Journey (see our post #2!). We also spoke about the importance of teaching global education in our classrooms. We showed slides of our students at work – pictures of students from Young Achievers at work on projects about East Africa, and pictures of Odyssey students participating in workshops on Environmental Justice at Harvard with the Harvard Program in International Education. We spoke about the students’ learning as examples of how global education can be woven into different aspects of the curriculum in different subjects, and we connected this to the Superintendents’ Pathways to Excellence initiative in Boston’s schools.

We are happy to report that our presentation went really well! We had many people ask us questions during the comment period – they were very impressed by the students’ level of engagement and by the quality of their work. A number of people sought seek us out after the panel to compliment us on the presentation and the importance of our work for all students in the world. We traded business cards and ideas with several university

professors, researchers, teachers and teacher trainers.

Our paper and Power Point will be posted soon on the Fulbright conference website, and we will post the link as soon as it’s up.

That’s all for now! Much more to come!

在见
zài jiàn!

Lucy and Alicia

Eating! 吃饭

2008-10-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

大家你们好!
Hello Everyone!

Our posting today is about food! Here is some important vocabulary:

好 hǎo good
吃 chī eat
饭 fàn food
不 bù no, not
筷子 kuàizi chopsticks

吃饭
chī fàn eat food

好吃
hǎo chī tasty; good to eat

We attended the opening banquet and reception for the conference on Monday night. It was held next door at the Regal Palace Theatre Restaurant. The hall had many big round tables, each with a “lazy susan” (a revolving tray) in the center. Each dish of food is brought out and placed on the lazy susan, and everyone around the table can spin it around to take food from each dish!
We had 10 courses, plus dessert! We were so full afterwards, we didn’t think we’d be hungry again for a long time, but sure enough, we woke up early to have a big breakfast! Our stomachs don’t understand that we’re in a different time zone!

Here is our menu:

Here are some things we ate:

We have found a great little restaurant down the block from the hotel, where lots of local Beijing people eat. The food is much better that the hotel food, very fresh and 好吃! It is also very inexpensive.

Here we ate:

Spicy tofu with ground pork

(ma po do fu)

Spicy chicken with peanuts
(gong bao ji ding)

Mongolian spicy lamb

(Alicia's favorite - on a bed of fresh cilantro!)

Green vegetables

Next time you order some Chinese food, try using chopsticks. And remember:

中国饭不用筷子不好吃!

zhōng guǒ fàn, bù yǒng kuài zi , bù hǎo chī !

"If you don't use chopsticks when eating Chinese food, it just doesn't taste good!"

Tuesday night we attended a cultural performance at the Do Yuan Theater. It is in the center of Beijing around the corner from the Forbidden City, in a beautiful old building with traditional Chinese architecture.

Here are some pictures:

We have a video of the performance , but we couldn't upload it...we'll try again later!

Much more to write, but it's after 2 in the morning (what time is it where you are if it's 2 a.m. here?) and we have to sleep!

Two more days and we come home. so much more to write about!

再见!

Zai jian!

Lucy and Alicia

Science and the Environment

2008-10-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

Science and the Environment
Tuesday October 21, 2008

大家你们好!
Hello Everyone!

Today is a full day at the conference. This morning we attended the panel discussion called “Science and the Environment.”

The presenters talked about how we can use science to save our environment. Dr. Hamroush, Scientific Affairs Advisor at the American Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, said that global warming is a problem for all countries in the world. He said that the only way we will find solutions to these problems is for countries to cooperate with each other. One of the things all the presenters talked about was the importance of planting more trees to help the soil and clean the air.

We learned about a program called “Roots and Shoots,” an international environmental education program for young people. They have programs teaching students in Mongolia to plant trees, and teaching students in Shanghai to plant organic gardens.

Here’s the link to the “Roots and Shoots” website - it’s in English and Chinese!
http://www.jgi-shanghai.org/index1.php?lang=en

Check out the carbon footprint calculator on their site!
http://www.jgi-shanghai.org/php/carbon-home.php

We spoke with Zee Zee Zhong, the Operations Director for the program. She was interested to learn from us about environmental education n in the Boston Public Schools. We told her about the “From Farm to Market” curriculum at the Young Achievers School, the Mission Hill School connection with the Farm School, and the environmental education courses at Odyssey High School, where Lucy teaches. We also told Ms. Zhong about Mayor Menino’s “Grow Boston Greener” project to plant 100,000 trees in Boston by 1020.

Here’s the link to the Grow Boston Greener site:
http://www.growbostongreener.org/

In fact, last weekend while we were traveling to China, there was a tree-planting event and a tree give-away in Roslindale on Saturday, October 18th. Did any teachers or students and families go to that event? If you did, let us know! Share your pictures with us!

Here’s a shout out to Mr. Dionne at the Hurley School, and the science teachers at the Orchard Gardens School, Mr. Roberts and Mr. Pringle: some of these sites will help connect your students’ science work learning to other students around the world.

We traded business cards and look forward to staying in touch with Ms. Zhong and learning more about “Roots and Shoots.”

Mini-Language lesson

In Chinese, a word is called a character.
Each line of the character is called a stroke.
Students here in China practice writing characters with a calligraphy brush and black ink.

Here is the Chinese word for tree:

木 mù tree

Doesn’t the Chinese character for tree look like a tree?

To learn to write this character:
1. click on the link http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/azi/page1.htm
2. find the alphabet, and click on the letter M
3. from the list of words beginning with M, click on the blue character mù 木
Be careful - there’s two words “mu” - make sure you choose the right one!
4. In the top left hand corner you watch how to write the character stroke by stroke.
5. On a white piece of paper, use a black marker and practice writing it.

Questions:
How many strokes are there in the character mù 木 ?
Can you write the strokes in the same order that you see on the website?

Here’s a shout out to Ms. Mao: you are doing great work teaching Chinese language to students at the Ellis, Farragut and the Jackson Mann Schools in Boston! 很好!

Mao 老师, here's a great website for students to practice chinese characters and pin-yin.

Students can put in the pin-yin and find the character, and you can put in pin yin and get the tone marks! (They must know what word they are looking for)

http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/ime.html

We are using this website to put characters on our blog!

(Thanks to Brandon Syms, a brilliant graduate of Odyssey High School, now attending Boston University, for sharing the Chinese tools website!)

Literacy Connections for Elementary Teachers:

The author Huy Voun Lee has a whole series of book for young children with simple Chinese characters and great illustrations. Some of them are: At the Beach, In the Leaves, In the Snow, In the Park, and 1-2-3 Go!

You can blow up pictures of the characters from these books and place them on an easel. You can set up a table at the writing center with copies of the characters on the table, for kids to practice writing characters during center time. They can use markers, or brushes and black paint.

Find the books in the library and have students read them during reading center time.

Geography Questions and Activities for Students:

Places to find on your classroom map of the world:
· Cairo, Egypt
· Shanghai, China
· Mongolia
· Put a piece of yarn around each country.

· Write the character for tree (木 mù ) and place one on each city of the places that you have found on the map.
· Where is Mongolia in relation to China?

· What is a carbon footprint? According to the website, what can people do to make their carbon footprint smaller?
· Can you calculate your carbon footprint?
· What can you do to make your carbon footprint smaller?

Did you know that the National tree of China is the ginko?

What are the national trees of all the countries that you have marked on your world map so far?

Check out this website of the Tree Network to help you:
http://www.globaltree.de/art_projects/global_tree/china_ginkgo_en.html
Click on the countries on the world map to learn more about trees of each country.

That's all for now.

再见! zài jiàn!

Good bye! See you later!

Lucy and Alicia

What are we doing here in Beijing?

2008-10-20T08:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Fellow Travelers,

We realized we should give you some background on our “Malindi’s Journey” Project, and why we are here in Beijing.

In 2001 we began our journey by traveling to Chinese cities on the Silk Road with Primary Source in Watertown, MA. We became curious about the role of Africans in the Silk Road traded. We read a lot about Chinese traders and European traders, but we couldn’t find any information about the African traders who traveled on the Silk Road over the desert and the ocean.

Then we learned about a giraffe who sailed from East Africa to China in 1414! She traveled by boat across the Indian Ocean on an mtepe, an East African boat built without nails. She also traveled on the Treasure Ships of Zheng He, the famous Chinese Admiral of the Ming Dynasty.
We learned that Ambassadors from the Kingdom of Malindi presented the giraffe to the Emperor of China as a special gift in 1414.

The Emperor who called himself Yong Le, had never seen a giraffe before. He was so happy and excited that he had a painting and a poem made in celebration of the giraffe’s arrival in China.

The inscription on this painting congratulates the emperor on the arrival of such an
auspicious beast. The giraffe is still used today by the Chinese government as a symbol of friendship and cooperation between China and Africa.

We decided we wanted to write a book for our students telling the story of this giraffe’s journey. When we began to write the book, we decided to call the giraffe “Malindi,” after the place she came from. Malindi is now town on the coast of Kenya.

In 2004 we were fortunate enough to travel to Malindi in Kenya to research Swahili culture, history and trade.

We gathered evidence of African connections to China by visiting museums and archeological sites,

and learning about Swahili boatbuilding. We also interviewed historians and storytellers from Malindi who knew about the giraffe and the visits of the Chinese.

We were able to do this thanks to funding from the Fulbright Foundation through Boston University, and a Fund for Teachers Fellowship and moral support from our schools.

In 2006 we were invited to present our research and classroom work at the Fulbright Conference in Morocco!

We finished writing our book Malindi’s Journey in the summer of 2007. It is now in the process of being published.

The Fulbright Task Force on International Education invited us back to present our book and our classroom work.

Now, here we are in Beijing in 2008 for the Fulbright Conference on “The Interconnected World.” Thanks to the Asian American Studies Program and the Confucius Center at the University of Massachusetts/Boston, who are supporting our work and made it possible for us to come to Beijing.

We will present on Wednesday afternoon at the International Education Task Force Plenary.

Here is a link to the description of the conference: http://www.fulbright.org/conference/2008/index.html

Here is a link to the conference program:
http://www.fulbright.org/conference/2008/program.htm

Our project is part of a larger vision of global education for our students, and it fits into the context of Dr. Johnson’s vision how to move BPS forward into the 21st century through global education at all levels. She has spoken of the need for our students to become global citizens of the world and the need for them to be dual language learners, so that they will be prepared for the opportunities that await them. This level of education will help close the achievement gap and opening pathways to excellence for our students.

Tomorrow we will attend sessions of the conference, and visit the International Book Store on Wangfujing Street!

That's all for now! We promise more stories tomorrow!

Zai jian pengyoumen!

Lucy (Meng Ru Shi)

and

Alicia (Ke Ling Si)

We fly to Beijing!

2008-10-18T22:24:00.001-07:00

NI HAO!

你好

We have arrived safely in Beijing. What a modern journey! Alicia and Lucy took separate flights, and each flight took a separate route over the earth to get from Boston to Beijing.

Lucy flew from Boston to Washington, D.C., then from Washington D.C. to Beijing. She boarded her flight at 9:30 a.m. in Boston, and arrived in Beijing at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Alicia flew from Boston to Los Angeles, then Los Angeles to Beijing. She boarded her flight in Boston Friday evening at 6:15 p.m., and arrived in Beijing at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday.

Questions for younger students:
In what direction did Alicia and Lucy fly to get to Beijing? North? South? East? West?
Look at your classroom map. Find Los Angeles. Trace the pilot’s route to Beijing.
Find Washington, D.C. Trace the pilot’s route to Beijing. You can use two different colored yarns to show the two different routes: one for Alicia and one for Lucy.

After Alicia left Los Angeles, what ocean did she fly over to get to Beijing? Take another piece of yarn and make a circle around that ocean on the map.

What oceans did Lucy fly over to get to Beijing? Look at the maps that are posted here – they show Lucy’s route.

Now, go the classroom globe. In one color, put a circle around these cities: Boston, Los Angeles, and Beijing.

Using another color yarn, put a circle around the ocean between Los Angeles and Beijing.

Book resource: Me on the Map

Questions for older students:
How many miles did Alicia and Lucy each travel to reach their destination?

How is it that Alicia left L.A. at 1:40 a.m. Saturday and arrived in Beijing at 5:20 Sunday morning, but her flight from LA to Beijing was only 13 hours long.

How is it that Lucy left Washington, D.C. at 12:12 p.m. Friday, arrived in Beijing at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, but her flight from D.C. to Beijing was only 16 hours long?

Where is the International Date line? What happens when you cross it?

Clue: Use your classroom map and the internet. Here’s a good site to check out:
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/dateline.htm

Extension: For classroom or after school geography clubs: make a big map, marking the oceans, the major cities, the routes taken, and the International Date line.

We had aisle seats, and no view out of the window, so the only thing we saw on the whole journey was the inside of the plane! Lucy took these pictures of the video map on the screen in front of her seat. It was fun to keep track of where we were over the earth. As you can see, Lucy's route flew north from the United States, over Greenland, then over the North Pole, and approached Beijing from the North.

After we arrived in Beijing, we had to go through Customs and have our Visas checked;

then we went downstairs we went to the train shuttle that would take us to the baggage area to collect our luggage. We liked that the signs were all in English and Chinese - it made it easy to figure out where to go. Everyone from the plane was crowding toward the entrance of the train -there was a big sign that told everyone to "RELAX" - there's a train every 3 minutes!

After we collected our luggage, there was one more really important thing to do before we could take a taxi to the hotel! Can you guess what that was?

We had to exchange money! China uses different currency than the United States. We had to exchange our U.S. dollars into Chinese Yuan. Another name for yuan is ren min bi [ren min bee]. Ren min means "the people", so ren min bi means something like "the people's money."

Here's a great link with more information about Chinese currency: http://www.chinatoday.com/fin/mon/index.htm

You can see pictures of the paper money and the coins. Check it out!

Questions for students:

Alicia and Lucy have $100.00 [US]
They want to exchange their US dollars for Chinese RMB.
How many RMB will they get?

Clue: Here's a good currency converter site - http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Extension Activities:

Use some of the currency vocabulary to create a math word wall

Print out copies of the Chinese currency, and draw you own in your readers and writers notebook, or even your math notebook!

Who is the person on the 100 yuan bill? why is he important in Chinese history?

Compare and contrast: what is the same and what is different about Chinese and U.S. currency? Use a magnifying glass to examine the front and the back. Teachers: chart the responses on chart paper

Design your own currency: who would you put on the front and why? What would you put on the back?

{Alicia says she would put Barack Obama on a $100 bill. On the back it would say "Yes, we can!"}

It was easy to find a taxi, they were all lined up outside the airport. The taxi driver said "ni hao" to Alicia, and she answered back, "ni hao!"

Lucy learned Chinese in college, and was very excited to be able to understand and speak with people when she got here.

Language lesson #1:

Ni Hao means "Hello"

你好

xie xie means "thank you"

谢谢

Zai jian means "good bye"

再见

peng you means "friend"

朋友

Beijing is so full of modern tall buildings - lots of concrete and glass. There still lots of construction going on after the Olympic games. When Alicia first visited Beijing in 2000, still a lot of old houses. Alicia was excited when she noticed the Olympic clock. She thought, "oh my goodness, am I really back in China?"

And cars! Lucy lived in Beijing 20 years ago, and there were only a few cars then - mostly taxis. Only wealthy people owned their own car. Now, cars rule the road just like in the United States.

That's all for now - we're tired!

It's 6 a.m. Monday morning here - what time is it there?

More later today! Zai jian pengyou!

Malindi's Journey

How did we get here?

Our Presentatioin

Zheng and the Afro-Asian World

Invited to Melaka!

Old Beijing, New Beijing

School visits in Beijing

Our Fulbright Presentation

Eating! 吃 饭

Science and the Environment

What are we doing here in Beijing?

We fly to Beijing!

Eating! 吃饭