GUEST BLOG: Celebrating Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month with Children

We are mid-way through Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month!! Come learn about ways to celebrate with this informative guest blog from Miss Panda Chinese.... and try some of these learning tools!

May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month - a celebration of the culture and history of Asian-Pacific Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.  Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month originated as a congressional bill in 1978 and in 1992 it was expanded from a week to a month-long celebration.  This is a good time to learn something new about the diversity of Asian-Pacific cultures or to reflect on your culture with your child if you are descended from these groups.

Here in Hawaii we celebrate many Asian cultures throughout the year.  We watch mochi pounding demonstrations and try out kimonos at the Ohana Festival at the Japanese Cultural Center.  We enjoy the acrobatic Dragon dance, Chinese crafts for kids, and various traditional lunar new year dishes during the three-week-long Chinese New Year festivities in town.  Many people wear leis on Lei Day and its celebration includes music, hula and lei making.  We feel the power of tae kwon do and sample savory Korean cuisine like kim chi fried rice at the annual Korean Festival.

Hawaii is the proverbial “melting pot” and the schools here embrace the diversity of cultures.  Children might cook a traditional Korean dish at school and bring home the recipe to share with the family.  Kids go on field trips to the theater to watch plays adapted from traditional Japanese children’s stories.  Hawaiian is a part of the school curriculum and some schools also offer other World Language Program languages such as Japanese and Chinese starting from kindergarten.

The fun part about learning a culture is that children can compare the differences in various aspects.  When we see the differences in cultures we also identifying the similarities in them.  For the month of May you and your child can pick a country in the Asia-Pacific region and start exploring. 

For my classes at the school we pick China as our adventure destination.  First, we start the program finding Asia on the globe and we “fly” to different countries where the children’s parents or (great) grandparents are from.  We spend some time listening to the children talking about the food they like from that country and the language they speak there.  Then we “fly” to our final destination, China, and start our “Chinese Culture Experience Day!” 

Below is a list of activities children enjoy.  You can follow the ideas and replace with the country and culture you choose.

Story Time

Read together with your children.  For the Chinese culture I have two stories to recommend:

“Dim Sum for Everyone!” by Grace Lin introduces the little food dishes you might have seen on the carts in some Chinese restaurants and how families enjoy a Dim Sum meal together.  The concluding pages provide the history of Dim Sum and customs of having the meal. 

“The Monkey King - Sūn wù kōng”, is a popular Chinese story for children that tells of the trickster Monkey King and his courageous journey to the west.  Many of my students remark that the Monkey King and the Japanese story, Momotaro, which tells of a brave samurai born from a peach, are similar in some ways.

Music Fun

Here is a song every Chinese kid knows, Two Tigers!  Roar and sing with me!

Watch a short video from Taipei Chinese Orchestra.  Experience the sound of the Chinese Instruments.

Chopstick Challenge

People from China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and many Asian countries use chopsticks when they eat.  How do you hold chopsticks?  Can you pick up pasta, beans, and rice with chopsticks?  Put out three trays with three different-sized grains and use chopsticks to pick them up into a bowl.  I always add a bowl of easy-to-pick-up cereal for the kids.  Children get a kick out of this activity and always want more snacks on the tray.

Write with a Chinese brush

Place the traditional inkpad, ink stone, and Chinese brush on the table and now we are going to write with a Chinese brush.  The soft brush is very different from the pencils we use today.  Children are always happy to know that modern Chinese children do not have to do their homework with a Chinese brush!

Chinese kids’ outdoor game

The “1-2-3 Wooden Men” game is similar to “freeze tag.”  The person who is “it” turns his back to the rest of the children who are lined up 10 or more feet away and says “yī' èr sān mù tou rén” (literally “1, 2, 3 wooden men!”).  When the person who is “it” is saying the sentence the kids behind him should run toward him.  As soon as he or she finishes the sentence they turn around and check all the children to make sure they are all as still as a wooden man. Whoever moves at this time is sent back to the starting line.  When the first person reaches “it” and touches him or her the game of tag starts.  Whoever is tagged first then becomes “it” and the game starts over again.

Eat to Believe

The best way to enjoy a culture is taste its food.  Plan a family trip to one of the international markets near you.  If you visit a Chinatown you might find the ever-popular Bubble Tea from Taiwan, Dim Sum from Hong Kong or Dumplings from Beijing.  If you would like to try a simple Chinese dish at home here is an authentic Chinese Fried Rice recipe from Steamy Kitchen.  Enjoy!

Matching Game: 

There are seven international dishes here.  Can you match them to the countries they come from?

Hong Kong            Pho

Japan                     Kim Chi

Korea                    Dim Sum

Singapore              Beef Noodle

Taiwan                  Pad Thai

Thailand                Hainan Chicken Rice

Vietnam                Sushi

Happy Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month!  What country do you choose to explore?  What is your biggest discovery?  Feel free to share with us!

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Resource:

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

APA Month Booklist on PBS

History for Kids

Exhibition of Monkey King: A Story from China at Children’s Museum of Manhattan

Meet some of the Talented and Influential Asian Pacific Americans on Nickelodeon

AUTHOR BIO

Amanda “Miss Panda” Hsiung-Blodgett (whose Chinese last name literally means "bear”) is the mother of two young bilingual children and the creator of the “Let’s Learn Mandarin Chinese with Miss Panda!” audio CD – the first installment of her Chinese learning series for young children.  A native of Taiwan with parents from Mainland China, she currently lives in Honolulu, Hawaii.  She has traveled to China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand to experience the unique culture of each place.  For more information about “Miss Panda” visit her at MissPandaChinese or on Facebook. 

(Matching game answers: Hong Kong – Dim Sum. Japan – Sushi. Korea – Kim Chi. Singapore = Hainan Chicken Rice.  Taiwan – Beef Noodle. Thailand – Pad Thai. Vietnam – Pho.)