One of my favourite types of cuisine is none other than Chinese food. Some of my favourite dishes in Chinese food are pineapple chicken, Singapore noodles, egg fried rice, spring rolls and chow mein. It has been said that what is sold in Chinese Restaurants is Not what the Chinese themselves consume. Is this just a rumour or is there some level of truth to it?!? Well, I plan to sort of compare and contrast the food dishes that are served in China compared to what we eat here in the Chinese restaurants in Trinidad and Tobago.
Good Ole Local Chinese Food!!!!!!
One of My Personal Favourites: Chicken Spring Rolls!!!
Chunky Vegetables, Jasmine Rice & Chinese Style Chicken!
Sweet & Sour Pork & Chunky Vegetables!
This is also one of My Faves: Chinese Style Chicken, Singapore Noodles & Chinese Style Rice!
Chinese Style Chicken, Chow Mein & Chinese Style Rice!
Sweet & Sour Chicken, Noodles & Chow Mein!
Dishes Made in China!!!!!!
Dim Sum: Steamed Asian Dumplings Stuffed with Minced Beef with Gravy!
Noodles with a Poached Egg!
Black Tea Eggs!
Duck Soup!
Zhongi: Glutinous Rice Stuffed with Different Fillings!
Beef & Veggie Rolls!
Mapo Doufu:- This is a Mixture of Tofu & Sichuan Peppers in Spicy Black Bean Sauce!
Steamed Crab Soaked in Wine!
Juicy Pork Slices with Hot Pepper, Garlic & Spicy Bean Sauce!
A COLLABORATION BETWEEN KHRYSTYNE FROM "I AM LIFESTYLE" & "LET'S LEARN MANDARIN"
I must say it has truly been very interesting collaborating with Khrystyne Sampson from "I Am Lifestyle". She was really clever introducing some really creative ideas. I literally jumped at the chance to work with her because I know I hadn't collaborated with anyone from south thus far and I thought it would be a really interesting learning experience. I came up with the original idea of doing a Chinese fitness blog and she totally developed and expanded on the idea after which I added and expanded the document she had compiled. I was really glad she came up with a Yin-Yang fitness methods because this came as a sort of part 2 blog to my Feng Shui and Yin-Yang blog completed earlier today. I just want to thank Khrystyne for her graciousness and patience working with me and I would love to work with her in an academic environment in the future.
中国有方法健身
A Chinese Approach to Fitness
In the Chinese culture the symbol Yin-Yang represents
opposing forces. These forces show the yin to be cooler and passive, and the
yang to be more hardcore and aggressive. In looking at their approach to
fitness to put it simply would be to strike a balance between the yin and yang
type of exercise. The yin energy helps to soothe your mind and body. This
energy replenishes the body and aides in the accomplishment of your goals etc.
Whereas the yang incorporates all your decisions for spirituality, physical and
emotional that deals with the mind and body. The yang aids your body to move
about and shift gear quickly.
Some Examples of
Yin Fitness are;
Yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi, qigong
Some Examples of
Yang Fitness are:
Intensive gym, Chinese Martial Arts (Kung Fu), Cardiovascular
exercises
Balancing the
yin yang approach….
It is said that balancing your exercise as it pertains
to the symbolism of the yin-yang is beneficial for long term results. This is
because it helps with a person’s endurance level. You would not have to worry
that you are not getting enough exercise or it is not intense enough for your
liking, it will be at the right pace. When too much of intensive energy is
utilized the body can break down or go into crashing modes, however if the
right stability is found then a person may last longer. For example, if you go
to the gym and the trainer only gives you weights, heavy equipment and intense
aerobics then your body will soon be in deficiency for the Yin to help with the
replenishment of the body. But if you fuse the two your endurance level will
increase and result in better long term goals.
These Four methods of exercise are developed for
striking the balance between both forces.
Tai Chi
Tai Chi or Tai Chi Chuan can be translated to mean “supreme
ultimate fist”. It is a slow and elegant style combination of Kung Fu and yoga.
It involves slow movements accompanied by regulated breathing. Tai Chi focuses
on agility and emotional balance rather than on martial arts as a sport. It is
considered a good method for balancing yin and yang because its movements and
breathing exercises remove blockages of energy at the meridians, enabling chi
to flow freely.
Yin Yoga
Yin yoga is an extremely slow paced style of yoga with poses
that are usually held for long periods of time. It can also help to rebalance
yin and yang. It works to stretch the connective tissues at the joints of the
lower spine, hips and thighs – the yin parts of the body. It also helps the
ligaments, bones and other areas of the body especially after an accident or
some form of injury. Poses such as the frog, shoelace, butterfly, swan and
sleeping swan are all performed on the floor and held for between three and
five minutes. These postures help rebalance the yin by increasing fluid
movement of several body parts especially the limbs as well as improving organ
function and relieving stress.
Here is a YouTube video introducing Yin Yoga:-
Yoga Poses
These are just some of the various yoga poses that are practiced
and utilized regularly during yoga exercises. Perform the frog pose by lying
face down on your stomach. Bend your knees, allowing your heels to rest on your
buttocks. Lift your body from the waist as you reach behind yourself and grab
your feet. Hold the pose for five to 50 breaths. Use mental imagery with the
butterfly pose. Sitting on the floor in an erect position, draw your feet
toward your groin area. Touch the soles of your feet together and hold your
feet with your hands. Flap your arms and folded legs up and down like butterfly
wings, slowly increasing the speed and then gently slowing down. Breathe
normally throughout the exercise. Both of these exercises help restore your
yin.
Chinese Martial Arts
Chinese
Martial Arts otherwise known as Kung Fu, Gong Fu or Wushu is the Chinese
version of several similar fighting styles. This form of fitness is considered
to be a Yang form of fitness because of its high energy nature. Kung Fu’s main
function is self defense but also serves as body building, weapon training, a
technique for instilling discipline and maintaining good health.
The term Feng Shui in simple terms mean wind and water respectively. It is an ancient art which originated several thousands of years ago and practiced mainly in China to ensure that people live in harmony with their surroundings. It still plays an essential role in modern China and is considered a great treasure in traditional Chinese cultures. There are three principles of Feng Shui. The balance of Yin and Yang, the unity of human beings with nature and the attraction and repulsion of the five elements.The five elements are fire, water, earth, metal and wood. These principles exist to help people to bring good luck into their lives such as finding love, getting married, getting a job promotion, making wise business decisions, conceiving a child, avoiding accidents and overall good health.
The literal meaning of Yin-Yang is dark-bright but what it essentially means in Chinese culture is finding a balancing between totally contrary or opposing forces joining together to ideally find an equal balance bringing harmony. The Yin-Yang theory is relevant to different aspects in the universe. It can be applied to social order, natural phenomena, design of buildings including interior decorations, dark and light, male and female and some would say, most importantly, functions of the human body. This symbol is in the shape of a circle and consists of two colours, black and white. The black colour represents the Yin and the white colour represents the Yang. They are considered to be opposing qualities of dualism.
The Chinese and many other people around the world continue to practice and incorporate Feng Shui within their daily lives. Most do so in order to keep or balance their qi or chi or bring good vibes or have good chi in their daily lives.
Well, this was certainly one of my favourite collaborations thus far! I contacted Krystian, the gentleman in the above left photograph to do a beat for me speaking Mandarin from the numbers, zero to ten. He said he would be delighted to and sounded quite excited to work with me on this collaboration. I must admit that I took quite a while to send him the audio file however I finally sent it to him a few days ago. Surprisingly, just a day later he sent me an audio file with his drum beat and someone playing guitar accompanying my voice speaking the numbers in Mandarin.
I would like to sincerely thank Krystian for his patience, talent and professionalism! It was indeed Extremely Cool to work with him and I think he is an Excellent drummer and musician! I want to wish him all the best in his future endeavours. Also, I loved the end result in terms of the audio file he sent me. This was certainly one of the most intriguing ideas I had to get people interested in learning Mandarin...
Feel free to also check out his video on our collaboration on Tumblr:-
It was a delight working with Candace Porter to do a Carnival Make Up video blog while I point out and highlight facial features and make up in Mandarin. She was really funny plus Janeil and Roneil were also there as an audience because the both of them and Candace subsequently did their own collaboration afterwards. At first I thought it might have been distracting but it actually made it really enjoyable.
This is by far the longest video blog I have done thus far. It is over 13 minutes in length and I experienced a lot of technical difficulties. I am using Windows Movie Maker for Windows 7 which has a lot less features than Windows 8 therefore I had to take it to someone who had a version of Movie Maker in Windows 8 to rotate a few video clips for me. Other than that, it wasn't that difficult to do. Anyone who is accustomed to editing video be it for work or a school project would know that video editing requires an enormous amount of patience!
I found the whole experience to be informative and I learned a few stuff in not only editing the video but I got some really useful make up tips. The make up tips would certainly come in handy since I am a frequent user of cosmetics and there was certain things that I didn't realize until she pointed them out in the video blog. One thing she said was that she does her foundation and powder after making up the eyes so as to cover up any fall out or excess eye shadow that may fall on the cheeks or near the nasal region. This made a lot of sense because if you do the eye shadow afterwards, you may have some cleaning up to do which would mean double work for yourself or the make up artist.
It was a wonderful memorable experience working with Candace. One that I'm sure I won't ever forget! It is these experiences that actually make studying Mass Communications not only entertaining but also quite worthwhile!
Here is a link of a List of Facial Features in Mandarin:-
I did a collaborative video blog with Lisa Hernandez of Fun Healthy Foodie and I must say I had a blast! It was very interesting and informative. Working with Lisa was a pleasure! She is kind, considerate, articulate, open minded and really cool and easy going. She was indeed lots of fun to work with. She came prepared and filled with knowledge about the Jasmine tea and knew all the details about how the tea is actually made and brewed in China. I learned a lot about the process involved when making the tea and I also shared a little information about the Chinese tea culture and how important tea is regarded in their culture.
I must say the Jasmine Chinese tea tasted good and I was surprised by the strength of the brew after using just a couple of spoonfuls. This was my longest video blog thus far with just over seven minutes in length. It was one of the easiest video blogs to edit and put together however I still had some minor technical difficulties but I think the end result made it all worth it! I was really satisfied with the outcome and I think Lisa really liked it too!
Chinese Tea Culture is an essential part of their tradition for over a thousand years. The serving of tea is also named "cha dao" which means the way of tea. It is often seen as a mark of respect and could even be used as a form of an apology after doing someone wrong. Unlike most cultures, the tea itself is often used as much more than a simple beverage but also used as an important part of Chinese cuisine and herbal medicine.
After hearing about all the health benefits of Chinese tea and personally tasting it, Lisa convinced me to not only drink more tea but to incorporate it into my daily routine and even substitute other beverages for tea because it is a lot healthier than juices or soda. Imagine, Lisa even gave me some of the Jasmine petals to carry with me and brew at home at my own leisure! I am Truly Loving the Chinese culture with All its benefits!
This video blog was quite interesting because I learned a few things while doing it. At first, my intention was to interview a few Chinese nationals or people of Asian descent living or visiting here in Trinidad and Tobago. However, that idea quickly flopped since there was literally no one willing to be filmed on camera speaking Mandarin. They were either camera shy or certainly afraid of something...
I soon realized that there were a few people that I noticed who actually knew one or two phrases in Mandarin including folks from none other than Costaatt. I immediately became excited and quickly decided to do a video blog entitled, "How Much Mandarin Do Trinis Know" interviewing a few people and asking them what they knew in Mandarin and how they learned it. I was even more enthusiastic when a lecturer, Mr. Mark Wilson was willing to say a few words and phrases in Mandarin as well.
I had completed filming the four short interviews on my camera for a couple of weeks but I was still adamant on trying to get a Chinese national to speak Mandarin on camera. Although, I have not been successful thus far, I am certainly not giving up at all. One day I am Sure I will meet either one Chinese person willing to be filmed speaking Mandarin or might even be a group of Chinese having a conversation in Mandarin on camera. I am still hopeful that one day this may happen... and when it does, be Sure to see a video blog on it!
In my very first post when I spoke about the things that inspired me to learn Mandarin, I mentioned the fact that my brother and I played Kiddies Carnival several years ago. The section in which we played was the Chinese section where the girls wore a Chinese dress and the guys also wore Chinese wear plus they took turns holding the King of the band and also doing the dragon dance. Well, I decided to share some information about the dragon dance and its origins in China.
Here is a short YouTube video of the Chinese New Year Dragon Dance
The Chinese dragon dance which originated during the Han dynasty (180-230 AD) is performed during many Chinese celebrations and festivals like on the Chinese new year. It is said to bring good luck, prosperity and ward off evil spirits when performed. Although dragons are notoriously and generally known for being are feared fable creatures, they are actually seen as quite benevolent and gentle in Chinese culture. The dragon symbolizes respect, wealth, fertility, dignity, goodness and supernatural power.
This photograph features young men performing the dragon dance and the clothing of the young men reminds me of what my brother wore when he played mas for Kiddies Carnival.
(Photograph taken from hellokids.com)
This photograph features a large dragon head and was taken during Chinese New Year celebrations in Philippines in 2013. This dragon head also reminds me of the dragon that was King of the band when my brother and I played Kiddies Carnival. (Photograph taken from abc.net.au)
Click on the link below to read more information about the various styles of the Chinese dragon dance"-
This week is Chinese Food Week on Let's Learn Mandarin Blog...
I intend to do and publish several Food related blogs throughout this week including a few other unrelated blogs. I will be starting with this blog, "Eating Chinese Food with Chopsticks". I have always wanted to learn to eat food using chopsticks especially after doing an Etiquette course a few years ago where I learned to dine properly at a four star restaurant. I remember I enjoyed that experience tremendously because I was in a group and everyone in that group including myself scored 100%!
I learned how to use chopsticks very quickly and surprised myself by immediately getting the hang of it. My neighbour demonstrated how to use chopsticks by using pencils and he taught me what was the important stuff to remember so that I could be sure to use them effectively when eating. The hardest part in this whole experience was getting a pair of chopsticks to use. I searched in almost all the Chinese stores in Port of Spain and couldn't get any. I was a bit frustrated until my Supervisor from work brought me two pairs of chopsticks from home. She told me that she got them from her daughter to frequently went to Wok N Roll and that she had two extra pairs of them at home. I was quite elated and relieved when she gave them to me.
When I made the video blog was actually the very first time I had used chopsticks to eat food. So imagine my surprise when I was able to get a firm grip and hold the food properly between the chopsticks. I guess Chinese culture may be rubbing off on me a lot more than I first thought.... Look out for my other Food blogs later this week.
It has been said that the Eastern part of the world is one of the most conscientious in terms of having the ultimate nutritious way of life! The Asian countries, more so China is well known for this! One of my classmates, Patrick Dyer and I have recently teamed up to do a research blog together. We researched the many various types of Chinese medicines, herbs and techniques which help them maintain a really healthy lifestyle. After completing our research, it was decided that we would compile a top ten listing of Chinese herbal medicines. So, take a look at what we've come up with.
#10 CINNAMON (Ròuguì)
The true benefits of cinnamon are unknown to many. The bark and root of this tropical tree helps with various circulatory disorders especially the peripheral circulation in the body. It helps regulates the temperature in the human body, treats menstrual disorders, abdominal pain, aids in digestion, numbness and arthritis.
#9 GOJI/WOLFBERRY (Gǒuqǐ)
These berries are quite high in antioxidants and fiber. They improve your vision, protect your liver, increase longevity, improve circulation and boost sperm production. #8 LICORICE ROOT (Gāncǎo)
This root plant is well known for its many healing powers including detoxification. It is widely used to treat such ailments as asthma, heartburn, hepatitis, the cold & flu, sinus and even depression.
#7 ASTRALAGUS (Huang Qi)
This yellow root aids in digestive functions, boosting the immune system, increases metabolism rate and helps keep skin healthy. It is also used to make the medicines that help treats deadly diseases such as senility, cancer, hepatitis and AIDS.
#6 MA HUANG
This herb has been made into a modern drug in the form of capsules. It stimulates the central nervous system helping it to function properly. It aids in asthma and sinus congestion, stimulated perspiration as well as open breathing passages. It assists in weight loss because it causes persons who are trying to lose weight to burn calories at a faster rate.
#5 MUSHROOM (Mógū)
These vegetables are considered to be high in nutritional value. China has over 200 species of mushrooms. However, it only about 20% of them are known to have powerful medicinal effects on the human body. It helps flush out the urinary tract and help prevent infections as well as the capacity to aid in fighting tumors and help improves the immune system.
#4 ANGELICA SINESIS (Dāng Guī)
This root has earned the reputation for being the ultimate herb for women and is one of the most widely consumed herbs in China. It aids in relieving symptoms of PMS, menstruation and menopause. It also helps in improving women's libido and increases fertility in women. It strengthens the heart, liver kidneys and spleen. It heals ailments such as high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, fatigue and anemia.
#3 SALVIA(Danshen)
This root herb serves as an important medicine to help heal and repair body tissues that have been damaged by various types of injuries. It also helps with infections and degenerative diseases. It reduces cholesterol, improves liver function and lowers blood pressure. It can be used to treat ulcers, headaches, anemia, rheumatism and all types of internal bleeding.
#2 GINGER (Jiāng)
This fibrous aromatic herb is most popular for its flavour and taste and is mainly used as a spice. It helps remedy diarrhea, indigestion, nausea, the common cold, motion and morning sickness and improves blood circulation.
#1 GINSENG (Cān)
This is by far the most famous of all the herbs and is often used worldwide. It has a variety of health benefits as well as healing properties. It aids in common ailments such as regulating blood sugar, high blood pressure, menopausal issues, menstrual cramps, erectile dysfunction, hepatitis and fatigue. It has also been known to help prevent certain diseases as well as calm the nerves. It is used mainly in capsule form or used to make tea.
There are also quite a number of other medicinal herbs which were originally found in China. One of them are rhubarb which works as an effective laxative, improving blood circulation and helps ease pain in certain types of injuries. There are others such as hawthorn berry, hoelen, peony, coptis, bupleurum and a vast number of other remedies such as special types of root teas like codonopsis, dong quai and chrysathemum.
I must admit that working with Patrick was really not what I expected at all. He had a lot of useful ideas and he was quite good at researching information which was a bit surprising. Overall, I enjoyed doing the collaborative blog with him and I would endorse him as a very willing, positive and helpful student to work with.
I would certainly recommend Mr. Patrick Dyer to work with anyone since I truly consider him to be a great asset especially after working with him in two group projects. This was a learning experience and I would be certainly be quite willing to work with him again in the future.
