Archive for » March, 2010 «

I took the kids to a place called “the Jungle” for their friend’s 6th birthday party the other day. It is a screaming loud place that is supposedly really fun for the kids. After what felt like an eternity of watching the children behaving likes animals in their natural habitat, three other moms and I stole away and sat down at the Jungle cafe to chit chat. After a short while, a father also seeking refuge came to join us at our table. He looked at us, we looked back at him. He then blurted out, “Why do you Asian women all have to have a Louis Vuitton?” Shocked! We quickly turned to look at each other. What an observation, three out of the four of us were sporting a LV bag! Another quick-witted mom and I immediately pointed at the exception, and blurted back: “She doesn’t”.

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I am starting off this blog with a plug for one of my favorite summer camps in the Bay Area (Northern California). Because it rocks!

The camp is called the Chinese Cultural Camp. It is designed for children 5-12 to learn and experience Chinese culture. This camp is organized by the Wisdom Culture and Education Organization based in Fremont, CA. I believe they run a couple of fairly large Chinese schools during the regular school year.

I am so glad a friend from college had told me about this camp a few years back. Both of my kids have been going to this camp since their kindergarten year, and we have been back every year since. This summer camp is in six different locations throughout the South Bay area of Northern California.

Every summer, this camp brings much fun, much singing, dancing, and lots of Chinese traditional arts, crafts, and activities to hundreds of kids. They even provide delicious Chinese lunches to the kids that make my mouth water. The theme always surround the varies aspects of Chinese culture, but they mixed it up a bit every year, so the children are always treated to something new every summer. Last summer, my kids came home with Chinese kites, year of the Ox paper craft, and yummy looking rice and red bean desserts, all of which they made themselves. They even have Shaolin Temple monks there to teach the kids some marshal arts moves. We love to sit back at night and allow the kids entertain us with their newly acquired skills from the camp. It was quite a kick watching our 5 year old’s umbrella dance. And a real kick or two from our 8 year’s Lion Dance mixed with Chinese martial art movement.

Besides the varies programs this camp has to offer, they have amazing staffs working there. They are the nicest people, warm and genuinely happy to have our kids there to learn about traditional Chinese culture.

This camp isn’t for just any child, as the camp is in Mandarin Chinese, and all the programs are taught in Chinese, so the children need to at least understand the language in order to enjoy or just to keep up with the rest of the campers. There are also lots of big brothers and big sisters there assigned to each group to serve as teacher’s assistances. They typically speak in English to the kids. My kids just love their big brothers and sisters, as they are helpful, good to the little kids, and fun loving. I like these young teachers’ aides too, as they are good role models for those threaded teen years.

Every Friday, they put up quite a closing ceremony and show for the parents. And I have finally learned to go to this show way before the starting time of 2:30PM, as lots of parents show up for this event, and if you are right on time, you will have no good spot to sit. I video tape this one and half hour show every summer, it is amazing what these young kids can learn in just one week. Ah… then there is my biggest complain about this camp, it is only one week long.

For those of you live in South Bay, Nor Cal, here is the link to this camp: http://wceoprogram.org/index/ChineseFolkArtsSummerCamp/Data.aspx

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Welcome to Caffeinated Chatterbox, AsianParent.com’s blog site!  I am a busy mother of two young children, who used to be a very sane person, a once proud corporate warrior who was happy to be consumed by work, and loved making money, just to have an orderly lifestyle consisting of reading, eating out, weekend hikes or bike rides, and travel somewhere once a year for two weeks.   Then my husband and I were blessed with children!  Slowly, and over time, I gave up the idea of an orderly lifestyle, gave up corporate life, and allowed myself to commit many disturbing acts just to satisfy my relentless pursuit of our young offspring’s happiness.

This site is about taking a break from a busy life of parenting, kids, work, chores, eating, and having fun, just to blabber about parenting, kids, work, chores, eating, and having fun.  This site is also about capturing the small moments of a busy life, finding humor and healing frustrations in the seemingly normal course of daily family life.  Welcome to AsianParent’s caffeinated chatterbox.

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