Posted on

Moon Festival 2011

Laying the tables for Moon Festival

This post is going up a little later than planned. Sometimes my internet connection is spotty, and it has been getting in the way of my posts.

Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival, is one of China’s major holidays along with the Spring Festival and Dragon Boat Festival. In the lunar calendar, it falls on the 15th day of the 8th month, which in our calendar fell on September 12th this year.

The food associated with this festival is called a moon cake. Moon cakes come in different sizes but are generally pastry sized, with a very dense pastry outside filled with sweetened, um… anything. Foreigners like myself usually go for fruit filled ones, but there are also sweetened meat, fish, egg, or nut filled cakes. Some of these flavors are pretty novel to my tastes. A savory shrimp pie might sound good, but wouldn’t you find a shrimp doughnut a little odd? That’s what this is like, and I certainly did find it odd.

Class 3's "Matrix Pingpong" inspired act

For such festivals, our school has some traditions. There is a big meal served, followed by a variety show performed by the students, followed by karaoke on the school’s karaoke system. This year, class three (my class), put special effort into our variety show performance. We took our inspiration from the online video “Matrix Pingpong,” and choreographed a fight scene using the same blackout theme. We were very proud of the way it turned out. Other items in the program included choreographed dances, dramatic skits, and a performance on the traditional Guqin (a many-stringed plucked dulcimer-like instrument). It was a really fun evening that bridged all ages and several cultures.

Family

Before I came to this kungfu academy, I celebrated a few lonely, puzzled festivals in China. I was an outsider and had no idea what the festival involved. I searched for some intrinsic significance to the holiday, and found nothing I could grab ahold of. It made me reflect on our western holidays. Maybe they lack intrinsic meaning as well. The power of holidays comes from community, family, memory, nostalgia, and ritual. It’s not something to be understood, it is something to be lived. It is only with my new family here that I have been able to live these traditions.

For that reason, I think I have some advice for anyone seeking, as I have, to understand another culture: Don’t. I mean, read up, do your research, anything you like, but ultimately you need people who will be your bridge. Find something that is important to you, something that means enough to you that you are able to set aside your own cultural assumptions to get closer to it (this was harder for me than it sounds). Find people who are important to you, and give yourself to them. Only by giving up yourself will the culture you seek to grasp finally be opened up to you.

 

Posted on

Self reliance means we will “try, try again”, but be willing to ask for help when needed.

Teaching character and life skills to students

How many times do you think we need to try something before you give up? We have all known some who give up after just one try and others who will try 10 times, 100 times or more, being diligent about doing the task at hand. There is a book on mastery that studied many different fields of skill and the studies show that for a person to master anything to the highest level – it takes 10,000 times.

When I received my new kata / form in tae kwon do – our instructor said that we will not know the form until it has been performed 1,000 times. I believe that to be true. But sometimes as we are trying to learn something we can get frustrated and feel like giving up – but really that is the time to try again and it may be the time to ask for additional help.

 

When we ask for help we are not asking someone to do the task for us. We are asking them to share their experience with us. What did they find helpful, what mistakes did they make and how did they overcome them? If we are having trouble in one area or another, it may call on us to approach different people to gather as much knowledge as possible – so we can be self reliant.

If we are a child, our most important resource is and should be our parents, though we can also call on our teachers and sometimes even our friends in seeking this knowledge. But in the end we have to perform ourselves, it is our homework, our chore, our goal no matter our age. We should ask for help only when we need it.

Posted on

4 Ways Parents Can Build Self Reliance in Their Children

Teaching character and life skills to students

There are a number of ways that we as parents can help our children grow in their self reliance.

  • Parents can be their greatest cheerleaders’
  • Parents can schedule practice time on skills the kids are learning
  • Parents can encourage children to try things on their own
  • Parents can teach children how to cheer themselves on their own.

Being our child’s cheerleader comes pretty naturally for parents. We are very proud to see them try something new, put forth the effort in that endeavor or skill, and be successful.  When they are trying something new, encouraging them that you have faith in them, builds their will to keep trying.

Practicing their new skills can also help to create self reliance in our children.  How do we get them to practice though without it becoming our burden as a parent?  Setting aside a scheduled time that is Continue reading “4 Ways Parents Can Build Self Reliance in Their Children”

Posted on

Grants 4 Teachers is Accepting Grant Request From Anne Arundel County School Teachers

The school year has open and is well underway.  It is time for all of us to show our support for teachers in our community, as they are one of our most valuable resources.  Grants4Teachers is now accepting grant applications from AACPS teachers for those special projects in their classroom that will not be funded by others.

We are looking for creative ideas that teachers would like to implement to bring the love and joy of learning to their students.  If you are a teacher please think about what you could do special with your students if you only had the money for the supplies.  If you are a parent, be sure to share this opportunity with your school and all the teachers.  We have supplied violins, trips, and some very special art project materials in the past and we are looking forward to doing the same this fall.

Here is the website for complete information:  http://www.cfaac.org/receive/grants4teachers

Here is the simple one page application: Grants 4 Teachers – Grant

Posted on

Life Skills: Depending On Ourselves to Make Good Choices Shows Self Reliance

Teaching character and life skills to students

As our children get older they have the ability to do more and more on their own.  As parents we need to allow them to take on those responsibilities even if we could do the job better or faster ourselves. We want our children to strengthen the muscles of decision making, judging what is good and bad for them.

When children start making choices in what is right and wrong, healthy or not healthy, safe or not safe, fair or not fair – they do so under our guidance.  But getting them to the point where they are thinking through these choices, weighing the pros and cons, teaches them to learn to rely on themselves.

It may start at home with what is a healthy snack or who and how to include others in games that they are playing.  Later they will judge whether to cheat or to be honest on a test, and how and when to stand up for someone who is not being treated fairly.

Helping them to learn to judge things from their own knowledge and conscious is so much more rewarding for them and you as a parent – as you watch them making decisions from a place inside of themselves and not from you as a parent telling them what to do from the outside.