CCTV Spring Festival Gala 2015

Last year, we found clips on Youtube for the annual CCTV Spring Festival Gala show. In the past, we've seen it sold and aired in Chinese video shops - most notably when we saw Wang Leehom rocking out on a big screen back in 2013.

I read about the partnership to air the 2015 CCTV Gala show with Google/Youtube in the news. So I want to thank the leaders of the Chinese government and those of Google and Youtube for setting aside their political differences and coming together on this cultural event. If my parents were alive, they would be thanking you, as well. Despite any political differences, whatsoever. If it is, as stated, one of the targets was Overseas Chinese, I, as a Heritage Chinese of Overseas Chinese, thank you, immensely for bringing together technology and opportunity to offer something I would have loved to have experience as a child growing up here in America.

The next level would be a show that would integrate English into the show, or do more subtitled versions, so that English-only speakers and Heritage Chinese with mixed levels of Chinese proficiency can then understand and enjoy the show.

I made it a point to watch at least part of the marathon event during the Lunar New Year. Since, my 9-year-old child has surprised me with continuously watching various parts during free time. Youtube is like her encyclopedia, her go-to resource to find information and learn about anything. Teachers rely on it for Chinese cartoons and other language teaching shows. My child and her friends regularly follow various kid channels, from crafting to baking to music videos.

Some of my child's favorite parts of the CCTV Gala Show have been the comedy skits. Some of them are hard to follow because of the heavy Beijing-style accents or the speed of delivery, or even the jokes, themselves. But she loves it!

So yes, I have to figure out why. I ask her how much she understands, or what she understands. She is able to explain enough to me for me to get some insight. Then, I realize I am experiencing a new moment in the joy of all the hard work, committing to this Mandarin Immersion pathway. All the extras, all the setting aside of other things in order to do THIS...

What do I see? At age 9, no matter how imperfect my own Mandarin has been, no matter how incomplete my child's experience in MI classrooms has been, the combination, at the very least, has gotten my child to this moment when she does not shy away from following long segments of oration and skits, but readily embraces the entertainment as... entertainment. She enjoyed watching this show as much as she has enjoyed any Disney or Pixar or Dreamworks production. Frozen didn't even have as long of a moment as the CCTV Spring Festival Gala show.

In addition to laughing her head off, my child also got to experience all the family-oriented messages throughout the show. There were everyday people on the street who recorded messages of love and longing for their parents, messages of appreciation for all the years of hard work; there were songs about "The Long Road Home" or honoring Mama for holding a child's hand from birth to adulthood. People made New Year's resolutions to be better to their families. Comedy skits expressed pivotal moments in trying to reunite with one's child or getting a parent's blessing for an engagement and pivotal life change.

My child cried at all these moments, but especially during the song about moms.

Laughter and Love. Simple, profound. But these are indicators of what "immersion" really means. It isn't just about the "language" or the words and their sequences expressing thought. It is also about becoming "immersed" in the emotions that language conveys. There. That is a "key indicator." If your child can experience emotions in this language that is not exactly a "first language," then that is critical link.

I also think it was probably a critical missing link for a lot of Heritage Chinese kids, hence the lack of being able to hold on to the language later in life.

Listen to Wang Shuang Shuang - "Attach great importance...to writing..."

Esteemed Chinese language educator Wang ShuangShuang is about to give a webinar through CLERC about her methods for success. She is the author of a popular textbook series Mastering Chinese Language and Culture that was later adopted by the Hanban Institute.

In the description of the webinar, she has summarized her top 3 goals for success:

1. At the lower grades: concentrating on fostering interest and love for Chinese through rhyming texts, engaging interactive activities, and vivid colorful illustrations.
2. From middle grades up: to challenge and satisfy with the profound Chinese culture the thirst and curiosity of students at this age to discover and learn new knowledge.
3. Attach great importance from the very beginning to writing and teach different genres of writing at different stages as a means to consolidate transform the language students learned into language proficiency.

Now that my child is in 4th grade, I would say that I echo this summation. But I am far from expert, as compared to a mother and experienced teacher like Wang Laoshi. But I was gratified to read this. I would say that that has been my gut instinct, trying to match what I experienced while growing up in America with what I see are the developmental changes in my child.

I also want to echo the advice we got from our K Mandarin Immersion teacher a while ago - and that was the importance of "attaching" to the writing. I didn't fully know how it would play out when my child was only 5 years old, but now I see it. Because she is adequately "attached" to the writing, then it is not a huge burden for her at age 9. She can speedily write sentences and look up characters on Pleco with the handwriting function. She knows how hard it is to become literate in Chinese vs. English. She embraces the hard work.

I also want to give a shout-out to Wang XiaoNing, founder of ChinaSprout.com. She communicated the value of "vivid colorful illustrations" in beautifully inspiring storybooks for children. And so it is that we have been avid customers of her wonderfully curated books. She has amazing taste! Don't let it pass you by.

And lastly, I do want to clarify that I am still a fan of the Jinan University Zhong Wen series for young children, and especially for those of us in non-Chinese speaking or half-Chinese speaking households. This series provides more written guidance for syntax and grammar than Wang Laoshi's series. But I also have her series for when my child will be in middle school years and wanting that level of subject matter engagement for history, philosophy, geography, and even some science.