新春大吉 ~ All the Best in Spring

It was before the Chinese New Year that we started writing these Chinese characters, but I was unable to upload them here earlier..

Chinese people love to decorate places with these good words (in calligraphy), especially during the Chinese New Year!

Most of my students focus on conversational Mandarin, and some of them are interested in reading + a bit of writing, but not many would like to practise writing, it takes time after all! Let's see how some of them writing beautifully though not professionally!


This is British student ~ Helen's work. She's writing "好"(read as "hao") which means "Good" in Chinese. She loves writing Chinese characters very much and we both are proud of her work, well done Helen!!


This is Dutch student ~ Alex's work. He's writing "一本万利" (read as "Yi Ben Wan Li") which literally means "ONE as cost, and gain TEN THOUSAND profit", paying little and getting great returns ~ a very popular greeting for businessman!! Alex speaks good Mandarin and he can read quite a lot of Chinese characters, the credit goes to his non stop studying! (not many students could persist studying like him!) Keep up the good work, Alex!! I have some other clippings on his writing, but failed to upload here, what a pity..

This is Australian student ~ Emma's work. Emma writes "出入平安" (read as Chu Ru Ping An), literally means "Out and In Safely", to be safe when going out and coming back.. Emma always goes for business trip, so this greeting is good for her too!

Right now Emma is enjoying her honeymoon trip, hopefully still speaks Mandarin well after this whole month holiday!!

I have more students' work to show actually, but right now I need time to learn all these computer stuff first... so hopefully there's an update posting soon!

Home Alone ~ For The Very First Time

Wow... It's been that long long time since I did my previous posting.. Well, I can explain for that ~ I am much busier now as I have stopped hiring any domestic helper ( a big deal for a single, working mom!). It forces Bryan to "grow up" more quickly, and independently!

It was middle of last month that he had experienced something unforgettable (the keepsake would always remind him of that, lol)...

On that day, Bryan was supposed to staying home alone in the evening, and he supposed to finish his dinner at home after buying it from those eatery... However, he called me (luckily I gave him an old handphone!) at the door, saying that one of the keys was not working! He's been using those keys for quite sometime, and there was no such problem before.. so I really doubted whether he used the right key and asked him to try again, and again..

I was still in a class then, that really made me feeling bad.. I could hear that he was trying so hard to open the door, but it just never worked.. So I asked him to look for the security post, and hope that they could help him to open it.. In stead of hearing the "good news", the security people told me (on the phone) that they dare not to make any attempt as the key has turned into a "fragile" item..

So, I asked Bryan to have his dinner at the eatery and wait for me there at the same time... After one hour's worrying, we met at the eatery. It was really a SHOCK to see the key's condition:

Gosh, no wonder the security people would not give another attempt;

And, I found out that the 2 keys were really like twins, so imagine in the dim light, and he was in big hurry to open the door (kids scare the noise from the quiet corridor!)...



I don't remember my first time being home alone, but I'm sure that I got used to it when I was as young as 5 years of age! The big difference is that I had many little friends to play with me then... As for my Bryan, he is really HOME ALONE..