China In My Shoes

My name is Jia Deng Hui.

I am nine years old.

This is my friend Fung Ju Lin.

He's my best friend.

We live on an island near Xingping.

Xingping is in Guangxi Province in south China.

This area is very famous for the karst peak mountains and Li river.

The Li river is 440 kilometres long.

When it rains it's hard to see how beautiful the landscape is.

But visitors still come here to admire the views.

Even though it's winter.

Here is the famous view on our 20 yuan note.

If you come to China you will use a 20 yuan note.

And then you'll know the picture of those mountains is where I live.

This rocks says "20 yuan note view."

My mum sells fruit here.

It's really hard to sell fruit right now,

because it's raining a lot, and very cold.

We grow lots of fruit on the island where I live.

My mum has her own orange trees.

THEY TALK IN MANDARIN

She explains lots of things to my friends and I.

She says the best time for oranges is December to January.

We have four different kinds of oranges.

Some are sweeter than others. We all eat a lot of fruit.

My mum says, "If you throw away the bad ones,

"the good ones have more chance to grow."

I like oranges, but my favourite is pomelo.

There are lots of pomelos on our island.

They've all been picked now,

so they get taken off to the markets.

Nearly every day you can see them loaded onto boats.

I have breakfast by the fire at 7:30.

My mum usually makes me rice with meat.

At eight o'clock every morning I leave home.

My house is really close to the river,

so it only takes a minute to get there.

My dad is really good at fixing boats. This is how he earns money.

My friend Fung Ju Lin and I always go to school together.

All the children on our island have to cross the river to get to school.

From the harbour we walk the rest of the way.

Classes start at 8:40.

If you come to Xingping you HAVE to take a river trip.

My friends and I live here, so we just play around on boats.

The temperature is really cold now.

Our lifejackets help to keep the wind and rain out.

It's very cold for the fishermen, too.

Winter is not a good season for catching fish,

because there are hardly any fish in the river in the winter.

Some of the fishermen use cormorant birds to help them fish.

Lots of the views were painted by Chinese painters.

And written about by many poets.

One poem is by a famous Chinese poet called Han Yu.

"The river winds like a green silk ribbon,

"while the hills are like jade hairpins."

But you should come when it's warmer to see the famous views.

My name is Ma Tsu Tao.

I am nine years old.

I live in Yangshao.

Yangshao is in the province of Guangxi.

This is in the south of China.

Guangxi Province is well known for its karst peak mountains.

Wherever you go in my area you can see the mountains.

There are also two important rivers, the Yulong and the River Li.

I really like drawing the landscape here.

These are the hills of Yangshao.

This is the Li River, which is near my home.

This is a bamboo raft. This is a fisherman.

This is the fisherman's cormorant.

This is the famous Moon Hill.

Lots of tourists come to visit Yangshao.

They really like our local products.

Near Yangzhou there are famous limestone caves,

like the Silver Caves.

The caves have all sorts of rock formations and shapes.

They're amazing when they are all lit up with special colours.

I like wandering through town with my friends.

I have lots of good friends.

The beautiful fans are very popular, we like choosing our favourites.

All these fans are made in Yangshao county.

We like star fruit, so I've got some for us all.

Here you can stop and see how silk is made.

We like playing with the silkworms,

but I think they're a bit scary.

THEY TALK IN MANDARIN

Lots of people like to stop and buy snacks.

This is tofu with chives, chilli, beans, and a sweet sauce.

It's really tasty.

I go to school every day at seven o'clock.

My mum takes me on her scooter.

She works as a teacher at my school, so we can travel together every day.

We all have breakfast at school.

We usually have Guilin rice noodles.

They are mixed with soya bean, spring onion, pork and chilli.

People here like eating spicy food.

My friends and I love having breakfast together.

In China we always start with 20 minutes of reading.

THE CLASS READS OUT TOGETHER

Mrs Yang is our maths teacher.

After the first class we do exercises in the playground.

Our leader is my friend Ju Shi Chin.

In winter doing sport helps us to keep warm.

Every Friday evening I have my favourite class - dance.

My friend Ju Shi Chin is my dance partner.

We've been dancing together since we were six.

CLASSIC ROCK'N'ROLL PLAYS

We've done competitions together.

I really like dancing, and when I dance I feel happy.

What makes you feel happy?

My name is Wang Yu Shi.

I'm 11 years old. I live in Lijiang.

Lijiang has lots of old parts.

The buildings here were built in ancient times.

It's home to the Naxi people. My family is Naxi.

Lijiang is located in the province of Yunnan.

It's near the famous Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.

For everyone living here this is a sacred mountain

because it gives us water, wood and thousands of plants

that we use for Chinese medicine.

It blesses the local people, so we believe it must be protected.

It's always covered in snow all year round.

Once we played snow wars and we built snowmen, it was great fun.

My dad's a driver. Sometimes he takes me on trips.

I love going on trips with my dad.

My dad knows all the fun and good places.

There's also a big lake called Lake Lashihai.

This lake is the largest lake in Lijiang County.

Local fishermen fish here, and lots of tourists like to come and visit.

There are lots of fish in this lake, most of them are grass carp.

You can try some fish if you take a boat out.

A fisherman will grill it for you.

It's got lots of bones, but it's delicious.

In the summer the fisherman says he can get about 60 a day.

The way the fisherman speaks is very funny. Like a fish!

This is also a good place to watch birds.

Many birds spend the winter here, then they leave in the spring.

Near Lake Lashihai there's an ancient tea route.

Over a thousand years ago people used to use horses

to transport tea that's still grown in the fields of Yunnan.

The horses are quite special, they have short legs and are very strong.

They had to carry the tea and climb high hills,

to go to different countries and areas.

They went through forests and mountains,

until they reached Burma, Laos and Vietnam.

They also went to our neighbour provinces,

Tibet, Szechuan,

Guizhou and Guangxi.

After I arrive, we stop at a teahouse.

The lady shows me how the horses carry the tea.

The tea leaves are squashed into a tea brick.

These were put into bamboo boxes.

This protected them from the rain.

The most famous Yunnan tea is called Puer tea.

The area where I was horseriding is a place where lots of Naxi people live.

My tea trail guide was a Naxi man.

Naxi men often wear a sheepskin to keep them warm.

My family is also Naxi.

In China, the Naxi people have a population of over 250,000.

-TRANSLATION:

-My grandma still wears a Naxi costume every day.

Grandma's costume has seven stars on it.

They represent the seven stars of the Big Dipper.

Naxi women are extremely hard-working.

They work from first light until the moon comes up.

Here's a Naxi lady. She is weaving scarves.

I am off to fetch my friend,

to see if we can catch some Naxi dancing at a wedding.

My friend is called Wang Qing Chen.

HE CALLS OUT FOR HIS FRIEND

We are in the same class together, and our dads are also friends.

He lives quite near to me.

We walk through Lijiang old town to get to the wedding.

Here's some Naxi language.

This one is to talk. This one is to dance.

This one is to eat.

This shop is very famous for fresh yoghurt.

Lots of tourists buy it.

We eat it with sweet red beans. It's very tasty.

The wedding is in here.

ROUSING SINGING AND MUSIC

WHOOPING AND SINGING

Music and dancing are strong parts of Naxi tradition.

My friend and I love watching their performance.

Qing Chen and I hope the Naxi traditions will last forever.

TRANSLATION: My name is Wei Qing.

I am 10 years old.

I live in a mountain valley in a small village.

It's called Chan'gou village.

It's in the north west of Yunnan province.

All around you, you see mountains and green terraced fields.

Here, we only have mountains, so we have to grow our crops on the slopes.

Most of our crops are planted on terraces.

Lots of crops are grown this way in China.

TRANSLATION: Like rice and tea.

You have to take a winding, narrow mountain road,

to get to Chan'gou village.

We have two buses a day, between our village and Lijiang.

TRANSLATION: It takes three hours to get here.

There are lots of small rivers around my house.

So you always hear the sound of flowing water.

The most famous river is called the Jinsha River.

This means Golden Sands River,

because people have found gold on the shore of the river.

The ferry boat is always very busy on market days.

People cross the river to buy and sell products.

Many people have mules and horses to help carry their goods.

I've never been to play by the Jinsha River,

because it's very deep, and very cold.

Also, the river has strong currents,

so it's dangerous for us to swim there.

In summer, the water level is pretty high.

You can see the water marks on the rocks.

My school is Jinjian Primary School, it's the only one in Chan'gou.

It has 78 pupils.

Children come here from the age of five, until the age of 11.

Our school motto is:

"Education achieves your future. Knowledge changes your fate."

Some kids sleep at school, like me.

And some go home.

There are six people in my class.

The motto above the blackboard says:

"Respect the teacher, and observe discipline."

Today is the day of our maths exam.

I find maths quite hard. I prefer Chinese.

METAL CLANGS

We are breaking up for our winter holiday.

And it's also our Spring Festival.

CHILDREN RESPOND TO THEIR TEACHER

At assembly, our teachers remind us to do some homework,

and to be careful of fire.

Also, to respect our elders,

look after the younger ones, and write a diary every day.

CHILDREN RESPOND IN UNISON

This is my dormitory.

There are eight of us living here.

The younger ones sleep on the bottom beds.

And the older girls on the top.

My dad is fetching me, and my little cousin.

We all take our bedding home so it gets washed.

My little cousin is called Wang Fei. She is seven years old.

There are two routes to get to my house.

One is a road, one is a small path.

Whichever way you go, you can see the beautiful views,

and all the vegetables and crops that local people grow.

You can see my house in the distance.

We're almost home.

THEY SPEAK IN CHINESE

I'm really happy to be home because I can be with my mum,

my little sister and my dad again.

This is a radish. We'll cook it for lunch.

When I'm home, I help my parents with the cooking.

All our water is spring water from the mountains.

And all our food is home grown.

My mum often teaches me how to cook.

We're cooking home-made bacon,

rice and lots of different vegetables.

I love eating at home,

because Mum and Dad's cooking is really delicious.

THEY SPEAK IN CHINESE

This is my baby sister.

Her name is Shu Qi.

She's only five months old.

It will be nice to play with her in my break.

My mum and dad are both farmers,

so we don't have to buy any meat or vegetables.

Here we grow potatoes, potatoes,

potatoes and barley.

My parents aren't too busy now,

because they only start planting in the spring.

Then they work without a break until the autumn harvest.

Now we have to weed often, so that the wheat can grow tall and healthy.

I really love it when the crops and the scenery are all green.

I'm sure you'd really like it here.

-TRANSLATION:

-My name is Qing Qing.

I am nine years old.

I was born in the year of the sheep.

This is a big city in the province of Anhui.

It's in eastern China.

It's in Tian Chang city.

I live near a toy factory.

My mum works at the toy factory, so I can play with lots of toys.

SHE SPEAKS MANDARIN

I know where they all are.

There are rows and rows of toys here.

All these toys are going to be sent away to other countries.

SHE SPEAKS MANDARIN

First, they're transported to Shanghai.

Then, from the port of Shanghai, they go by boat to other countries.

Some of them are made specially for Western holidays and celebrations.

This is the sewing room.

This room is normally full of busy ladies.

But most of them have already left for the Spring Festival holiday.

I like watching them make things.

This lady is making some clothes for an elephant.

This lady is sewing a mouth on a giraffe.

I like talking to the ladies

because the toys they make are such fun.

The ladies all work really hard.

In the winter they wear lots of clothes because it is so cold.

This is the place where they're sewing the monkeys' noses.

This is the stuffing machine.

You have to be careful not to put too much stuffing in,

because otherwise the toy will burst.

This is the packing room.

The elephants all have to pass through

this quality control machine

to check they don't have any metal on them.

It's fun catching them, but you have to be quite fast.

All the toys have to be inspected so they look their best.

My mum works in the building next door.

She's a sales manager.

She's worked here for two years.

My mum moved to this factory area for the job.

It was quite hard, because I could only see her

when she came home for national holidays.

Three months ago, I moved here, too.

Now I can spend more time with my mum.

This is where I do my homework.

SHE SPEAKS MANDARIN

We like to go shopping together.

I like looking at books, so sometimes my mum leaves me

to read some stories.

My favourite stories are ones about princesses.

A few days ago, my mum took my friend and I to Toy World.

It's a wholesale toy shopping centre in Yangzhou.

My friend is called Mengyu.

There are lots of red dragons because red is lucky in China.

We loved playing around with everything.

All the toys at Toy World are made in Jiangsu province.

The giant bears are fun and soft and I really like to play with them.

We love the flowers because they are really beautiful.

Look at these dragons!

There are tons this year because it's the Year of the Dragon.

Dragons are very important in Chinese culture.

And they bring you luck.

I wish you luck in the Year of the Dragon.

My name is Meng Ke.

I'm 11 years old.

TRANSLATION: I live near Sandouping in the province of Hubei.

Hubei province is in central China.

My house is on a hill.

It's close to the River Yangtze.

My family used to live right next to the river.

Then we had to move away because a huge dam was built.

The dam is called the Three Gorges Dam.

They built it to help China with flood control

and generate electricity.

It's one of the biggest dams in the world.

I can see the dam and the River Yangtze from my roof.

My grandpa said he met a lot of foreigners

when they were building it.

The electricity is sent from here to all over China.

The River Yangtze starts on the Tibetan Plateau,

in Qinghai province, and ends in Shanghai.

In the olden days before modern transport,

this was the main route for products to be sent from province to province.

It's the longest river in Asia, and the third longest in the world.

I live with my grandparents.

They look after me because my parents work in another province.

My grandpa and I usually do the shopping together.

Today we've got lots of things to buy

because it's our Spring Festival.

Everyone buys special red decorations.

It's called Spring Festival because it's usually in the spring.

This year it's in January, and it's still really cold.

It's a very exciting day because my mum and dad are coming home.

So we have to get everything ready.

Fireworks are very important for the Spring Festival.

Everyone buys them.

Even though Grandpa thinks they're not very safe,

he always buys quite a few fireworks, especially for me.

There's lots to do before my parents arrive.

Once we have dropped our shopping home, we have to get the vegetables.

My grandpa has his own vegetable patch. It's not far from our house.

I like going with Grandpa to get the vegetables.

One last thing I have to do is sweep the floor.

This is also a part of the Chinese Spring Festival tradition.

You have to make sure you sweep away bad luck and make it clean,

so that good luck can arrive.

I'm so happy and excited they're coming home.

I haven't seen them for nearly a year.

My aunt, uncle and cousin have also come specially

for the family reunion.

Now everything is ready and we just have to wait for my mum and dad.

They're coming all the way from Guangdong province.

Dad needs to drive over 20 hours to get home.

Here they are!

I feel so excited.

My mum and dad have brought presents for everyone.

Lots of tasty sweets, new clothes and new shoes.

The colour red is very important,

because we have an old story of an evil beast called Nian.

It used to eat all the people's food and even eat little children.

This evil beast hated the colour red, so that's why red is lucky,

because the evil beast will run away from red.

The scrolls mean, "May happiness fall on anyone

"who comes in and out of the house."

Mmm! Something smells nice.

We have dumplings made by all my family.

These chocolates are in the shape of our ancient Chinese money.

The money was made from real gold and silver.

At dinner, all the food we have is traditional for Spring Festival.

Everyone in my village is now setting off firecrackers.

The evil Nian was scared of the sound of firecrackers.

I hope that you have the opportunity to come to China

to celebrate Spring Festival together.

Hi! My name is Zhe Wen.

I'm ten years old. My nickname is Wen Wen.

I live in Shanghai.

-TRANSLATION:

-It's the city by the East China Sea.

This is the Huangpu River.

Shanghai is a mix of modern and old and traditional.

It's a hectic, energetic and noisy city.

Shanghai has over 23 million people living in the city.

Everybody is so busy, they don't stop.

I also have very busy days.

I set off for school at 7:40am.

I speak Chinese Mandarin to my mother

and also to my classmates at school.

But in Shanghai there's a separate language called Shanghainese.

It's different to Mandarin or Cantonese.

I can't speak it, but I understand some.

On the way to school, we have to stop at more than 10 traffic lights.

Most children start arriving from 7:50 to 8:10 am.

Lots of children come to school with their grandparents.

We all bow to our teachers when we come in.

This is to greet the teachers and show respect.

At 8:10am, the gates close.

I finish school at 3:10pm, but sometimes I have extra classes.

Today I'm going to my teacher's house for my cello lesson.

It's some way away, so I get the metro.

TRAIN BEEPS ITS HORN

Shanghai has a huge metro network.

There are 13 lines and over 200 stations.

Over five million people take it per day.

It's the fourth busiest metro line in the world.

CAR HORNS BEEPING

On the way to my teacher, I pass a famous area called the Bund.

You will see that Shanghai is split into two by the river.

This is the Huangpu River.

It's the end part of the Yangtze River,

which is the longest river in Asia.

It's very busy, with lots of boats passing by.

Over there, you can see the modern new side.

The tallest building, with the hole at the top,

is the World Financial Centre.

It's the third tallest in the world.

I'd better get to my cello lesson now.

My cello teacher is called Mrs Zhou.

She's taught a lot of cellists.

I've been learning for over a year.

I've already entered a cello competition and won third prize.

Weekends are also very busy for me.

I go to lots of extra classes.

This one is a design and technology class.

In the class, we're given different tasks.

Usually making cars, planes or boats.

Some of the pieces are really tiny so you have to be careful,

and it's quite difficult to do.

After this class, I do Olympic maths.

TEACHER SPEAKS IN MANDARIN

Olympic maths is very popular in China.

It prepares you for maths competitions.

You learn how to solve problems and it's a good exercise for your brain.

Doing Olympic maths helps you get a place in good schools.

Sunday is also a busy day.

I have two classes in the morning.

One is an extra English class.

Everybody have the piece of paper, right?

Ready? Go.

-CHILDREN READ ALOUD:

-This is a pod and the peas are inside it.

I think that learning English is really important

because with this one language, you can communicate with everyone.

I like the peas from your garden, he says.

The boys open some of the pods. They stay in the garden eating peas.

One day I hope I can go to England.

I'd love to see Big Ben.

-TEACHER:

-Does Spot like James' peas? Zhe Wen, can you answer?

Yes, he does. Of course he likes James' garden's peas,

and he likes peas out of the pod.

Very good. OK.

Because Mummy said...

On Sunday, I also have a calligraphy class.

The teacher spends a lot of time showing us the best techniques.

My teacher is very kind and patient.

He teaches us that part of calligraphy is also about patience.

It's very important in our culture, and we all learn it at school.

We use black ink and a paintbrush.

And we silently practise our own characters.

Today we're practising calligraphy characters for the Spring Festival.

I think calligraphy is a kind of art, like drawing or painting.

This is my name.

Subtitling by Red Bee Media Ltd