During the Mid-Autumn Festival, Holiland grabbed the attention of Potterheads all around the country with their Harry Potter-themed mooncakes. For RMB 289 or RMB 589 you could get a set of mooncakes shaped like the Monster Book of Monsters.

By the looks of it the mooncakes were a sensational hit because recently Holiland came out with a whole new collection of cakes that are sure to excite every Potterhead. The new Harry Potter cakes series features five iconic cakes.

1. The Daily Prophet chocolate cookie cake for RMB 299 looks like a stack of the Wizarding newspaper with the famous headline “The Boy Who Lived.”

2. The Hogwarts Castle cake is a night scene of the famous school adorned with the Great Hall’s floating white candles for RMB 289. Perfect for a Potterhead’s birthday.

3. Instead of cupcakes, Holiland has created a mini cake of the most iconic cake in the entire Harry Potter series – the one that Hagrid made for Harry for this 13th birthday. The small raspberry and chocolate cookie-flavored cake is just RMB 22, and looks exactly like the one from the first book – spelling errors, cracks and all.

4. Then for the daring foodies, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans is a series of five pastries for RMB 28, each with its own unique flavor. There’s cough syrup, mustard, spearmint toothpaste, durian, and vomit. Good luck…

5. Then finally, bringing the latest collection to a close is the Deathly Hallows Bread.

Everything from the design, to the flavor, to the packaging is beautiful, down to the last detail. The box looks like it’s wrapped in The Daily Prophet, with a few iconic headlines from the latter part of the Harry Potter series. For those wishing to gift a set to a friend or foe, they’ve also created a pop-up Hogwarts castle gift card that’s a collectible all on its own.

If you can’t make it to your local Holiland bakery, their cakes are also available on Holiland’s JD and Taobao stores. Scan the QR code below to check them out.

KEEP READING: Harry Potter Fans Rejoice! The Most Unique Mooncakes This Season

Images: Holiland, Pexels

Winter is coming. As the breezes get brisker and chills get chillier, we need more indoor places for our kids to play. So welcome to our new Tuesday series, where we’ll share all our latest findings for winter play spots! Comment if you have suggestions.

Are your kids dying to be wizards? Can’t wait for the Hogwarts Express to pull into Tongzhou for the new Universal Studios Beijing Theme Park? Then you’ll want to head over to Indigo Mall for their special event, A Magical Harry Potter Holiday.

First things first. You need a reservation. Like, now. Scan the QR code in the photo below and be flexible with the date and time you can make it. As of the publishing of this article, there are sporadic times available in November but you will definitely need to reserve a spot for December. Reservations are free and you just show your code at the entrance to the area. Be ready to stand in line, as they only allow a certain number of people in to enjoy the festivities at once.

Once you’re inside, it is a blast for adults and kids alike. I was worried that because we’d been to both Hogsmead and Diagon Alley in Universal Studios Florida it wouldn’t feel as fun. These are not much stronger than cardboard cutouts of the real themed buildings in those parks. You can’t order a butterbeer or buy Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans here, nor are there real magic tricks for purchase.

You can’t buy candy at this Honeyduke’s, but it does feel sweet.

Not to fear. The magic is not lost, not even nestled right next to a Blue Frog Restaurant. Something about the excitement and anticipation, plus some nicely chosen pastel colors that create a little bit of magic help you journey through a different kind of Harry Potter experience, and one that makes sense inside the massive Indigo Mall.

Of course, there’s a gift shop. Why not?

Indigo Mall offers cool benefits for their members, like exclusive entry into the Niffler’s treasure chest (the crane working outside lost a bit of the magic, but hey). Here you pile oversized gold coins onto the Niffler’s stomach, balancing and unbalancing them until they fall onto one of the receptacles on either side. Kids can either work together and help one another or compete with each other.

You’re actually supposed to be taller to play, but they let us in any way.

It wouldn’t be a visit to Hogsmeade without Platform 9 3/4 and the Hogwarts Express. They did a nice job of recreating the photo op train in all of the parks, but it does fall a little short that you’re not allowed to sit on it for a picture. I mean, what else are you going to do?

Don’t tell, but we did sneak a sit-down photo. You just have to be fast!

When not a series of Hogsmeade cut-outs, this area is merely for resting and playing, a part of the mall where kids are allowed to run and romp, aunties or grandparents can chill on the benches, and parents can sit in peace. That was the part of this adventure that my kids enjoyed the most after an hour or so of wandering the mall: a place where they could just run and be happy.

The “grassy” hills had nothing to do with Harry Potter, but they were great for rolling, running, and staring up at the ceiling.

We didn’t buy a wand, but if you did purchase one then they also had an area where you can practice your magic spells. They also had a special experience inside one or two of the stores.

Every window held a display that was at least pretty to look at.

All in all, this is one of those low impact outings that can also center around holiday shopping or dinner out. We also ventured downstairs to Page One, a great bookstore with both Chinese and English language books, and the LEGO Store near it. That’s probably how I resisted this adorable Dumbledore Funko and friends; we’d already made some nice purchases.

If they had had a Snape, I would have been a goner.

If it sounds like your cup of Treacle Tart Tea, scan their QR code and find a time you can attend. I’d suggest using the subway or a car service, however, as there was some sort of altercation in the parking garage on the day that I visited.

A Magical Harry Potter Holiday at Indigo Mall in the Winter Garden
Address: 18 Jiuxianqiao Lu, Chaoyang District
颐提港：朝阳区酒仙桥路18号
Hours: Daily 10am-10pm, event runs until Jan 1, 2021
Phone: 8426 0898
Website: www.indigobeijing.com
Reservations: Scan QR code

Images: Cindy Jenkins, courtesy of Indigo Mall

Parents looking for things to do with their offspring on chilly November days will be warmed by the knowledge that a strong of international blockbusters are coming to Beijing cinemas this month. We’ve picked out three fabulous fantasies for families to enjoy together. Don’t forget that international films are usually screened in both subtitled and dubbed versions, often at different times at the same cinema. Make sure you’re booking for a screening which suits your language skills.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

Already screening is Disney’s latest live-action fantasy, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. It’s based on the classic story which also inspired Tchaikovsky’s much-loved ballet, about a Christmas gift which opens a door to a magical kingdom. So far the movie has been less well-loved, with one critic describing it as “an explosion of special effects and set design in search of a story.” However little princesses will adore its sparkly festive glamor.

The House With a Clock in Its Walls

Director Eli Roth is not exactly known for family-friendly fare, but like Peter Jackson before him, he’s brought skills honed in the horror genre to more mainstream fantasy. The House With a Clock in Its Walls may still be a little scary for the youngest kids, but should provide satisfying thrills for elementary-age kids and up. It’s the tale of a boy who goes to stay with his uncle in a mysterious house, and discovers a hidden world of witches and warlocks.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Despite the last of the novels having hit the screens seven years ago, the Harry Potter universe keeps on giving. Fantastic Beasts began as a fundraising book for charity but has now spawned not only a film but a sequel too. Kids who are potty about Potter will love this prequel, with a screenplay by JK Rowling herself, in which a young Albus Dumbledore joins up with Newt Scamander to battle the dark wizard Grindelwald.

Photos: www.rottentomatoes.com, Wikimedia Commons

News on Wednesday detailed how excited Universal Studios Beijing investors have doubled their investment from USD 3.3 billion to USD 6.5 billion even as Chinese authorities try to dampen enthusiasm towards the country’s booming theme park industry.

The investment by Universal Parks & Resorts and five state-owned Chinese entities that have amalgamated beneath the Beijing Shouhuan Cultural Tourism Investment Company will be the largest ever made for a theme park, reported the Wall Street Journal.

The investment surpasses the USD 5.5 billion investment made into Shanghai Disneyland, which broke even in its first year of operation by welcoming some 11 million park visitors.

The greatly-improved budget for Universal Studios Beijing is said to increase park space and broaden the scope of its attractions. The future theme park will also feature a CityWalk shopping and entertainment district as well as the world’s first in-park, Universal Studios-branded hotel. Buoyed by the success of the House of the Mouse to the south, Universal Studios Beijing is now expecting some 10 million visitors in its first year of operations.

As well, the first Universal Studios Beijing ride attraction has been officially confirmed to be “Fast & Furious Supercharged.” Stars of the multi-sequel gear-shifting family-bonding franchise had revealed the news last week when they helped open the movie-themed attraction at Universal Studios Orlando.

But with hundreds of theme parks opening around the country, China’s central planning body warned prospective builders in April to be wary of local debt build-up and low-grade developments. And yet, theme parks continue to be a lucrative business in China, rising 27 percent from 2016 to reach USD 6 billion last year, according to market researcher Mintel. And with revenues expected to hit USD 14 billion by 2022, China’s theme park industry will soon surpass the USA.

First announced in 2014, the opening date for Universal Studios Beijing has been pushed back a number of times, most recently to 2020. Although it has undergone a number of changes since its inception, the theme park will most likely incorporate Chinese elements into its design to help cater to local visitors at a rate reported in the Chinese press as being 35 percent.

When complete, Universal Studios Beijing will join the ranks of other local theme parks like Happy Valley and Shijingshan. Beijing residents will be able to access the southeastern-located theme park by subway.

More stories from this author here.

E-Mail: charlesliu1 (at) qq (dot) com 
Twitter: @Sinopath

Images: Weibo

 "Ron you know full well Harry and I were brought up by Muggles!" said Hermione. "We didn’t hear stories like that when we were little, we heard ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ and ‘Cinderella.’"

"What’s that, an illness?" asked Ron.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, chapter 7

In the final book of the Harry Potter series, Dumbledore has left in his will a volume of children’s fairy tales from the Wizarding world to Hermione, who would be unfamiliar with them having come from a Muggle family. She needed to know these stories to understand the larger Wizarding Culture and to find the Deathly Hallows.

We are experiencing something like that, working with a Chinese student who is reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in English. I knew that there would be times when the book would be difficult because JK Rowling manipulates the English language (and Latin) in the series, like with some of the character’s names and the Mirror of Erised. But there were some things I didn’t anticipate.

One of Myles’ Changping friends has aspirations to attend school in Europe in a few years. He has some special talents, and there is a program for his specialty in a European country that is likewise interested in his applying to it. The language of instruction for the international participants is English, not the home language of the country. His language capability in English is better than most Chinese kids his age, mostly because his parents’ have looked for every opportunity for him to improve his English, sometimes at the expense of his Mandarin.

For the last year, he has come over to our house a few times a week for some extra English practice. One thing that I have considered might help him (inspired by our experience with the Brave Writer program) is listening to books while reading along so he can match what is spoken to how it is written. We follow up with copywork in addition. He’s been listening to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on a CD, and sometimes I re-read parts of it to him. Occasionally, when I know the movie matches very closely to the book, we watch a scene from the film in addition to the listening and reading. Even though we have all these tools to help guide our friend through the book, I still sometimes have to translate some of the vocabulary

A Western child, steeped in Grimm’s fairy tales and the like, probably understands the world Harry Potter is thrust into because the basic vocabulary of Rowling’s magical realm is the same that he or she has heard so many times before. Harry’s supply list for his first year includes equipment like a cauldron and a wand, and notes a prohibition on broomsticks for the youngest students. Most Anglophone readers, I’m sure, are able to visualize what these things might look like because we’ve already heard so many other stories where witches and wizards have cauldrons and wands, and travel by flying broomsticks. For Myles’ friend, on the other hand, he needed a lot more explanation about what these things were.

I started translating some of these words using the Pleco app on my phone. Cauldron was a particular problem, especially since Mandarin has many words for cauldron, and Chinese witches apparently don’t use them. Fortunately, one of the databases that Pleco uses give a clue to the Chinese word that is appropriate for the vessel in which a magical person might brew a potion.

I may have failed him in not really delving into the names that Rowling chose for people and places, like Draco Malfoy or Diagon Alley. This is a delicious part of the whole series, a lovely treat. However, our friend’s attention waned when I delved into it, so I switched gears. The primary goal was for him and his parents was for him to get through the book, understand it on some level, and realize some improvement in his English.

One thing that I started to wonder, though, through this exercise, is that if Chinese students wouldn’t be further ahead studying Latin, rather than English, as their first second language. The downside would be that, of course, there are no children’s shows in Latin, not many books in Latin, or any opportunities to practice on strangers in the park. However, the way in which English is most frequently taught and tested in China, it doesn’t lend itself to conversation ability. If they are only going to emphasize reading and writing, maybe learning Latin is the way to go in the earlier years. It would lay a good groundwork to understanding a wider variety of European languages. They could differentiate later into something more modern and useful, but at least Latin would provide the base code.

Our friend happily finished Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I looked through Brave Writer’s archives and found Encylcopedia Brown Boy Detective. I think this will be a good next lesson for him since he has devoured all of Myles’ books in this series already. It will be most useful for the grammar lessons, without the added work of working through the background knowledge most Western children would bring to the reading.

This post first appeared on Jennifer Ambrose’s site on February, 2014.

Jennifer Ambrose hails from Western Pennsylvania and misses it terribly. She still maintains an intense devotion to the Pittsburgh Steelers. She has lived in China since 2006 and is currently an at-home mother. With her husband Randy and children Myles and Brigid, she resides outside the Sixth Ring Road in Changping, northwest of Beijing.

Photo courtesy of Anders.Bachmann (flickr)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, the final installment of the epic decade-long Harry Potter series is indeed as satisfying and titillating as all the reviews claim, and catching the midnight showing in Beijing was a surprisingly interactive experience.

The excitement no doubt was ratcheted up by the extra three weeks of anticipation bearing upon audiences here while the rest of world buzzed with Potter-mania. In China, any kind of fandom takes on its own unique characteristics, but nowhere does this show through more endearingly than with Harry Potter.
 

Walking into the theater, I was delighted to find a gaggle of Hogwarts students standing near the elevator, with sweeping black robes, colored ties (there were Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin – very egalitarian) and very real-looking wands. Another group made a huge hand-drawn poster. (This I found funny: At a rock concert, it might catch Bono’s attention, but Daniel Radcliffe isn’t exactly going to point and shout "Thank you Beijing!!") Then there was the breakout of applause when a six-foot foreigner dressed as Lucius Malfoy entered the lobby with a trail of other hodgepodge characters (and a patronus). Photos were snapped in every which direction and there were even a few small media outlets interviewing the rabidly Potter-crazed.

Now on to the movie: Since the movie has been out in other countries for a few weeks, most of you have probably read the reviews elsewhere. In case you haven’t, it has beautiful shots, heart-wrenching moments of love, loss, victory and defeat and incredible acting performances by Ralph Fiennes, Maggie Smith and Helena Bonham Carter. Even the three not-so-young actors did a fine job. But the real star of the film was Alan Rickman; one girl in the theater nearly hyperventilated every time he came onscreen.

Also as anticipated, the movie is an emotional roller coaster. J.K. Rowling has imbued the characters and story with so much relational complexity that this emotion was going to be an inevitable and also highly anticipated aspect of the final film. Flashback scenes showing the kids growing up throughout the story were especially moving.

We watched the film in 3-D, and while the Dementors floating over Hogwarts in the opening scene was a spectacular (and chilling) visual, I would agree with reviewers who say that the 3-D really isn’t necessary. I do hope to watch it in 2-D again just to try and catch more of the details. Next time I’ll have to remember to bring tissues.

As for whether the film is safe for kids, that’s a hard call to make. Those who’ve read the book can anticipate a very dark and bloody ending to a children’s franchise, and there are probably about 28 scattered minutes of the two-hour-long movie that would be considered completely "kid-friendly." That said, though there are a quite a few violent scenes, the really disturbing parts of the film are less graphic, more conceptual. So, if your child is about nine or older, and has read the books and knows what to expect, it should be doable. Parents with younger kids who were hoping to use them as an excuse to watch the movie might want to hire a babysitter and just enjoy it on their own. (But don’t tell the kids that’s what you’re doing. That would just be cruel.)

The film is now showing in theaters all across town (UME, Megabox, and Wanda Cinemas, and you can also check out our theBeijinger.com post that gives a useful breakdown of the city’s IMAX venues.