Though we agree having a teacher or classroom is probably one of the best ways to stay on task to learn putonghua, the reality is that many of us may not have time, or an ayi to cover the time, or the desire to add another thing to a busy-stay-at-home-mom schedule. Therefore, we suggest scheduling in some physical downtime and language study for you and your kids with children’s programs in Chinese.

1. Teletubbies 天线宝宝

In 2002 the show was translated to Mandarin, giving new life to Po, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, and Tinky Winky. Some of the episodes were filmed especially for a Chinese audience, like when they’re running to get into the Chinese New Year parade. The heroes of the show may sound pretty naïve and repetitive, but what can be better than that repetition when you need to learn the basics?

2. Balala the Faires 巴啦啦小魔仙

This is a Chinese version of a well-known Japanese show, Magical Girls. The Chinese spin replaces the cartoon characters with life-sized and costume-dressed versions. The first season includes 52 full episodes about the adventures of two sisters from Earth and a fairy fighting the evil plans of magical villains. Though the dialogs are interesting, we admit some of the phrases might not be useful in every day circumstances.

3. Boonie Bears 网友们最关心的问题

Named among the most popular Chinese shows over the last 10 years, Boonie Bears is a favorite show for many children and grandparents. E. Pei, a reviewer from Amazon.com says, “I haven’t yet watched it in English, I’ve only watched in Chinese [despite]not knowing the language. It reminded me of classic Looney Tunes. Think Road Runner meets Coyote. My kids aged 3-5 love Boonie Bears so much we had a theme birthday party.” Note, Looney Tunes had guns, and so does the logger in Boonie Bears.

4. Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf 喜羊羊与灰太狼

This show claiming to be the most popular Chinese cartoon ever created is about a goat flock living in a peaceful green oasis having to deal with a nasty wolf who always tries to eat them. The cartoon has over a thousand episodes. The creators worked on four big-screen movies. We’ll again warn parents that some gun violence might not be appropriate for your family.

5. Wanderings of Sanmao 三毛流浪记

This cartoon appeared after the success of the first Chinese children comics in the 1930s, all drawn by Mr. Zhang Leping. The show is about Sanmao, translated as “three locks of hair,” who is a poor orphan living in Shanghai. Sanmao is charming, optimistic, and became a real symbol of a true Chinese patriot. Thus, during his last adventures, he is fighting pollution. This is the perfect window for Chinese culture.

We also suggest checking 海的小纵队 (Aquanauts), Dora the Explorer, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Peppa Pig.

Photos: baike.sogou.com; v.61.com; animationmagazine.com; dramafever.com; chinawhisper.com

Every time we are back home in the US, we try to make time for activities and places that were part of our usual orbit when we still lived there. Among our usual visits are the Carnegie Museums in Pittsburgh. In Oakland, we divide our time between the Museum of Art and the Museum of Natural History since they are physically connected. It really is something to wander between the two, always an opportunity to see how closely related nature and art are, and not always in obvious ways.

After all these years of visiting these museums, I’m still delighted when we see something we have walked by a hundred times, but see it in a new, revelatory way. For instance, in the Hillman Hall of Minerals on one of our winter visits, the kids and I really focused on this mesolite specimen from India.

We could not get over how much we thought it looked like a character from the popular Chinese cartoon series 喜羊羊与灰太狼 (Pleasant Goat and the Big Big Wolf)

These characters are ubiquitous in China, therefore difficult to avoid. Even before she ever watched the show, Brigid could recognize the characters at a very young age. So popular in China is 喜羊羊 that one time when we were coming through immigration at the Beijing airport that the Chinese agent remarked that he could tell we had been living in China a very long time, not because of our Chinese-speaking but rather because of Brigid’s 喜羊羊 backpack.

As a social media junkie, I couldn’t help but post a picture of this on my Twitter and Chinese Weixin accounts. One of my American-in-China tweeps immediately saw what we did. On Weixin, though, I was in for a surprise. In my post there, I noted that I thought the crystal formation looked familiar, without expressly saying anything at first about 喜羊羊. The comments I received were interesting. From my Chinese friends on Weixin (many of them parents of young children, too), not one also recognized the 喜羊羊 in this rock. They saw things like a unicorn or a  "little Beijing dog." Only one other foreigner, also a parent of a child being raised in China, saw what the kids and I saw.

If it were only me that thought this was so clearly doppelganger in mineral, or if I thought it resembled something from a really obscure reference, I wouldn’t find this so curious. But I thought this was so obvious, as did my kids, and the little cartoon goats are really everywhere. My sample size was statistically insignificant, and the survey unscientific, but anecdotally, my Chinese friends saw something completely different than we did in this rock.

This post first appeared on Jennifer Ambrose’s site on January 26, 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 Jennifer Ambrose

The makers of a popular cartoon have been fined almost RMB 40,000 by a Jiangsu court after two children suffered severe burns imitating the show’s characters.

The pair, brothers aged 5 and 8, were badly injured when a third child imitating a character from Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf (喜羊羊与灰太狼) tied them to a tree and started a fire with dry leaves.

Flames spread uncontrollably before the brothers were rescued by locals in a village in Jiangsu Province’s Lianyungang. The incident, which took place in April this year, left both victims disfigured, with the younger brother suffering burns to 80 percent of his body.

The production group behind the cartoon, Creative Power Entertaining Company, was found legally responsible for the injuries. The court concluded that the company had been negligent in its duty to warn viewers of the potential risks of copying the animated violence featured in the show.

The official verdict, delivered on Wednesday, said that it was the responsibility of producers to “rigorously review” their content and, in the case of violent scenes or plots, warn young viewers against attempts to imitate.

Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, a children’s show that airs daily on Chinese television, features the usual array of cartoon violence, with characters regularly hit with frying pans and dropped into boiling water. The incident that injured the young brothers is purported to be a direct imitation of a scene where the Big Big Wolf ties the goat character to a tree and contemplates eating her like a kebab.

The RMB 39,000 fine will act as compensation for the boys’ families, though it allegedly covers just 15 percent of their medical expenses. The guardians of the 8-year-old child who started the blaze are expected to pay a further 60 percent for his actions, while the victim’s parents are expected to cover the remaining 25 percent.

Image: Weilai Wang