Jabberü recently produced an event for kids called A Chinese Adventure. It was in partnership with National Geographic and their My Wonderful World Campaign. If you haven't seen their program check it out - it is a great way to showcase other cultures and other lands for kids. We held the event at our Bethesda location. Two of our instructors led the kids on an imaginary journey to China. Jinwei who is from Harbin taught them about the development of Chinese characters and the kids got to try their hand at making the character for "tree." Meei Shi told them the story of the Monkey King and the kids acted out a scene from the tale. The grand finale was the Lion Dance which was performed by 2 volunteers from the Asian Community Service Center. It was really incredible. I didn't realize how physically demanding the Lion Dance can be. These 2 guys were jumping around, standing on shoulders, lying flat on the ground -- all in unison under a giant lion costume. Pretty impressive. It was a great afternoon and went a long way to getting American kids interested in a world that's far away and much different than their own.
