Today we were on to our next country, China!
First over on our WWII map we noted a few key events from 1937-1938. Japan invaded China, pissing off the US, while Hitler went ahead and annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia.
We covered a bit about China. Our landmark was obvious: The Great Wall of China.
We talked about all the inventions that have come from China: chopsticks, toilet paper, toothbrushes, teapots, fireworks, and umbrellas to name a few.
And there are some cool geographical things to check out, the 'Rainbow Rocks' (a result of mineral depsoties and red sandstone mixing over millions and millions of years), and Heaven's Gate Mountain, a mountain in the Hunan province with a giant naturally formed hole. (Some guy even flew through on a 'wing suit').
There are notable celebrations as well...
The Chinese New Year with brightly colored dragons constructed to scare away evil spirits...
...and the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, where the river freezes and they use the ice to sculpt some of the coolest, largest ice sculptures there ever were.
China is, of course, the most populated country in the world with somewhere between 1.3 and 1.4 billion people living there. That amounts to one out of every 7 people on the planet living in China.
China is a big place for all those people, ranking number 4 in area, but that's all debatable on who you ask. You can't talk about China without discussing Tibet. John Oliver actually did a great segment on Tibet and China and the Dalai Lama. This is not the first time we used John Oliver for this project. I mean did you guys see the Bolivian Traffic Zebras? It aired just after Bolivia day here, so we had the boys watch.
Anyway, obviously, it's John Oliver and HBO, so we have to watch and make sure certain segments are Hayden friendly, and this one wasn't, so Hayden couldn't watch the whole thing, but he did get to check out some of it. (Calib and Peyton loved it, by the way- but Last Week Tonight is like one of Peyton's favorite's shows). And it was nice because the boys at least were a little familiar with the Dalai Lama because of Religion Week.
But Tibet and China are a source of some serious contention, and apparently, China wasn't too pleased with the interview. And just recently the Dalai Lama suggested he could reincarnate as a woman, outside, of course, of Chinese rule.
But Tibet isn't recognized as it's own country by UN standards, so it's not on tap for this project. Neither is Taiwan. But at least China isn't arguing with them over the Dalai Lama. Instead, China sent Taiwan a couple of pandas to 'promote a more prosperous relationship'.
And then there's Hong Kong, one of the world's most densely populated areas. It's only 426 square miles, but home to over 7 million people. Yikes.
But, I didn't go too in depth for all these areas. Maybe if we get way ahead and have time we'll throw these in, along with places like Kosovo and Palestine that aren't recognized by the UN. But, we'll see.
The boys made their postcards.
Calib's featured a panda and pagodas.
Peyton noted the dense population and the Rainbow Rocks.
And Hayden made a dragon and put some Mongols peering over the Great Wall of China.
For their activity today they made some Dragon Boats for the Dragon Boat Races. And there was some sort of Sharpie war between Calib and Peyton. But I try and stay out of such things.
We printed out some dragon heads for the front, folded a square piece of paper into a boat, and added some oars (straws). We voted on our favorite boats in addition to postcards.
Peyton's boat..
Calib's boat...
And Hayden's boat...
Ok, so Chinese food here is not like Chinese food in China. We already knew General Tso's Chicken is a recipe from a Chinese immigrant, but made in New York City. However, the boys REALLY wanted Asa to make it for dinner. It was one thing he used to make way before I planned ever dinner with this crazy project, so we went with it, and used dinner as a way to talk about how American Chinese differs from actual Chinese (example: Chinese eat Spring Rolls, not Egg Rolls).
Oh, and our chopsticks are from South Korea (courtesy of my mom bringing some back for us a from her trip there a couple of years ago), so we were kind of all over the place with this one.
Hayden and I worked on coloring China in. The whole kitchen smelled like nail polish, I'm told. Russia is up tomorrow, and we have three bottles of nailpolish ready to go, but I think just because of fumes, we're going to have to open a window and take shifts!
Like I said, tomorrow is Russia day, so the table is going to start looking really filled in.
57 down, 136 to go!
Next Up: Russia
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