Fuwa - Beijing 2008 Olympic Mascots

Chinese word "Fuwa" means "Good-luck dolls". In the early design time, the Mascots were named as "Friendlies" . However, in the later discussions, use Chinese word "Fuwa" was elected by Chinese.

Fuwa will serve as the official Mascots during Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, carrying pace and love from China to all children over the world.
The Fuwa includes 5 members, they are the Fish, the Panda, the Tibetan Antelope, the Swallow, and the Olympic Flame. Each character has a traditional Chinese two-syllable name, Beibei is the Fish, Jingjing is the Panda, Huanhuan is the Olympic Flame, Yingying is the Tibetan Antelope and Nini is the Swallow. The Fuwa's name together is "北京欢迎你 - Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni "-Welcome to Beijing.

Five Fuwa members have their colors to match the Five Olympic Rings and also represent 5 natural elements. Beibei is blue, represents the see; Jingjing is black, represents the forest; Huanhuan is red, represents the fire; Yingying is yellow, represents the Earth; Nini is green, represents the sky.

Mascots "Fuwa" was announced by the National Society of Chinese Classic Literatures Studies on November 11, 2005 on the event making the 1000th day before the opening of the games.

Also a 100-episodes Olympic-themed cartoon series featuring the Fuwa was release in China on August 8th, 2007.

Bejing Olympic Games(08/08/2008)

Three years ago, we visited Beijing. This picture was taken at National Chinese Museum Next to Tiananmen Square. A big countdown calendar showed the countdown days was 1039 days, 09 hours, 10 minutes and 39 seconds. The Bejing Olympic Games will be held on August 08, 2008 (第29届奥林匹克运动会.)

Today, there are only 165 days left, less than half year!!!

Bejing Olympic Games has been a dream for many generations of the Chinese. Now China is in full force preparing it.

May be not a lot of people ever thought about why choose August 8 to start Bejing 2008 Olympic games. In China, number 6, 8, 9 are the lucky numbers and people often like to choose them for their phone numbers, addresses, license plates, marriage date or even the baby's birthdate. The number 6 (liu) sounds like smoothly, The number 9 (jiu) has the meaning of "forever" and the number 8 (Fa, Ba) has the meaning of "making a lot of money".

Bejing is the host city of the 2008 Summer Olympics; there are another six cities co-host the games. Qingdao will host the Olympic Sailing Regatta, Hong Kong will host the equestrian events, The football games will take plance in the constructed Qinhuangdao Olympic Center Stadium, The Shanghai Stadium, Shenyang's Wulihe Stadium and Tianjin Olympic Stadium.

Let's have the best wishes to Bejing 2008 Olympic Games!!!

Pearl Heart Beading Necklace

Beading is one of my hobbies. I designed and made the pearl heart necklace a month ago, friend of mine took the pictures and encouraged I share with others.

For most of beads design, I like something simple but elegant. This beaded heart shape only used seed beads and one 4mm round "Cultured Freshwater Pearl" beads. The heart shape is not perfectly symmetric, as you can see on the narrow side, the space just fits the 4mm round bead and another side is slightly bigger.


I had the sliver chain before, but it will be a little boring if I just put the pearl heart on it. So, I specially separated the pieces and beaded 3 of 4mm round beads in between to make it fit the heart design.

I use it very often for the casual cases. Hope you like it.

Green Tea Shurb

Many People like to drink tea, specially in the East. Have you even had chance to see the tea plants?

These pictures were taken in Japan. It is most likely a type of green tea. Around this shurb, the plant is changing based on the seasons, however the shurb never was removed. Once a while, people will go between the shurb and cut them.

At the time I took the picture, the plant infront
was just removed. You can see beautiful tea
shurb is laying perfectly and the gaps between
the rows are just right space for people go through.

"Peace and Love" - A Beautiful Quilt

This beautiful quilted King Size blanket was handmade by my mother-in-law. She loves making quilts and gives to relatives and friends as a gift. I really think each piece of her quilts are a piece of art. Each of her quilts has a theme, this one is "Peace and Love".

In Japan it seems that quilting (パッチワーク) becomes so popular
among women recently. Many museum display the wonderful pieces for more people to know and enjoy.

日本ではパチワックが好きになった女性達が最近増えているようです。よく博物館で展示されています。

The right side picture is the back of blanket.

Vallentine's Day Cards

In West, sending a "Happy Valentine's Day" card is very common. We receive the cards from relatives every year. The picture on the right is a Valentine's Day US postage stamp, which was published in 2007.







Just like other greeting cards, there
are various Valentine's Day cards. People
can choose their favorite colors
and words.

A Cute Balloon Rat

One day I bought a bag of balloons for my son to play, then I realized one bag was not enough. He quickly ran to the internet to learn how to make animals, sword and flowers.
This cute and lovely balloon rat is one of his works.

可爱的小老鼠是儿子的一个作品.
可愛いネズミは息子の作品の一つです。





You could imagine how many balloons we bought since he likes it so much.

买了一大批气球，会有很多期待啦。。。

沢山のバルーンを買いましたよ。これからも楽しい作品をお待ち下さい。

Paper Folding Art

One of my hobbies is paper folding. I have many years of experience making animals, flowers, plants and more. I continue to have a lot of fun teaching others about Origami.

Recently, I started to put folded pieces together making a beautiful piece for hanging on the wall. This design can be found in the book, " 絵を書くように楽しい花暦". The butterflies are a custom addition. Instead of using "Washi-paper", I used paper with a floral pattern for more realistic flowers.

Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day is a great chance for men to give their loved women gifts (chocolates and flowers) in Western countries. However, in Japan, on Valentine’s Day it is only the women who give chocolates to the men. In return the men will send chocolates back to the women on “White Day”March 14^th.
Women giving chocolates to their loved ones is called “Honmei-choko” (本命チョコ), otherwise chocolate given to others is called “Giri-choko” (義理チョコ). In recent years, “Ziko-choko” (自己チョコ) is gaining popularity, which means buy chocolates for oneself. This is very popular among young girls.

In China, Valentine’s Day used to be called “七夕节(qi xi jie)”, but now is more comonly said as“情人节(qing ren jie)”, means only for the true lovers or married couples. Similar to the West, the men buy gifts to their loved women or invite her for a romantic dinner. This year, many city halls in China announced to refuse requests by divorcing couples on Valentine’s Day.

I am sure the adults who want to send presents on Valentine’s Day most likely will choose to buy those gifts. However, last weekend, I had my first experience helping a group of elementary school girls to make their own chocolates for their teachers and friends. It is impressive that they spent almost the whole day preparing materials, cooking and wrapping the chocolate with cute stickers and ribbons.

China Lunar New Year (春节)

Since the 1980’s, the China Central Television (CCTV) holds a special gala broadcast live on Lunar New Year’s Eve to celebrate the Chinese Spring Festival. The program includes dances, songs and short comedies performed by popular artists.

For a decade, this program was the only exciting and popular show appearing on New Year’s Eve. Most Chinese people enjoyed watching it. Now there are so many interesting dramas, movies and other kinds of New Year’s programs on local TV dividing people’s attention. So the gala may not be as popular as it used to be. However, it still has more than half of the Chinese every year watching the show on New Year’s Eve, even though some of the parts have became less attractive or boring.

No doubt, watching the gala has become a tradition, and it is a symbol of the Chinese New Year.

Every year the program has a theme: "Harmony, Prosperity, Unity and Progress“ (和谐盛世，团结奋进) is this year’s theme.

According to the news, this year’s gala is the most popular one in the last 8 years.

2008 February 6^th was Lunar New Year’s Eve, after which started the year of the “Rat”. You can watch the gala (中国中央电视台春节联欢晚会) online. Please enjoy it.