Ni hao! We would like to thank you for taking so much of your personal time to read from your wonderful book to our children at Kim’s Chinese Restaurant. Our daughter, Anna, enjoyed them very much and we often read from her book, “Mandy and Pandy Visit China“. We play the CD in the car while she follows along with the pictures. You can see from her smile in the photo how much she likes the book. She truly enjoys learning from your great stories and telling people about the new Chinesewords she has picked up. She can’t wait until we get the next book.

Please keep up the great work and we are looking forward to more in the series, and hope to see you again at Kim’s.

Warmest regards,

Mark, Kathy and Anna Bochenek

We are truly having fun making a difference in the world through our Mandy and Pandy books. In fact, we are even encouraged to create and contribute more to the harmony of the distinct cultures of the east and the west when we hear parents and teachers alike raving about how the Mandy and Pandy series have helped their kids learn the Chinese language.

Today, we would like to highlight encouraging messages from two of our dear friends. So let’s hear it for the Mandy and Pandy book series!

The first one is from a Chinese Dance and Language Teacher from New York Chinese Cultural Center:

We were fortunate enough to have Chris Lin read to my School of the Arts language class at the New York Chinese Cultural Center. Although my students are immediate Chinese speakers from 13 to 15 years, they enjoyed Mr. Lin’s reading and learned fun and useful phases from the Mandy and Pandy books. I was delighted to hear Mr. Lin emphasize the importance of learning the Chinese language to lessen the cultural divide and build a bridge of peace and understanding.

Jie Yang
Chinese Dance and Language Teacher
School of the Arts
New York Chinese Cultural Center

The next one is from a mother of two cute little girls, Mia aged 3 1/2 and Liza who is 1 year old:

We are a Jewish, American/Canadian family living in NYC. We moved to Hong Kong right after our wedding and know the importance of having familiarity of the Chinese language and certainly with Chinese culture. We want our girls to have a foundation of Chinese in case they have an opportunity to live or work in Asia in the future!

We are always delighted to hear how the Mandy and Pandy series have touched the lives of countless individuals. We find ourselves blessed to have your kind support. Thank you and kudos!

Today’s feedback comes from Jennifer Yu, Programs Director of Woodside Preschool, former teacher, and who has a masters in Early Childhood and Elementary Education.

The Mandy and Pandy book series is fantastic. My daughter and I love the books. The cute characters make learning so enjoyable for my daughter. In addition, the fact that she can pop a disc into her CD player and listen to the stories by herself also make learning easier. I love the books and CDs because not only is it teaching my daughter Chinese, they make it easy for me, as a non-Chinese speaker, to learn too!

Thanks to you, my daughter is learning so much from the books and CDs.

Regards,

Jen

It’s a great to hear how we are not only helping children learn Chinese, but also helping parents learn at the same time!  Thank you for your support Jennifer!  With respect with you and your daughter’s Chinese learning…Ja You!

It is also home to a number of expatriate companies like Intel and Good Year. The kids of executives and officers from such companies attend the Dalian International School. There are 100 kids at this school and over 100 more schools scattered in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.

It was in this school on a fateful Saturday night that Chris Lin met a number of kids who enthusiastically received Mandy and Pandy books. They were also joined by Pandy and together they explored the wonderful pages of Mandy and Pandy Visit the Zoo. Pre-school teacher Audrey’s son loved the book!

Chris Lin not only visited the school and met its CEO, Lisa Liang, but he also met up with a few other key people. One of these is Mr. Zhang who is the owner of a few nursery schools that has over 1200 kids. He also met with North Media, the largest private media company in China who are also investor in CCTV/Porchlight project Snap! Let’s Go!. Finally, he also had the pleasure of meeting with Rose Dai Li Mei, the Director of Shenyang Financial District and Trade and Development Zone.

All in all, his visit to China was one fruitful and exhilarating trip that he would surely remember. And so would the kids!

Mandy and Pandy would like to wish all the mothers around the world a Happy Mothers Day!

In truth, it would be easier to gain somebody’s trust if one can communicate using the other person’s language. Chris Lin put it this way, “The key to developing trust and building bridges is through communication, and the key to communicating effectively is to understand each other’s languages.”

More about this article: Why learn Chinese?

Here are some pictures from the event:

The actual copy of Mandy and Pandy that Yao Ming touched

Yao intently reading out loud Mandy and Pandy

Yao Ming reading together with a student

The kids all wanted a group photo the towering Yao Ming

Thanks to Hai and the Read to Achieve Program that made this all possible!

OCDF, which stands for Our Chinese Daughters Foundation, Inc., is nonprofit organization committed to supporting families who have adopted children from China. They have various programs being offered all year long. These include culture and tour programs as well as orphan support programs. They even help you adopt a Chinese orphan.

More about Chris Lin’s visit to OCDF on page 18-19.

OCDF Summer Fall

“Mandy and Pandy Visit the Zoo: man di he pan di can guan dong wu yuan” is a bilingual children’s book and CD that teaches Chinese. Thick cardboard pages with colorful illustrations show names of zoo animals and sentences in English and Chinese with phonetic pronunciations spelled in English underneath the Chinese characters. “Mandy and Pandy visit the Zoo” is the latest in a child’s series that teaches Chinese to English speaking children. The enclosed CD provides audio examples of Chinese pronunciation and articulation to make learning Chines even more fun. “Mandy and Pandy visit the Zoo” is a fun way to learn a new language and meet new friends. The Mandy and Pandy books are for all ages.

You can watch the full video below:

Barnes and Noble Booksellers in Redwood City warmly welcomed Mandy and Pandy series author Chris Lin for their event A Special Storytime last April 6, 2010. He enjoyed spending time with the kids and their parents. He shared some simple Chinese words and talked about his experience in writing the books. It must have been such a fun and learning experience for everyone there since most of the sets of book titles that were ordered for the event were sold out!

Courtney Ward, the Merchandise Manager for Barnes and Noble Booksellers, happily exclaimed, “It was our pleasure to have Chris Lin. The customers certainly enjoyed Chris as well as most of the titles I ordered for the event sold! What a great response! Again, we enjoyed having Chris at our store and he is always welcome to come back.”

090420 Press Release New York City

To read more about it, click here.

The best part of it was that Pandy was there to learn with the kids! When the activity was over, Pandy bonded with the children and had his pictures taken with them.

What a happy day that was for the children! So much for a fun learning experience. It was the most heavenly sight seeing Pandy and the children with huge smiles on their faces. Even Ms. Bai couldn’t take her hands off Pandy!

Mandy was really thrilled to visit the zoo with her dad and her cousins. She took pleasure in interacting with a number of the animals as well as posed with some animal replicas like the turtle and the polar bear.

Like a little kid her age, she happily scampered around the zoo and darted from one place to another, her curiosity getting the best of her. Her daddy patiently and lovingly followed after her sharing tidbits of facts about the animals.

He also took the time to teach her the Chinese vocabulary for animals and she delightedly repeated these and called them by their Chinese name. She would then dash to the next animal in her line of sight and try to do the same thing or ask daddy if she forgot like when she went to look at the rhino.

By the end of the day, Mandy was exhausted from their trip. But this did not deter her to talk nonstop about her day’s experience all the way home.

That was truly one exciting trip that Mandy would never forget. Not only did she enjoy the zoo and her company – her dad, her cousins and the animals, but she also learned the Chinese vocabulary for animals.

Your kids can take part too in Mandy’s zoo adventure with Mandy and Pandy’s Visit the Zoo series.

For the month of April all Mandy and Pandy Books have been reduced from $12.95 to $8.88!  That’s a great deal so make sure to order before it’s too late!

Mandy and Pandy has just released books five and six! In book five, entitled, Mandy and Pandy Play, “What Colors Do You See?” Mandy and Pandy take your child to visit the lake and observe fun objects in different colors. All the colors of the rainbow and more are included! In our sixth book, Mandy and Pandy Visit the Zoo, Mandy and Pandy takes your child on a fun trip to visit the zoo while they point out interesting observations about each animal! These books are available for purchase now!

The Mandy and Pandy Team with Yao Ming! It was a privilege for Mandy and Pandy to meet with Yao Ming in person last week in Houston; he is down-to-earth, friendly, intelligent, cool, and funny!  He is Chinese, and works to see that Chinese culture is preserved.  He is expecting a baby (his first) girl in July, so he graciously accepted the 6 books and dolls as a gift for his child.  He did peruse a couple books and complimented us saying, this is what we need… they are FUN!!  The Houston Rockets Personnel Coaching Team suggested that Yao read the books to the community with the other players on the Rockets “Read to Achieve” program.  The “Read to Achieve” program home is in Houston, and it will move to Shanghai this fall when the Rockets spend a month in China. After looking at the Snap! Let’s Go! our television trailer, he said he liked it, but remarked that the Dragon was not the kind of Dragon he was used to when he grew up watching Dragons in China.  I told him we could change it, and he was glad.  I said that we could show him the concept revised, and he said that he would welcome that opportunity.  Finally, I invited him to be a voice on the cartoon, and he said that he would consider being a guest star on the show! Jia You!  = Let’s Go