Chinese Culture Group of Greater Grand Rapids

Come celebrate the year of the Pig. Get dressed up in your favorite Chinese outfit and enjoy a family style potluck dinner. Bring a dish to pass and your favorite dessert. Punch and table settings will be provided by the group. We will meet at Our Lady of Consolation located in Rockford, for a MapQuest link click here.

Social time begins from 6-6:30
Dinner from 6:30-7:15

Entertainment: The Panda Pals will be performing the Lion Dance. Of course, it wouldn’t be CNY without firecrackers….at least the sound of firecrackers as our kids jump of bubble wrap. Bring your earplugs and definately bring your camera’s and camcorders.

Happy New Year
Xīnnián kuàilè (pronounced Shin nian kuai la)

We need your honest feedback as it relates to our monthly meetings. Attendance for our monthly meetings has dropped dramatically and the board has a few guesses as to why, but they are just that, guesses. Last night we hired Mr. He to teach calligraphy and papercutting and only had a few people attend (4 adults participated). In fact within the past year, we have had very little attendance outside of the larger events (Chinese New Year, etc.)

Please let us know your thoughts and if you’re willing to share, why you and your family have not been attending. This will help us decide which direction we need to take as an organization. Email addresses for board members can be found here

Thanks in advance,

Your Board of Directors

Members of the Culture Group have asked many times if there was an introductory class tailored for adoptive parents or adults traveling to China. Chinese Village has had a long standing relationship with our culture group and is now offering just such a class.

During the 6 weeks students will learn standard greeting in Chinese, how to ask for directions, bartering in the marketplace and other necessary phrases for getting around in China.This new class utilizes the Chinese-At-A-Glance book that can be purchased at Barnes and Noble or any other online bookseller like Amazon. Students will learn the PinYin system, which is the romanized or phoentic way to spell the Chinese language. Sentence structure will also be taught so that students can increase their vocabulary after classes conclude using the English/Chinese dictionary included with the Chinese-At-A-Glance book.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn Chinese but didn’t have the time resources that a semester course demands, please consider this class. Class meets on Saturday for 2 hours which is much more convienent for most adults.

Class will be taught by Esther Wang, who’s teaching format has helped equip dedicated students with the building blocks to begin speaking the Chinese language very quickly. Class is held at Keystone Community Church which is located between Spaulding Ave and Ada Drive.
To signup for this class please visit http://www.chinesevillage.org/register.html

xie xie,

Mark Elenbaas
CCGGGR Secretary and Webmaster

Our next Panda Pals Event is coming up soon! On Saturday, January 27, 2007, 9 a.m. - 3 p.m., we will meet at Char Lanning’s home office. Leonard VanGelter will be teaching the Panda Pals to perform the traditional Chinese Lion Dance. They will perform the Lion Dance for CCGGGR Chinese New Years party on Tuesday evening, February 6, 2007. Char has one set of cymbals, 2 lion heads and a drum. If anyone else has similar Lion Dance supplies which we could use, please let us know.

We need RSVP’s to know how many Pals will be coming on Saturday. We need some volunteers to supply cookies, drinks, fruits and vegies for snacks. We will order pizza for lunch.

If you are not already registered with Panda Pals and would like to come to the next event you can signup here