Today is Chinese New Year. It's the Year of the Rat. When we were in China, we saw many preparations for New Year celebrations, most featuring cartoon rats that looked more like Mickey Mouse (big ears, like the ones we saw being installed at Confucius' Temple in Nanjing) than your typical rat.
Nick Jr. debuted a new show today, Ni Hao Kai-lan!, a Dora-like animated show created by a Chinese-American young woman. It's aimed at a preschool audience and features a combination of life lessons (today's theme was what to do when you get angry), Chinese culture and basic Mandarin vocabulary. The New York Times ran a story on the creator, Karen Chau, last year. Ms. Chau says she was influenced by Hello Kitty, and you can tell it in her animation. The first episode is very promising.
We DVR'd it, and Lillian watched it with some interest this afternoon. Nick Jr. is running new episodes several days in a row to kick it off.
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