Sanguine

I admittedly did not have sun fuzzies when I first heard about Ni-Hao, Kai Lan! I have reprehensible disdain for Dora the Explorer/Go, Diego! Go! and thought, really, this is just Chinese Dora. This is ridiculous. It happened to be on yesterday morning and I had not yet had coffee, so I just let Ro watch it. By the time I settled onto the sofa with her, they were into the second segment where Kai Lan and her friends are preparing for the Moon Festival. Immediately I felt kind of nauseated because whenever I think of the Chinese Moon Festival I think of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club which I've read about ten times and it's so fraught with tragedy and sadness that it always makes me feel a little queasy.

Anyway, I was thrilled to see that Kai Lan actually managed to do Zhongqiu Jie some justice! They spent the day preparing dumplings, making paper lanterns, and helping bake moon cakes at the bakery to fill the orders from the neighborhood. Then they waited for the sun to set, gathered around the table, ate their dumplings, had a lantern parade to the top of the hill, made a wish on the moon and they all shared cakes.

Xie xie, Kai Lan. You do me proud.