About Chinese Children's Corner

I was first inspired to create Chinese Children's Corner when I encountered non-Chinese parents of Chinese children who wanted their children to have some exposure to the Chinese language, and to images of Chinese people in children's media products. The first and only 'Chinese' children's product that came to their minds was the Chinese-dubbed version of Disney's Mulan. As someone who has been raised in the Chinese culture, I was appalled that this was the only choice these well-meaning parents had. Disney's Mulan is in many ways offensive, not just to some Chinese, but also to other Asians. A very powerful historical character had been 'dumbed down' and 'physically weakened' to make her more palatable for the American audience, steeped in its stereotypes of the weak, oppressed Oriental female and sexist Chinese society. Instead of further discussing Disney's Mulan, I will simply point to a couple of articles:

ColorQ Review: Disney's Mulan
Not Disney's 'Mulan' - the Mulan of Chinese tradition

If parents really wish to present empowering images of Chinese women to their Chinese daughters, it would be more helpful for them to take a brief look at Chinese women's history through the millenia: Chinese women in history - soldiers, pirates, scholars, sages and rulers

Regardless of the quality of Disney's Mulan, there should be more than one option available to parents who wish to expose their children to Chinese culture. Many stories about Chinese are available in the English language market, but these are primarily written for a non-Chinese Western audience, even when individual authors may be of Chinese origin. The picture of China presented in media produced for the Western audience is a far cry from the picture of China that comes across in books and videos made by Chinese for Chinese. If one really wants to learn about a culture, it maybe helpful to understand how people in that culture see themselves.

Unfortunately, most online vendors that sell authentic Chinese media products offer them on Chinese sites which are inaccessible to the non-Chinese literate user. One notable exception is yesasia.com, which provides an English language user interface for site browing. But English language product descriptions are not always provided, making it difficult for the non-Chinese reader to know exactly what s/he is buying. Chinese Children's Corner is an attempt to bridge this gap by listing products of interest from yesasia.com and providing translated product descriptions.

This site may have been inspired by non-Chinese adoptive parents of daughters from China, but it is really for anyone, Chinese or not, who wishes to purchase Chinese children's books, videos and music for children of any ethnic origin.

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