Our $10, Ten Minute Trip to China

Bringing an international experience to your home on a limited budget

Photo by Robert Nyman on Unsplash

We live in an affluent area where many of our friends take trips to Europe or the Carribbean. Others go on cruises and annual trips to Disney World. This is not in our budget. I especially wish I could take my kids to the People’s Republic of China, where I lived for four months. Sadly, this may never be. But I decided to bring some of China to them. One day, I returned from our local international grocery store one day with a bag of frozen pork barbecue dumplings. My kids eyed the bag suspiciously.

“It’s for a $10 trip to China,” I told them. They were curious.

At a scheduled time, I called the kids to the kitchen table where each one got a fragrant cup of green tea and a steaming bun on a plate. Then I flipped open Dim Sum for Everyone.

By the end of the book, my kids had concluded that they couldn’t stand green tea or dim sum, but they absolutely loved the experience. They talked about it for days, for months even. Somehow, putting the book and the new snack together was more than the dim sum of its parts.

If you want to encourage your kids to try new things, explore new cultures, and have fun with reading, why not try your own $10 trip to China?

Picture books:

• Dim Sum for Everyone by Grace Lin - Explore the tradition of dim sum, a seriously delicious Chinese food, often enjoyed for family brunches.

• The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack - Do your children like stories with more plot? Follow the misadventures of a little duck on one of China’s biggest rivers in this charming classic.

• Daisy Comes Home by Jan Brett - If stories about ducks lost on Chinese rivers aren’t your thing, consider a story about a chicken lost on a Chinese river. Jan Brett’s beautiful illustrations do justice to the stunning and otherworldly beauty of Southern China.

• The Great Wall of China by Leonard Everett Fisher - A beautiful story about the beginning of one of the world’s most astonishing archtectural feats.

• Zheng He, the Great Chinese Explorer by Jian Li - If your child is more inclined to true adventures tales, read the true story of Zheng He, a boy who was orphaned at a young age, but became a Chinese naval hero and explorer.

• Cang Jie, the Inventor of Chinese Characters by Jian Li - Another fascinating and true tale of one of the great minds of Chinese history.

Snacks:

• Look for a bag of Shumai (or siu mai) dumplings at your local international or Asian grocery store in the frozen foods section. These are dumplings stuffed with sweet pork barbecue. But if you see another dumpling that’s more intriguing to you, go for it! Shumai are only one of many different kinds of dumplings and foods served for dim sum. In my area, one of these bags costs around $10.

• If you’re brave, consider red bean or green pea popcicles, also in the frozen food section. I’ve always wanted to have the guts to try this, but I have not yet acquired those guts. I have yet to price these because I’m a coward.

• Get a dragon fruit from the produce section, but don’t get too excited. The fruit has an extremely mild flavor. I would describe it as blandly sweet. But the fruit makes up for it with complete awesome colors, inside and out. My children love to get these, as long as I don’t make them eat them. In my area, dragon fruit run around $5.

• Decaf green tea ($3), or for something a little less bitter, you can try chrysanthemum tea, although that’s a slightly more expensive and hard to find. (Once again, try that Asian grocery store). I once had a cup of rosemary tea in a little cafe in Tianjin, China. You could easily brew some yourself with rosemary from your garden or spice cabinet. If you really prefer to be completely authentic, buy orange juice and Coco-cola. These were sold together when I was in China, so people could buy them and take one of each as a hostess gift or to share with friends. Absolutely everyone likes to drink either Coco-cola or orange juice at any given time. (But, no, they don’t mix them.)

Want to extend your stay in China? Try these longer reads:

Chapter books set in China:

• Little Pear by Eleanor Francis Lattimore - This is an endearing chapter book for students in the first to third grade about a mischievous boy from long ago Chinea who finds a new adventure every time his loving family takes their eyes off him.

• Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin - A beautiful story for all ages drawn from Chinese mythology about a little girl who goes on a quest to change her fate so she can help her parents.

Don’t forget to do a little free travel for yourself. Visit your library’s adult section for travel books or, better yet, fabulous photo books of the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Terracotta Army, the mountains of Guilin, and some of the many gorgeous landscapes across this astounding country. Want more? See if there are travel dvds featuring China.

There you go, a winter vacation, all planned for you. Have a nice trip.