MIXED is a beautiful story of diversity and inclusivity., written and illustrated by Chinese American Arree Chung. The narrative is deceptively simple but the meaning is deep. Through the story of primary colours mixing to create different colours and a colourful world, MIXED explains pride and prejudice, discrimination and separatism, acceptance and unity, in a simple manner that even young children can easily grasp.
1. Free E- Book, Activity and Discussion Guide (English)
With all that is happening in the world recently, the pressing need for education on acceptance and inclusivity has been highlighted. In light of this, the author Arree Chung has very generously made his ebook MIXED available for free. It also comes with a discussion guide, and art activities for kids. Click on Arree’s Facebook post for the download link. If you like the story, please consider liking his page or his post.
You can also hear Arree read his book aloud on YouTube.
2. Book Readings in Colloquial Cantonese
I was first introduced to MIXED last year by 好聽故事書Books for the Little Soul when I was blogging about Cantonese Storytime and Book Reading on YouTube, and really like the story. Today, we have two book readings of this book and hopefully even more in the future.
a) Reading of MIXED by 好聽故事書Books for the Little Soul
b) Reading of MIXED by Michigan Cantonese Storytime.
It is always good to hear different readings of the same book, especially if you are not that fluent or if your Cantonese is a bit rusty (like mine). It helps to broaden your vocabulary to the same thing described in a certain way. In the above readings, you can see that 好聽故事書Books for the Little Soul has a more formal reading style, and Michigan Cantonese Storytime has a more colloquial style. This enables you to learn different ways of saying the same thing. For example, you can use either of the phrases 混合 (wan6 hap6) and 溝埋 ( kau1 maai4) to express the meaning of “Mixing”.
3. Chinese edition of Mixed: 点点变变变
After I finished my text translation. I found out that there is actually a proper, official Chinese edition of Mixed. The Chinese title is 点点变变变.
It is currently only available in Simplified Chinese. It is available on various Chinese online retail platforms including Taobao and JD. (I am not affiliated and have no experience with these platforms). You can search for 点点变变变钟阿雷 to find out where else it might be available at.
Looking at the preview of the Chinese edition, I am reminded of the difference of a text translation (which I provided below) and a book translation. A proper book translation takes into account various factors including cultural nuances in to make the content relevant and understandable for local audiences, and would not be the same sentence by sentence.
An example of my text translation vs the Chinese edition
Original English text English Text Translation Chinese Edition Translation of Chinese text
Reds were the loudest 紅色是最響的 紅色熱情奔放 Reds were passionate
Yellows were the brightest 黃色是最亮的 黃色朝氣蓬勃 Yellows were full of vitality
You can see that the essence remains – the colours have very different characteristics, but these characteristics are not the same as the ones in the English version.
4. Colloquial Cantonese and Standard Chinese text translation – Free Printable
I translated the text into Colloquial Cantonese, with the help of the two book readings above, so you can use it as an accompaniment to the English e-book that Arree shared.
Two free printables are available for download::
- Mixed – A Colorful Story Colloquial Cantonese Translation. Two versions within, One iwth Jyutping, one without.
- Mixed Colloquial Cantonese and Standard Chinese translation – a side by side comparison of the Colloquial Cantonese text and the Standard Chinese text,
I hope you will enjoy them.
And remember, it is never too early to educate our kids to be inclusive and embrace diversity.
5. Teach children to be inclusive
It is never too early to educate our kids to be inclusive and embrace diversity..
For some Chinese books that encourage diversity, I just came across the following blog posts (external links):
- 25 Important Children’s Books About Black History in Chinese and English bu Chalk Academy
- 25+ Chinese Children’s Books to Celebrate Black History Month by Spot of Sunshine
I would love to hear of any Chinese or Cantonese books, resources, videos, music that you would recommend about teaching children about diversity. We read alot of English books, but not enough Chinese books with these themes.
If you are looking for English books, a google search will turn up plenty of books.
You might also enjoy reading:
- Storybooks Canada: Early Learning Storybooks (translated African stories)
- Brown Bear，Brown Bear Colloquial Cantonese Translation
- Colours in Cantonese 顏色（粵語）: Vocabulary lists and worksheets
- How To Read To Your Child When Your Cantonese Is Not Fluent
- Free Colloquial Cantonese Kid’s Educational Resources and Printables
- Cantonese Storytime and Book Reading on YouTube
- 輕輕鬆鬆廣東話Hing Hing Sone Sone Cantonese Learning Programme
