I remember the first time I saw "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan" very well.. The young Kai-Lan and her vast collection of animal friends decide to put up a music show, and they go around getting people to join their band. Kai-Lan comes across her buddy HoHo, a little white monkey with an adorable voice that makes you want to snap the neck of the woman behind it.
And then comes the part that made me laugh for about 10 minutes. All of Kai-Lan’s friends start naming the instruments they’re gonna be playing during the show. Kai-Lan on the tambourine, Rintoo the Tiger will be rocking the xylophone, and HoHo happily flies in a dj-booth carried by balloons while screaming “I’m gonna play the turntables!”.
"Ni Hao, Kai-lan" is based on the childhood memories of the show's creator Karen Chau growing up in a Chinese-American household. “Ni hao” means “Hello” in Mandarin, and Kai-Lan is the Chinese name Chau was given at birth, which was later anglicized to Karen. The little Kay-Lan goes around town visiting her many animal friends and her adoring Chinese family, while having an adventure or two.
Every episode is full of random Mandarin words and phrases they try to cram down your throat. And when I say random, I do mean random. For example, did you know the Mandarin phrase for bracelet is "shǒu zhuó"? Or that "Sun Wukong" means Monkey King? I don't know about you, but I'm happy that thanks to "Ni Hoa, Kai-Lan", I can now say "tiào wǔ Xióng Hòu, tiào wǔ!" (what of course means "dance Bear Queen, dance!")
So I decided to just watch an episode! Of course, I would never ask you to watch an entire episode... but just in case, here it is!
So the episode starts off with Kai-Lan and "YeYe", meaning grandfather, painting some Chinese characters. We learn how to "write" the word love, followed by Kai-Lan going around grabbing every object, saying how much she loves them. There are 2 things that you'll notice right away: Kai-Lan think's everything is Super, and she pronounces "YeYe" like she really wants to be Lil Jon (the rapper, not the one from Robin Hood).
After they're done painting, YeYe goes to pluck apples and offers Kai-Lan to pick some for her too, which she politely declines. She starts telling a story about how much she loves her grandfather, and decides that she should trow him a party! Why? because he always does nice stuff, like... learning her how to paint... and... picks apples... At least she tries.
So she gathers her friends and they start making some decorations. They of course make everything red, because YeYe was wearing a red sweater and apples are red, makes perfect sense. But oh no! HoHo wanted to paint the apple he drew red and there's no more red paint! So of course, he starts sulking like a twat and the gang needs to find a way to make him happy again. After hugging doesn't work out, they make him jump 3 times his length 'cause that's the thing that makes him happy again, and he decides that green apples also exist.
Next, Kai-Lan gets a cake for YeYe, makes a nice card, and hangs the last of the decorations in the tree. And I must say: this looks like a good party! I'm actually just as exited as Kai-Lan to see what her grandfather thinks about the effort and sweetness.
But then all hell breaks loose: the wind starts blowing, ripping the decorations from the tree, destroying the cake and violently tearing her home-made card to shreds, followed by the sound of Kai-Lan's breaking heart. I was screaming while all this was going on, and as soon as the first tear rolled over Kai-Lan's little face, all I could ask was "why?". Let me tell you one thing: Dora could only dream about me caring as much about her shitty Swiper problems, as I cared about this little Chinese girl and her ruined surprise party.
Her friends first try to get her happy again with a hug, and just 'cause they're nice, they open up their arms for me and tell me I'm in the hug too! But alas, the hug doesn't help and she's still sad.. But then the gang remembered how they made HoHo happy before, and that Kai-Lan told them that making silly faces made her happiest! Also, at this point the episode suddenly starts with having random auto tuned songs, that just confuse you 'cause of their randomness and not-very-goodness. But you know, I don't even mind them: they kinda fit and they're not hiding the fact it's made by a computer, what actually makes it ok again (in this case, that is)
Now that Kai-Lan's happy again, they can start cleaning the mess and see if they can salvage the party, which they do. Not as awesome as before, but again: They're trying. YeYe is happy, Kai-Lan's happy, DJ HoHo is rocking his turntables once again, and I'm impressed that they kept me interested for 25 minutes. End it with Kai-Lan giving a speech about how I'm the greatest person alive, and I'm pleased as punch!
So the episode starts off with Kai-Lan and "YeYe", meaning grandfather, painting some Chinese characters. We learn how to "write" the word love, followed by Kai-Lan going around grabbing every object, saying how much she loves them. There are 2 things that you'll notice right away: Kai-Lan think's everything is Super, and she pronounces "YeYe" like she really wants to be Lil Jon (the rapper, not the one from Robin Hood).
After they're done painting, YeYe goes to pluck apples and offers Kai-Lan to pick some for her too, which she politely declines. She starts telling a story about how much she loves her grandfather, and decides that she should trow him a party! Why? because he always does nice stuff, like... learning her how to paint... and... picks apples... At least she tries.
So she gathers her friends and they start making some decorations. They of course make everything red, because YeYe was wearing a red sweater and apples are red, makes perfect sense. But oh no! HoHo wanted to paint the apple he drew red and there's no more red paint! So of course, he starts sulking like a twat and the gang needs to find a way to make him happy again. After hugging doesn't work out, they make him jump 3 times his length 'cause that's the thing that makes him happy again, and he decides that green apples also exist.
Next, Kai-Lan gets a cake for YeYe, makes a nice card, and hangs the last of the decorations in the tree. And I must say: this looks like a good party! I'm actually just as exited as Kai-Lan to see what her grandfather thinks about the effort and sweetness.
But then all hell breaks loose: the wind starts blowing, ripping the decorations from the tree, destroying the cake and violently tearing her home-made card to shreds, followed by the sound of Kai-Lan's breaking heart. I was screaming while all this was going on, and as soon as the first tear rolled over Kai-Lan's little face, all I could ask was "why?". Let me tell you one thing: Dora could only dream about me caring as much about her shitty Swiper problems, as I cared about this little Chinese girl and her ruined surprise party.
Her friends first try to get her happy again with a hug, and just 'cause they're nice, they open up their arms for me and tell me I'm in the hug too! But alas, the hug doesn't help and she's still sad.. But then the gang remembered how they made HoHo happy before, and that Kai-Lan told them that making silly faces made her happiest! Also, at this point the episode suddenly starts with having random auto tuned songs, that just confuse you 'cause of their randomness and not-very-goodness. But you know, I don't even mind them: they kinda fit and they're not hiding the fact it's made by a computer, what actually makes it ok again (in this case, that is)
Now that Kai-Lan's happy again, they can start cleaning the mess and see if they can salvage the party, which they do. Not as awesome as before, but again: They're trying. YeYe is happy, Kai-Lan's happy, DJ HoHo is rocking his turntables once again, and I'm impressed that they kept me interested for 25 minutes. End it with Kai-Lan giving a speech about how I'm the greatest person alive, and I'm pleased as punch!
Is this completely ripped off from Dora the Explorer, including the annoying monkey friend? Yes it is. Is it better then Dora in every single way? Hell yes.
I don't know why, but I just like this show. Yeah, it's silly, but it's a kids show, so you need to treat it like one. It makes me laugh, with its silly humor and a likable main character. I like to believe this show is the Adventure Time for toddlers, with it's randomness and post-apocalyptic undertone. I don't think I'll actually learn a whole lot of Chinese thanks to this, but I know more then I ever did before, so that's something!
The lessons they teach are great for kids, because it's realistic in how parents and kids are these days. Like one episode where HoHo gets mad, points his frustrations towards Rintoo the Tiger and hits him. Instead of fighting or just trying to talk it over because "kids need to learn to do that", YeYe takes him to sit in time out, explains why Hoho's put there, and then follows logic steps with the kids how he should've dealt with this problem. That's awesome! Time out is a method often used these days by parents, but kids are often too young to understand it. This show puts something that happens to them in a story, and makes it easy for them to relate and get what's going on, The show mostly concentrates on dealing with the many emotions kids have, but doesn't forget the age they are targeting. And that's the whole point of kids shows: teach kids about every day life in a fun way, while treating them with respect.
The lessons they teach are great for kids, because it's realistic in how parents and kids are these days. Like one episode where HoHo gets mad, points his frustrations towards Rintoo the Tiger and hits him. Instead of fighting or just trying to talk it over because "kids need to learn to do that", YeYe takes him to sit in time out, explains why Hoho's put there, and then follows logic steps with the kids how he should've dealt with this problem. That's awesome! Time out is a method often used these days by parents, but kids are often too young to understand it. This show puts something that happens to them in a story, and makes it easy for them to relate and get what's going on, The show mostly concentrates on dealing with the many emotions kids have, but doesn't forget the age they are targeting. And that's the whole point of kids shows: teach kids about every day life in a fun way, while treating them with respect.
So yeah, I'm pro Ni Hao, Kai-Lan. It's fun, weird, and teaches good lessons to kids in a respectable way. Unfortunately, it's been taken of the air for the time being, but there are loads of fan-made spin-offs that are worth checking out. Lots of people are fighting to get it back on the air, but until then we will have to take what we can get.
Thank you for reading my review of "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan", You make my heart feel super happy! Goodbye!
~Simone
Thank you for reading my review of "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan", You make my heart feel super happy! Goodbye!
~Simone
