九月 in Chinese class We began the school year by reading a book about Zheng He, a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during China's early Ming dynasty. Expanding upon Zheng He’s story, we talked about his family and what life was like in ancient China from one dynasty to another. And best of all, we discussed what it was like to explore the Indian ocean in 15 th century with a fleet of hundreds of ships. In preparation for elementary Chinese class, the first-year students worked very hard to learn to write their Chinese name and Chinese numerals. Chinese numerals are very important in Chinese language. We use numerals to write years, dates and weekdays, in addition to basic counting and math. Here is an interesting article from The Wall Street Journal that explains basic ideas of addition and multiplication in Chinese number names: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-best-language-for-math-1410304008 From second-year thro