Posted: 10/18/2010
 

Ni Hao Kai-Lan: Princess Kai-Lan

(2010)

by Lauren Sepanski



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Ni-Hao Kai-Lan is a show for toddlers on Nickelodeon’s weekday/daytime block called Nick jr. Kai-Lan is a little girl who lives with her grandpa and is friends with animals. She seems to mainly teach children Chinese, although good morals and other lessons are present. The first thing you learn in several episodes is “Ni-hao” is “Hello” in Chinese. Kai-Lan plays with her tiger, rino, koala, and monkey friends and they all learn lessons about being friendly, sharing, colors, shapes, and so on.

It’s a cute show and I can’t say that I wouldn’t allow my child to watch it if I had one. It’s not nearly as offensive as “Dora the Explorer” and I’m going to be honest, I can’t really figure out why. Dora and Kai-Lan are extremely similar on several points. Dora just seems to insult kids intelligence, I know you’re 2 year old just learned to talk and you would never ask that he/she do your taxes, but there has to be some repercussions to talking down to your children all the time, right? Much like Dora, Kai-Lan is interactive, so expect your child to be yelling random things at the TV once in a while. On another note I wondered, while I watched this, why are we teaching children who just learned to speak Spanish and Chinese? Spanish I understand, living in LA I find myself in positions almost daily where I wish I knew more Spanish, but I’ve never though, “I wish I understood what the Chinese valets were talking about.”

“Ni Hao Kai-Lan: Princess Kai-Lan” is out now on DVD and seems like a good buy to me. I don’t know much about kids, but I remember being one, and one thing I definitely remember is the ability for a child to watch the same thing over and over and over and never get sick of it. Man, I wish I could have that back. For under $15 you will absolutely get your money’s worth. Just as long as your kid doesn’t run around and start speaking Chinese to Koreans or Japanese people, I hear they hate that.

Lauren Sepanski Lauren Sepanski is a writer and animation connoisseur in Los Angeles.



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