Sarah Brennan Funny & Fabulous Blog

Have a Happy Easter Holiday…I’ll be back in May!

Well it’s that time of the year – when schools close up for Easter and we pack our bags and head off on holidays! My family and I fly out tonight to visit our extended family in Queensland, Australia! I can’t wait to see them! So adios, amigos, I’ll be away for the next two weeks.  May the Easter Bunny be very good to you! And I hope to find lots of entries into my new competition about Chocolate and Chinese Emperors when I get back! So if you’re wondering what to do this holiday…go to my Clever Competitions page and get writing!

This month it’s all about …CHOCOLATE AND CHINESE EMPERORS!

Ready…steady…GO! My new Clever Competition is up and running and you’ve got LOTS OF TIME to get your entry in, what with Easter holidays looming and the whole of May to go after that! So go to my Clever Competition Page right away to find out the very chocolatey Imperial subject!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

To three wonderful schools – Lantau International, Australian International School Hong Kong and Shatin Junior School, for three fabulous bookings over the last ten days – and especially to their fabulous kids, dedicated teachers and of course, their amazing librarians! Rhonda and I had a very hoppy time!

Spring has sprung and the Spring Haiku Competition results are out!

CONGRATULATIONS to Christy Chan, 8 years old, of Miss Gibson’s class, Christian Alliance International School (Winner of Grade Four to Grade Six Category) and Isha Bhojwani, Class 3C, Kowloon Junior School (Winner of Grade One to Grade Three Category) in my Spring Haiku Competition! They beat 205 other competitors from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore to win a free copy of one of my children’s books! Well done! Read their entries, and the entries of the nine other place-getters in each Category, on my Clever Competitions page now!

It’s Ching Ming Festival!

Today is Ching Ming Festival (or Gravesweeping Day), which is a public holiday here in Hong Kong and in Macau, Taiwan and the Chinese Mainland! It’s also celebrated right throughout the world by Chinese people, even if they don’t get a holiday! 

“Ching Ming”, or “Qingming” in traditional Chinese,  means “Clear and Bright” and that’s exactly what Chinese families make the graves of their ancestors today, by clearing away weeds; touching up gravestone inscriptions; making offerings of fruit, tea, wine, flowers and even their departed ancestors’ favourite foods like chicken and pork! They might also burn paper models of things they think their ancestors might need in the afterlife, like cars, houses, phones and especially money!

It’s all part of the Chinese tradition of ancestor worship which dates back thousands of years, but it’s also a time for whole families, from little kids right up to grandparents and even great grandparents, to gather and enjoy each other’s company and reminisce about loved ones who have passed away. What a wonderful thing to do!

Do you long for adventure?

If you dream of exotic travel to faraway places, filled with adventure and mystery, then you’ll just LOVE my new Brilliant Book! Click right away on my Brilliant Books page to find out all about it, then click on my Amazing Authors page to read about it’s wonderful author, whose own childhood was pretty exotic too!