Dim Sum Warriors

[GeneChing]

Thought about putting this in the Martial arts apps thread (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=60310), but it's really it's own thing.


Dim Sum Warriors ??? iPad App Kicks Language Learning To New High (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/04/10/prweb9381258.DTL)

New Comic Book Series About Kung-Fu Fighting Food Aids Teaching of Chinese and English

Flushing, NY (PRWEB) April 10, 2012

Dim Sum Warriors ???, a new bilingual digital comic book series about kung-fu fighting Chinese snacks, has just been launched as a free iPad Application.

The interactive comic, which is colorfully illustrated and has voice-overs in Mandarin Chinese and English, addresses a growing interest worldwide in learning Chinese and English. It is now available in the App Store in over 50 countries.

Dim Sum Warriors is a wacky martial arts adventure comedy whose characters are shrimp dumplings, steamed pork buns and other Chinese delicacies known as 'dim sum' in Cantonese or 'dian xin' (??) in Mandarin. The protagonist is Prince Roast Pork Bao, the pampered heir to the throne who unwittingly stumbles on a secret plot to usurp the kingdom, which soon pits the four Dim Sum Warrior clans - the Fried Kung Academy, the Boiled Kung Temple, the Baked Kung Sisterhood and the School of Steam Kung - against each other.

The series was created by Colin Goh and Yen Yen Woo, a husband-and-wife creative team that has also directed award-winning movies. Their last feature film, Singapore Dreaming, was screened at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. and Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York, and has won awards including the Best Asian Film Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival and the Montblanc New Screenwriters Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

"With the iPad, readers can enjoy Dim Sum Warriors as a traditional comic, and also benefit from its extra educational functions," says Dr. Woo, an Associate Professor at Long Island University's College of Education and Information Sciences, where she teaches curriculum design, theory and history. Using her experience as an educator and designer of educational software, she crafted the various features of the Dim Sum Warriors App, such as instant translations from English to Chinese and vice versa, as well as text and audio pronunciation guides.

"One of the trickiest things about learning a new language is ?nding reading material with the right level of dif?culty, so that readers are sufficiently challenged, but not enough to be discouraged. The Dim Sum Warriors app is designed so that readers with different levels of language ability can find suitable entry points into the text," Dr. Woo explains. "We also didn't want to publish some dull language textbook. Dim Sum Warriors has a story with compelling characters and an exciting plot, and it's told in that most American of forms - a comic book."

Dim Sum Warriors reflects the international and multicultural backgrounds of its creators, who were born in Singapore and have lived in New York City for over 14 years. "We grew up with Spider-Man, Superman, Archie and other all-American comics, as well as Asian titles like Old Master Q, Heaven Sword & Dragon Sabre and Dragon Ball," says co-creator Colin Goh, a former attorney with quali?cations in England, Singapore and New York. "Crossing cultures and languages is in our blood." So far, the response has been very encouraging. Chris Claremont, the award-winning American comic book writer and novelist, best known for writing Marvel's Uncanny X-Men, has called Dim Sum Warriors "sodding brilliant!"

Partnering Woo and Goh in developing the App is TWP America, an international publishing solutions company that has worked with publishers such as Scholastic and Random House. "Publishing Dim Sum Warriors as an app offers something no other form offers currently-immediate worldwide distribution. We are excited to be collaborating with Yen Yen and Colin on this bold experiment in digital publishing" says Managing Director Yoichi Sanada.

The Dim Sum Warriors ??? iPad App can be downloaded for free from the App Store with two free issues of the comic. Single issues are on sale at $2.99. For a limited period, until April 30, 2012, a 6-month, 6-issue subscription of Dim Sum Warriors is on sale at $9.99.

[GeneChing]

Colonel Quickynoodle’s Fried Kung Academy? :rolleyes:

New York Comic Con: Dim Sum Warriors iPad Comic Gives a Taste of Chinese Culture
By Olivia B. Waxman | @OBWax | October 11, 2012 | 0
http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/dsw4-noodlehoriz.jpg?w=600&h=400&crop=1
Courtesy of Yumcha Studios

The sold-out New York Comic Con, which claims to be the largest pop culture event on the East Coast, starts today at New York City’s Javits Center and runs through October 14. Attendees will include Kevin Bacon, Carrie Fisher, Ben Folds Five, and kung-fu fighting dim sum foods.

Yumcha Studios, based in Flushing, Queens, one of the city’s largest Chinese neighborhoods, will be showing off its iPad-only comic series Dim Sum Warriors, which aims to give Chinese language learners of all ages a taste of Chinese culture — and help Chinese speakers practice their English. Husband-and-wife co-creators and Singapore natives Yen Yen Woo and Colin Goh claim their iPad series is the first “interactive bilingual comic app.” They will also be dishing out preview copies of the graphic novel of the series, due out in November 2012.

http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/chinengscreenshot.jpg?w=580
Screenshot / Courtesy of Yumcha Studios

The story takes place in Dim Sum City, the capital city of Xiaochi (Mandarin for “snacks”), a fictional empire guarded by Dim Sum Warriors. “The mere mention of their names causes enemies to quiver like tofu!” the comic’s first book exclaims. Crown Prince Roastpork ”Porky” Bao, a “steamed bun filled with roast pork,” is the main character and son of Emperor Redbean Bao and Empress Custard Bao and apparent heir to the throne. But he does not know if ruling the empire is really his calling, so he keeps running away from home to avoid the responsibility.

The comic’s villain, Colonel Quickynoodle, who co-creator Goh describes as part “Robert Downey, Jr., Steve Jobs and the evil part of instant ramen,” challenges the empire’s four main dim sum warrior schools to compete for the enrollment of the prince: Fried Kung Academy (the Gossip Girl of Dim Sum Warrior schools), the Boiled Kung Temple (warrior monks), the Baked Kung Sisterhood (a martial arts sorority) and the School of Steam Kung (run by a Master Phoenix Claw, i.e. dim sum chicken feet). But the prince also stumbles upon a plot by the Colonel to usurp the kingdom. It will be up to him and two other dumplings to save the day.

“Think of it as Harry Potter meets a Chinese takeout menu,” said Goh, “Vice President of Steamy Affairs” at Yumcha Studios. More seriously, he thinks many kids will be able to relate to Prince Porky Bao’s struggle to find himself. “He’s emblematic of a kid who has grown up in a very privileged time. That’s a universal theme for many American kids and many kids growing up in China now,” he explained. “They have all this privilege, yet they feel like their lives are strangely empty. I hope the storyline will help kids think through what that means and what their place is in the wider community.”

The comic can be read in either English or Chinese. Woo, who is both “Chief Executive Dumpling” of Yumcha Studios and an education professor at Long Island University-C.W. Post, recommends Chinese language learners read the story in English first, then press the dialogue bubbles to hear the audio voice-over in Chinese and see the characters. The illustrations, created by Soo Lee, were influenced by Superman, Spider-Man, and the French Asterix, as well as Asian comics like Old Master Q and manga.

“I learned Japanese through reading manga,” said Goh. “I sat there with three different dictionaries. Why was I willing to learn a language and sit there with three different dictionaries just to read a comic? It’s because I was interested in the story. If you just give kids a textbook, I think most of them would just roll their eyes and go to sleep.”

http://techland.time.com/2012/10/11/new-york-comic-con-dim-sum-warriors-ipad-comic-gives-a-taste-of-chinese-culture/creatorscolingohyenyenwoo/
Dim Sum Warrior creators Colin Goh and Yen Yen Woo.

Goh thinks reading the comic on the iPad is the next best thing to immersion. Woo hopes that the students will find reading the iPad series a less “painful” way of learning the language: “When I was learning Chinese, I felt like a lot of it was based on memorization. I wasn’t exposed to many fun texts to read. With the iPad, we could add interactive functions that we couldn’t add with print.”

The graphic novel, however, is just in English — the creators are still figuring out how to neatly weave both languages into the story.

Then why make a print version of the comic at all? ”Well, not everybody has an iPad,” Woo said. “We thought we could reach a wider audience with the book.”

The comic is not Goh and Woo’s first foray into entertainment. Goh, a Columbia Law School grad, drew cartoons for Singaporean newspapers for 20 years. He and Woo wrote and directed Singapore Dreaming (2006), an independent film that won a few awards at international film festivals. But they are best known for their website Talking****.com, which parodies “slinglish,” Singaporean slang and the *******ization of English and Chinese that young Singaporeans use. (“Talking ****” is Singaporean slang for talking about silly things.) In fact, TIME featured the site in 2002.

The satirical humor carries over in Dim Sum Warriors, with punning chapter titles like “You win some, you dim sum” and parodies of steroids like “InnerStrength,” a health elixir and energy drink that makes the warriors in Colonel Quickynoodle’s Fried Kung Academy look like body builders. The name Quickynoodle itself is a comment on instant ramen and genetically engineered foods.

Of course, the husband-and-wife team hopes to teach Chinese language learners about dim sum, a traditional Chinese ritual. Goh and Woo eat dim sum every week; it is a family affair in their household, as it is for many Chinese families. It is also fun to learn about a new language and culture through its food.

“Chinese culture isn’t the fortune cookie,” Woo said.

The Dim Sum Warriors app is free to download at the iTunes app store. The first two issues of the comic are free, and other issues are available for in-app purchase.