As you’ve probably already noticed, there’s been a deplorable lack of posts for the last month or more, and that is in direct correlation with the extreme busy-ness of my life lately. However, I’m on my way back from the best vacation ever at Lizard Island (it tempted me to give up my life of smog and glamor in China — seriously gorgeous place!) so I finally feel a calm that will hopefully allow me to sit down and post away

Xiexie Pavlat!

2011年12月02日18:47

柳素英和高亚麟饰演跨国夫妻

剧中可爱的“混血双胞胎”儿女黄保罗和黄玫瑰

快乐家庭

新浪娱乐讯 日前，高亚麟(微博)在微博中晒出他和一名金发碧眼的美女的亲密合影，声称“我和我的美国美女老婆柳素英(微博)”。原来，这是电视剧《飞翔的花朵》中的特殊家庭组合——海归老爸和美国老妈。

　　剧中，柳素英饰演一个誓要将孩子培养成“艺术团小明星”的狂热美国老妈黄玛丽。高亚麟扮演的海归老爸就是蓝天幼儿艺术团曾经的小团员，为此，黄玛丽更加坚定了让孩子成为“蓝天娃”的决心。在女儿黄玫瑰排练大型歌舞剧《我要飞》的过程中，黄玛丽不顾艺术团的规定，想各种办法偷看女儿的排练过程，黄玛丽和田姥姥这一对“土洋”结合的“大侦探”制造了很多的笑料。

　　2001年柳素英来中国学习汉语并由此与中国结缘，2003年起至今一直居住在北京。柳素英热爱文化艺术，在北京的文化艺术圈儿里十分活跃，各种活动中经常能看到她的身影。她于2007年创办了自己顽皮猴子戏剧社，为北京的戏剧舞台添加了一个崭新的元素。在顽皮猴子里她既是台下的充满创意的导演和编剧，也是台上倍受观众喜爱的演员。

　　柳素英对中国文化有着浓厚的兴趣，未来的目标是学习京剧。虽然在北京生活的日子有苦也有乐，但她对这里的一切都已经产生了浓浓的眷恋之情，她希望在这里能够实现自己的梦想。

http://ent.sina.com.cn/v/m/2011-12-02/18473497975.shtml

Happy December fellow ChocoJingers!

I’m excited to announce our first ever ChocoJing cooking class, we’re working with the fantastic chef Sue at The Hutong to bring about some early holiday cheer with an amazing menu of Chili Hot Chocolate, Chocolate and Orange Duck, and Banana/Chocolate Dumplings

Sounds delish, non? Please RSVP with The Hutong directly by calling them at 15901046127 or following this link: http://thehutong.com/blog/events/?event_id=75321

When: Sunday December 18th
Time: 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Place: The Hutong (near Beixinqiao Subway)

时间: 12月18号（周六）下午 1:00pm – 3:00pm
地点: The Hutong (靠近北新桥地铁站)
预约电话：15901046127

很高兴的告诉大家我们第一个巧克京烹饪班开始了，胡同餐馆最受欢迎的大厨“苏”为我们即将到来的节日准备了备受大家喜爱的热巧克力、香蕉巧克力以及饺子等等！

一听就非常的诱人美味，对吧？大家一起来庆祝我们的快乐的节日吧！

或登录他们的网站：http://thehutong.com/blog/events/?event_id=75321

Thanks and 谢谢！

~ Elyse 柳素英

Recently while working on edits for the new Beijing A La Carte map I decided that the effort of running out to the local print shop was simply not worth it and bought myself a shiny new Canon photo printer and wow… I’ve had SO much fun printing out photos! (Plus, it made editing the map a lot easier!)

So now on the wall in my study, I have three prints of flowers that I’ve taken on various vacations around the world, from left to right: Australia, Hong Kong and Japan.

Definitely brightens up the room! Ok, now back to work…

an article I recently wrote about my experience with Li Yang on the Phoenix TV show “Tiger Talk” and how America and China deal with domestic violence…

美国人怎么看“家暴”

最近我参加了凤凰卫视的《一虎一席谈》，谈论有关“李阳家暴”的问题，参加完节目后，感触很深。

我在中国生活了8 年多，也有很多中国的女性朋友，多多少少了解一点关于中国家庭的暴力问题。我认为如果家庭出现问题，首先要面对问题，学会沟通，用最有力的方法来解决，而不是武力解决。

可能大部分人对美国女人的印象是非常开朗，但美国女人和所有的中国女人一样，非常传统，尤其是对于家庭，自己家庭里面发生任何不好的问题都不愿意说出来。

最近美国发生了一件非常震惊的事情，因为家庭矛盾问题，一位丈夫不仅用棍子把妻子打死，甚至还用枪打死自己的两个孩子，最后自杀身亡。美国报刊第一时间报道了这个新闻，说是妻子做了什么不好的事情，逼迫丈夫才做出这样的事情。

可能与编辑是一位男性有关才会有这样的报道。如果是妻子不好，为什么连自己的孩子都杀死？最近美国人也在议论这件事情，应该是这位丈夫的某方面有问题，但有问题可以有很多种方法来沟通解决，这种残暴的做法是非常非常不好的。

据统计，在美国被杀死的女人中有三分之一是被丈夫或者男朋友杀死的，如果有家暴问题85%受伤的是女性，有四分之一的美国女人出现过家暴。我不太清楚中国的统计具体有多少，但是估计也差不多。

在美国如果妻子报警丈夫家暴的话，妻子有权利要求丈夫不能出现在妻子一个限定的范围内。也有一些机构可以合法地帮助妻子和孩子搬迁到另外一个地方，远离暴力。中国在这方面必须快速发展，不仅仅因为我是女人，任何人都不能以强欺弱。家暴是全世界都在面临的一个问题，很多国家都在寻找一些更好更能够保护受害者的途径。

当然，我也明白婚姻是两个人的事情，婚姻不是为了战争而是相扶到老。不管出现什么问题，最重要的就是要交流沟通，希望大家不要用“疯狂的语言”交流。

□柳素英（旅华美国导演）

from the ever-awesome Beijing Sounds blog, where you can get your fill of Mandarin-based geekery

Parlez-vous 中çais?

And yes… as a non-native 中çais speaker, I did forget to drop my h on 还有 (sigh). The devil is in the details, non? Still, its one of my favorite accents to play with, I’ll definitely have to work on it more before the next run of “Iron Brothers”

PS: Thanks again to the wonderful Kro of Kro’s Nest for providing us the Hawaiian pizza nightly for the shows

Just finished celebrating Halloween in style with some of my favorite people (Xiao Hui, Julie, Ted and Carl) with an impromptu pizza party and a crazy assortment of sugary treats. I live in a diplomatic compound, and this was my first year being “at home” on Halloween night, and was totally amazed by the numbers and varieties of kids in costumes coming to the door and shouting out “Trick or Treat” in heavily accented English. Now, I’m all for one for promoting American culture (are we the only ones that fatten our children up with processed sugars every October 31st?) but also, Halloween is one of my FAVORITE holidays. So of course I wanted to support and encourage the kids. However, I hadn’t prepared. So before I had a chance to get out to the local store and grab some candy, I had already given away all my quality chocolate (not sure how much kids like dark chocolate, but they certainly went gaga for a box of Godiva truffles I gave them!). I didn’t want to be one of those awful adults that gave away fruit — or, even worse: tooth brushes!

Alas, a good excuse to buy some more I picked up some QQs and gummi bears and candy bars at Jenny Lou’s for the rest of the evenings trickortreaters. And my friends and I enjoyed pizza and chocolate and sugary sugar treats while playing my favorite new card game, Darok (sp?). So whaddya think of Ted’s costume? For those of you who don’t know peking opera maskology, his mask is the face paint for the Monkey King, Sun Wukong. Awesome, non? And creepy. Very very creepy.

My new desktop image 我的新的桌面图片
(taken at my birthday party)

I had the most wonderful birthday party last night Wonderful because it involved some of my most favorite things — my best friend Danielle, peking opera, my Beijing posse and a buddha-pitcher of Fubar’s dark & stormy. My teacher, Song Laoshi (pictured above) is peking opera royalty (her father was one of the 4 Famous Dans) and she’s also become a good friend of mine. She helped me to organize the two performances of wudan characters, beautiful arias that worked perfectly in the cozy little balcony space at Fubar. I bought these great little peking opera masks from hongqiao and everyone got one at the door, so the crowd of folks in freaky masks watching the peking opera performance was particularly special

Only regret about the evening is that I didn’t get much time to chat with most of my friends… but now I have renewed motivation to qing them for a coffee or dinner some time soon!

While I didn’t actually take many photos (I had just spent the day modeling for my friend Carl at the Prophoto studio — I just wanted to enjoy the party!) a couple of my friends were taking a lot of shots, so hopefully I’ll get some good pictures from the party some time soon. Also, CCTV were there filming (they’re doing a documentary about my ridiculously wacky life) so they promised me some footage too Ok, back to work…

昨晚我度过了一个在我认为最好的生日聚会，有很多很多开心的事情，不仅仅是因为我最好的好姐妹Danielle来参加，她从美国过来只能呆2个星期。还有我在北京多年的好朋友，还有我邀请在中央戏曲学院的同学们在我的生日聚会上演唱我最喜欢的京剧。还有几位前辈京剧表演艺术家过来参加我的生日聚会，对了还有我最喜欢的表演导师宋丹菊老师亲自过来指导，我真是莫大的荣幸，而且是在我最喜欢的酒吧“福吧”里面举办我的生日聚会。

我在红桥买了一些京剧面酷脸谱，来参加生日聚会的每一位朋友人手一个脸谱，此次主题是脸谱会。CCTV正好也过来拍摄我的纪录片，聚会开始之前我亲爱的弟弟还把整酒吧的上方挂满了各种颜色的气球，他太可爱了。全部的朋友戴着我最喜欢的京剧面具参加我的生日聚会，此时显然我还处在生日的兴奋中，不过我必须开始工作了，这真的是一个特殊难忘的生日聚会。