Why are we called "Lit-up Mandarin" ?

Well, there are many stories to tell.

Our Chinese name is 小桔灯 "Little Orange Lantern", a lantern made of real fruit. One of our mission is to light up children's Chinese reading journey. Lit-up also means bringing up children with literature.

" Little Orange Lantern" 《小桔灯》 is also the name of a famous prose and children's story written by BingXin. The story is about an 8-year-old girl who looked after her sick mother alone while her wanted-by-authority dad was still missing. She was very brave calm and optimistic about the victory of the war. She made her visitor (the writer) a little orange lantern to walk on the rugged mountain path. The writer felt inspired by her braveness and calmness. Our book club is named after this well-known Chinese story because we wish to be the light and hope of people during the Lockdown, just like the "little orange lantern" in the dark wartime.

The kind of fruit with similar looks has many English names: Orange, Mandarin, Tangerine, Satsuma, and Clementine. It's hard to tell the differences by appearance but does it matter? No, the flavor of life does. There is a saying in Chinese 南橘北枳. It means the orange in southern China becomes another species of fruit due to the change in environment. We hope children enjoy a healthy lifestyle of reading, which broaden their horizons and create a vision for their own future.