Ni Kai Lan Views

• General Goods

Kai-Lan is a six-year-old playful, adventurous preschooler with a big heart. She speaks both English and Mandarin Chinese, and she is eager to share her language, her culture, her playtime with her animal friends and the viewers at home. Kai Lan is a natural leader but she is also thoughtful and caring with a gift for helping her friends when they really need her. Her favorite animal is a dinosaur and in her music group, she plays her tambourine. In the (aptly-titled) episode Kai-Lan's Big Surprise, she tries to put together a big surprise party for Ye-Ye, but all the decorations, the pineapple cake, and even her card fall victim to gusty winds.

Ye Ye (Mandarin word for paternal grandfather ) is Kai Lan's playful, thoughtful, caring, paternal grandfather. He was born in China and lovingly passes on his exciting traditions to his granddaughter. He provides Kai-lan with gentle guidance, leading her to find her own answers, at her own pace. (Kai-lan's parents and other grandparents are not known.) He can play the tuba. He also enjoys picking apples and making dumplings for Kai-Lan and all her animal friends. He's known to pop out of places unexpectedly, but the gang just gets used to it after awhile.

Tolee is a five-year-old koala that loves pandas and fruit (especially apples, bananas, and pineapples). He is intelligent and always thinks before he acts and sometimes worries too much, but he never lets that stop him from having a great time with his friends. Kai-lan and her friends can always rely on him for good ideas. Tolee also has a stuffed Panda he affectionately named Pandy, and Tolee loves Pandy so much he can't imagine being without him. The unimaginable, however, happens in Pandy's Puddle when he accidentally drops Pandy into a mud-filled puddle, the reason being he was trying to pull up a very large Chinese Turnip. He is the vocalist in Kai-lan's music group. His love for pandas culminated in the two part episode Kai-Lan's Great Trip to China when the group traveled to China to meet a whole family of Pandas' including baby Xiao Xi Gua (Little Watermelon).

At the start of almost every episode, Kai-lan wakes up Mr. Sun so she can start her day. With the help of the viewer, Mr. Sun rises and showers down smiling sun fuzzies to Kai-Lan and she gets tickled by them. He also knows how to play the French Horn, so Kai-lan and the lady bugs (playing the pi-pa) join him as a little music group at the beginning of Tolee's Rhyme Time and later joins Kai-lan and her friends in the music show.