Holy Cow

For more WW fun, please visit 7 Clown Circus and 5 Minutes for Mom.

On Learning Mandarin

I cannot see anything – anything! -- outside our windows. Fog. This happens once in a while. Sometimes I like it. It feels like we’re living high up in the clouds. Nothing to do with the topic. I just felt like sharing, ‘kay?

The wait is over. Josh has been accepted into our primary school of choice. We heave a sigh of relief. I can now move on from the what if’s and start living. This is the school in which, out of the three schools that we had applied to, I could picture Josh the most happy. The only concern we have is that this school is not known for its strong Mandarin program, although we’ve heard that there are moves to strengthen it within their system. Yet, despite how strongly we feel about Josh (and Zoë) learning Mandarin, we feel that this is the best school for Josh. All things considered.

Chris and I both speak Mandarin passably well and we know enough characters to get by. We are not asking that Josh become a master of the Chinese language. If he could speak, read, and write reasonably well, we would be more than pleased with that. If later on, he takes on a much higher interest in learning beyond what the school could teach him, that would make us more than happy and we will be supportive.

I know how hard learning Chinese can be. I’ve been there and I hated it. In time (much, much later on!), I grew to love it. I want Josh to enjoy his learning of Chinese and not be turned off by it. He is the type of child who needs to enjoy and appreciate the lesson to truly learn, as opposed to some who might be more open to drills.

And then there’s the whole debate between learning traditional characters vs. simplified characters. The truth is, I don’t much care. I learned traditional characters, but was also taught simplified characters. The rare occasions when I write Chinese nowadays, I use simplified characters where I can. Josh has been learning traditional characters in his current school. I haven’t checked whether his new school will use traditional or simplified, but again, I’m not too concerned. Either way is fine with me. There is beauty to the traditional characters, but learning to write Chinese characters is hard enough and if using simplified characters would make the children much more open to and less stressful about learning Chinese, then I am all for it.

Those who of you whose children are/will be learning a second or third language, what are your expectations?

iheartfaces – Week # 6 : We ♥ Kisses

Little K giving Zoë a peck on the cheek.

I love how Zoë was tilting up her cheek for the kiss.

These little cousins were the best of pals during our summer visit.

Head on over to iheartfaces for more pictures of “kisses” this week.

A Bit of a Disappointment… and No Dinner!

A new restaurant had opened up near where we live. Chris and I had been wanting to try it out. It’s supposed to be a Malaysian/Singaporean canteen. Chris was hoping that he could finally have access to some authentic Malaysian desserts –e.g. cendol, bubur cha cha, etc. I had been hoping for some mouth-watering laksa and beef rendang.

What I had - Nasi lemak with lemongrass pork

What Chris had

Good thing we had bubble tea just before and we were a bit full from that. Chris had ordered the char kway teow. Which never came, even after 30 minutes of waiting. The customers at a couple of other tables, who had come in after we did, had finished eating, paid, and left. Other tables’ food were coming in fast and furious. Chris and I patiently waited. We followed up, after a reasonable time. Again, after another reasonable wait. And again. Until I’d already finished my nasi lemak, which was consumed rather slowly. Then we decided to cancel his order and leave.

Verdict: Unsatisfactory service. The place is essentially a cha chaan teng trying to carve a niche by offering Southeast Asian dishes, Hong Kong style. We’ve had far better food. There was none of the desserts we were hoping for. No incentive to go back.

Zoë (and Josh) Tales # 9

Zoë wanted me to play with her.

Me: I have to go wee-wee first, okay?

Zoë: Okay. I help you wee-wee, Mommy.

Me: How are you going to help me wee-wee?

I was really curious.

I was thinking that maybe what she had in mind

was to help me pull down my pants

or maybe to get the seat down for me.

Zoë leaned in close and whispered in my ear,

“I help wipe your bum-bum, Mommy.”

~~—~~

At a party that Josh recently attended,

a little boy came up to him and said,

“I know you, but I don’t know your name. What’s your name?”

Josh looked at him and told him,

“Well, if you don’t know my name, you don’t know me.”

Beautiful Burma

Despite the inauspicious start to my journey (where I was desperately sick from food poisoning on the way there, with me ending up literally crawling to the door of my suite at The Strand to open the door to the hotel staff who brought me some aspirin), my trip to Burma remains one of the more memorable trips I have ever taken. Our trip started in Yangon, the capital. Then we took the Road to Mandalay and on to the best part of the journey – Bagan.

Yesterday I shared some photos of the wonderful faces of Burma. Here are some more photos from the trip, sans faces this time:

1) Those of you who have read or know of Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace will find this photo familiar. It is the U Bein Bridge in Amarapura. We were on this bridge at dusk and it was just so beautiful. The is supposedly the longest teak bridge in the world. This photo hangs next to the one of the old lady with the cigar on our wall.

2) The Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon. I can’t remember exactly, but I think the guide mentioned that parts (or all?) of this pagoda were made of gold.

3) A giant reclining Buddha

3) The palace. Sorry, I don’t remember the name. I am assuming that this was part of a palace, because it was surrounded by a moat and I remember that we stopped here for quite a while and the guide was going on and on about something. This was in Yangon. That much I remember.

4) I do not remember the name of this place either. Sorry… pushing 40, childbirth, motherhood. All I remember is that this was on the grounds of a place with many, many pagodas. Here, you take off your shoes not only if you want to enter a pagoda, but you take them off at the entrance to the grounds itself. This is the same place where the photos from yesterday’s post were taken, where the people were not wearing any shoes.

6) Bagan - The land of stupas. We were told by our guide that the word ‘stupefied’ came from the word ‘stupa’ –because when whoever-coined-that-word was greeted by this sight, he was struck dumb by what he saw --the many, many stupas dotting the land, as far as the eyes could see.

See that hint of rainbow?

If you are to visit only one place in Burma, definitely head for Bagan. Seeing all those stupas was just mind-boggling. The whole vista just breathtaking.

Faces of Burma

For my iheartfaces entry this week, I was going through some old travel photos. I was only able to upload the ones captured with my digital camera and was too lazy to scan the ones that I had on film. But I came across some that I definitely wanted to share with you… so here are some of the wonderful faces from Burma that I managed to capture on film from my trip there back in 2001.

Many women and girls wear thanaka on their faces and sometimes on their arms, too. Thanaka is some kind of paste that works sort of like a sunscreen, but also sort of like make-up.

The grandfather was wearing a longyi, a piece of cloth tied together to make a skirt of sorts. Very common among the locals.

This photo below is one of my all-time favorites. It now hangs, framed, on the wall in our hallway.

This was from a night time performance that we watched in the open air, under the stars.

For more WW fun, please visit 7 Clown Circus and 5 Minutes for Mom.

Flower Girl

She used to say that she wants to be a pumpkin when she grows up. Now if we ask her, she says that she wants to be a flower.

~~—~~

Can any of you tell me how long we still have before we can’t just scoop the kids up and give them big momma hugs and squeezes and shower kisses on their sweet cheeks –and have them squeal in delight and not push us away? How long before we’d be content to just smile big in our hearts when we see them, without having to give in to the urge to hold them close?

Edit: Here is a beautiful video (The Gift of an Ordinary Day) that I just watched over at Hope Studios. Now my eyes are all puffy.