After we came home from China, I sent my sis and my bro a message to say tat we arrived and my bro (in law) said that yeye is missing Ace very much and asked us to call him...
It has been painful to hear Ace speak to his grandad on the phone in the past few months. The reason is because Yeye only speaks mandarin and after being exposed to ONLY english for a few months, Ace's mandarin has actually deteriorated to the point where it takes him effort to remember the chinese phrase for the word "window"...
His english got better but his chinese is really ji deh ji deh lor!
And the worst thing is that he told me that the thing he likes least about China is that he has to speak mandarin and that everyone speaks mandarin there.
"But you are CHINESE.. you HAVE to learn to speak chinese.. it is your roots, you cannot forget your roots and where you come from... You cannot be a banana..." I told him..
"Mummy, what is a banana.." he asked me.. and so I explained that a "banana" is someone who is chinese or asian looking but speaks english. "In the world, there are many different types of people.. one way to classify them is by the colour of their skin.. we have white skinned people who are people from countries like Europe.. the ang mohs as we call them because the colour of their skin is very fair and white.. and then there are asians whose skin are darker and we chinese people are known as yellow skinned people.."
"So leh, a chinese person is "yellow" on the outside. But as they do not speak chinese and speaks english and thinks in english ways and manners, it means that in their heart, they are like the white skinned people.. so they are yellow outside and white inside, just like a banana.. So if you refuse to speak chinese.. you will become a banana lor.. " I told him..
"But I don't like to speak chinese." he insisted. And that got me worried. It did not help that I heard from another person who had been living here with his children for 3 years that he was laughing at his colleague (also Singaporean) who told him that his children have identity crisis and think that they are "english". He went home to find his 5 year old chatting away happily in ang moh accented english... Even though they speak to her in mandarin, she would answer back in English.. so this concerned daddy asked her why she did not reply in Chinese.. "I don't like to speak chinese.." she says.
"But you are Chinese.." the dad insisted.. and tat was the reason he too gave for why he feels his child should speak chinese. "No daddy, I am not Chinese, I speak english and I am english!" She insisted.. he didn't know whether to laugh or cry... "Serves me right for laughing at others.." he told me..
But the solution to this little problem came about by chance to me..
Remember that I said that during our trip, my son's favourite hobby was to watch Pleasant Goat and The Big Bad Wolf in the hotel room? I noticed that even though he mentioned speaking chinese in China is his least favourite thing.. after watching a few eps of Xi Yang Yang and reading the comic books he has started to used chinese more frequently when speaking with us... and so, i have decided I must at least let him watch one chinese cartoon every week to keep him in touch with the language!
He even used words tat surprised me lor!
The other day, he was in the toilet for a really long time and so I shouted out to him from the living room, "Ace Chua..你在做什么?" (I was putting in effort to speak mandarin to him as often as I could..)
His reply? "我在大很美味的东西"
"Huh?你在大便啊？" I asked him and he started giggling and so I took it as an affirmative.. Even though it did not sound quite right, I was very pleased that he used the words "美味".. he probably heard it many times because one of the greedy goats Lan Yang Yang is always eating and looking for delicious (美味) food.
When he came out of the toilet, I decided that I have to hit the iron while it is hot and so I asked him if he understood what "美味" meant and I explained to him that it means delicious.. and then I also taught him the phrase.. 美味佳肴.
The very quick learner immediately decided to form a sentence with this new learnt phrase and told me, 我的大便是美味佳肴.." and then giggled uncontrollably... I laughed along with him and told him that poop is not considered a delicacy.. but somehow, this joke made him remember the phrase and many days later, he still remembered this phrase:)
The other day, we were talking about naggy people and he said that if there was a competition for the naggiest mummy, I would certainly win.. "But I am not very naggy wat.." I told him.. and Max agreed that he was more naggy than me.. hahaha:) So Ace said, "No no.. I meant if there is a competition for the most naggy zeng popo.. zeng popo will win.. I will let her win.. hahahaha"
Then I reminded him of the Pleasant Goat comic book (proudly sponsored by Karen Godma) that we read.. After every story, they always had some recap of what you learnt about what to do and what not to do.. one of the stories about respecting the elderly and even if they were naggy, you do not get annoyed at them or be rude to them.... Even though I knew he was joking, I told him that was a rude thing to say if Zeng Popo were here. It is fine to joke but it is not ok to be rude.
A week later, we were talking about the same Pleasant Goat story about being polite to the elderly even if they were naggy and Max, overhearing our conversation, asked what it was about and I tried to explain the story to him.. when I got to the part about the moral of the story.. I was lost for words and trying to find the chinese equivalent of the word "nag" and it was just elusive to me at that moment I was speaking..
"“唠叨.." said Ace as he completed the sentence for me. I am so impressed..
I asked Ganma Karen to help me buy more Pleasant Goat comic books from China since he likes them.. I think it is a good idea to let him read more of them.. it is in Karen's words, "Reading comics is better than not reading chinese books at all..."
Let's hope the chinese cartoon/comic educational plan will work very well.. Thank god on standby I have VCDs for 10,000 Whys and also Chinese Idioms in case I run out of Pleasant Goat cartoons to show him...
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