Saturday, May 17, 2008

A Little Boy’s Birthday

Today is my godson’s 4th birthday.  I just got off the phone with him, and boy is he wound up!

My godson is half Chinese Singaporean, and half American.  His parents want him to learn Chinese, but it is hard for him to do so, not having the environment in the US.  Of course, the younger that he can learn it the better, so they try to find various methods to teach him.
His favorite so far is a cartoon about an American born Chinese boy.  He’s picked up a number of phrases from the show, and especially loves to tell me, “Tai bang le!”  (“That’s great/cool!”)  
A few weeks ago, he was pretty cute.  I was on skype chatting with him, and it started raining where he was.  He told me, “It’s raining,” and I asked if he knew how to say that in Chinese.  He couldn’t remember, so I told him, and he repeated it.  After a few seconds, he said, “Can you please ask me how to say ‘umbrella’ in Chinese now?”  When I did, he went about the house dancing and repeating “yu san,” quite pleased with himself for knowing the answer to my question.
Posted by poetically challenged at 16:03:45 | Permalink | No Comments »

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Kid’s Talk

I heard a funny exchange at the coffee shop while having lunch the other day.  It reminded me of how it can be so easy to learn what a word means, but so hard to use it… a lesson of which I receive constant reminder in my own language studies.



A father and his three kids were having lunch together.  The daughter, the youngest of the three, said to her second brother, “You are so immature.”

The oldest boy chimed in, adding, “Yeah!  You’ve got no puberty!”

The father looked at him and said, “Do you know what you are talking about or not?  What is puberty?”

“Yes, I know,” said the boy.  ”Puberty is when you mature.”
Posted by poetically challenged at 02:13:24 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Monday, August 13, 2007

It’s All About Perspective

Over the past 3 months, my 2 nephews (6 and 7 years) have been staying with me.  We traveled to Shanghai during their time here, just for the adventure.  It was great!  We did all sorts of fun things, and had an all round good time. And the boys were wonderful, trying all sorts of odd foods (odd from their background) and seeing all sorts of exciting things.  They ate duck tongues and necks, pig tongues, donkey meat, and snake meat.  They loved it all.


Last weekend, we went fishing.  We caught a good sized fish, and it was quickly cooked up and we ate it.  My older nephew caught the fish, so we gave him the head.  He was thrilled, and did a good job eating it up.  I asked the younger one if he wanted the bones from the centre of the body.  He said yes, so I asked if he knew how to eat them.  He said, “Sure, it’s just like eating snake.”

Funny thing is, when he gets back to the US, no one will believe him when he says things like that.  But it’s all true!
Posted by poetically challenged at 15:07:36 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Monday, June 18, 2007

Innocence

My 2 nephews (6 and 7) are here to spend the summer with me. When we go somewhere with my 2 older godchildren (8 and 4), it is fun to hear the 4 kids singing along with The Beatles CD that I like to listen to in the truck. They have nearly every word to every song on the CD memorized, and sing along with gusto. When tracks 5-8 come up, they are especially enthusiastic. That’s (in order) I Want to Hold Your Hand, All My Lovin’, Can’t Buy Me Love, and A Hard Day’s Night.

My godchildren’s mother and I get a kick out of listening to the kids sing. We were talking the other day about how the music of The Beatles so nicely represents a more innocent time than the one we seem to live in today. Songs about holding hands, writing letters home, and all that sort of stuff said so much in that era, and influenced music forever after it.

I love The Beatles, and I love a good deal of the music that has come after them (not just in time, but in influence). And I really love hearing my little innocents soaking up the music of a more innocent era past.

Posted by poetically challenged at 01:47:44 | Permalink | No Comments »