Passion

My guys are in a rock band. They have performed in school events, community events & even clubs in downtown Beijing. They perform covers and also write their own music and have now started recording these songs with the intention of burning a music CD/putting their music on iTunes, youtube, or some other website that allows music sharing. Maternal pride aside, the songs are pretty good & have found their way to their friends' iPods.

They have a passion for music, especially my younger boy. We have, at last count, a full drum set, a keyboard, a cajone drum, 2 bass guitars, 4 acoustic guitars and seven (yes SEVEN) electric guitars, each lovingly given unique names.

Neither my husband nor I discourage this passion. As a matter of fact, we are occasional roadies, helping them cart their instruments & various accessories (a couple of times, this included the ENTIRE drum set!!!) to the different venues for concerts. We offer constructive criticism on their performances, listen to their new compositions in order to offer advice, chaperone them on gigs. My younger son may eventually pursue the music business as a career path.

I know that my parents would NEVER EVER have encouraged me nor my siblings if we even showed any inkling of any form of musical or artistic talent or showed any tendency towards pursuing these areas as careers. And I don't blame them as they grew up in an era when poverty was rampant & the only way out, for many, was a good education & career in the traditional professions of law or medicine or engineering or accountancy.

My older son heads off to college next fall, followed by my younger one 2 years later. I always tell them, when we talk about what they want to study, that it doesn't matter to me, as long as they have passion in the field that they eventually end up working in.

To me, if you have the passion for what you do, half the battle is won...

Impressions from China - More crazy weather

10 inches of snow dumped on us overnight in a heavy snowstorm. The boys' school had to call it a Snow day which meant no school today for them, much to their glee & joy.

We spent the morning making a snowman, & the boys & their friends having snowball fights.

They say more snow is expected either tomorrow or Thursday. The kids await with bated breath, hoping for another Snow Day.

I hope not. (I don't mean the snow; I mean the kids missing another day of school while frolicking in the snow then bringing home a horde of teenage boys whom I subsequently have to feed.)

Much of the snow is gone now, since the ambient temperature was in the teens. My guys had their coats off and were outside in their tee shirts within 30 minutes of rigorous snow play! The snowman has also since collapsed and lying sadly on his face in our backyard.

As I said, crazy weather.

Impressions from China - Haggling

Location: Yashow

Products in question: 2 pairs of winter gloves

The exchange that ensues (translated from Mandarin):

A.: "How much?"

Vendor: "150 kuai"

A.: "60"

Vendor: "100"

A: "60"

Vendor:"No, it's too cheap! 100!"

A: "60"

Vendor: "80!"

Me: "I'm hungry - let's go have dinner."

A: "65"

Me:"Let's go eat, I'm hungry."

Vendor: "80, it's very cheap!"

A (giving in to a hungry wife):"Ok, OK, 80"

I hate haggling. A. loves it. It's like a game to him. That's why I drag him along when I go shopping at places like Hong qiao or Silk Street or Yashow where bargaining is part of the shopping process.

Impressions from China - Crazy Weather

Poor trees...


Willow trees with leaves still green & covered with snow!







We were dumped with at least 6 inches of snow on November 1st after the Chinese authorities seeded the clouds. Temperature that day was a max of 6 degrees Celsius. The poor trees hadn't even had a chance to lose their fall foliage yet. As a matter of fact, many of the leaves are still green! Some of the branches on a couple of trees in our yard have snapped due to the heavy weight of wet snow which was caught on the leaves (as you can see in the pictures above).

It was frigid the next day with a max of about 4 degrees.

Today, just two days later, the max temperature was at a relatively comfortable 15 degrees (thought it felt warmer than that to me). I only needed a light sweater outside.

Next week on Tuesday, more snow is expected (whether due to seeding or not, I don't know) with max temperatures of 2 degrees expected!

All this yoyo-ing of temperatures is really quite annoying. The snow that arrived over the weekend caught us by surprise. I hadn't even taken our winter coats out yet nor our winter shoes! So now, on our heavily laden coat rack hang lightweight sweaters, a denim jacket, a couple of leather jackets, a couple of layered thickly insulated coats, and a couple of medium weight coats - all this to accommodate the rather wishy washy weather pattern we've been experiencing.

Global warming? El Nino? La Nina?

Whatever the cause is, I wish the weather would make up its mind already.

Road Bumps

Whoever said that parenting gets easier as the kids become older have got to be kidding.

College Apps

Early Decision, Early Action, Early Response, Regular Decision, Rolling Decision...

These are terms which we have had to learn as we travel down the sometimes confusing road of college applications with our older son. Even my American-educated husband is occasionally confounded by the new terms & processes that we have to go through in order to try to secure a place in college.

Common Apps, Supplements, "Reach" schools, "Good Fit" schools, "Safety" schools...

One additional challenge are the essays/personal statements that my son has to write to "sell" himself to the various colleges he is applying to. For those of us who enjoy writing, it's not so big of a deal. For him, who finds writing essays a bore & a tedious task, it's like pulling teeth. I am sometimes tempted to write the bl*** essay for him but he needs to do it on his own. But I have to say, the end products of his efforts are commendable. We'll see what the outcome is come mid-December, when the early decision & early response results are released (*fingers crossed*).

In the meantime, he still needs to continue working on the essays for "regular decision" schools.

Sigh.

Singlish*

*Singapore's version of pidgin English which, for the most part, can only be understood by native Singaporeans

This letter was published in last week's ST Forum:

Don't use culture as an excuse for Singlish

RECENTLY, there was a programme on television which discussed the standing of Singlish in view of the recent debate on using correct spoken English. One participant held the view that it was the country's culture which should not be eradicated - it was the flavour of Singapore.

If it is a cultural characteristic pertinent to Singapore, it must be at least more than 100 years old - which it is not.

When our forefathers came to Singapore from their homelands to find a better life, they had no education, or very little of it. Then, English was the lingua franca under the rule of the British. The immigrants were creative and resilient and learnt a few words of English to survive in an alien land. Their dialects were of no use except among themselves.

So, to survive, they had to use some English. From this was born pidgin English shorn of its grammar and sentence sequence.

The situation today is different - vastly different - and the need of our forefathers does not exist any more. Why then is there this tendency to cling to broken or fractured English?

Why must we take mistakes in semantics and elevate them into a culture? Is it because it is too much trouble to master correct usage of the English language and, like water, it is easier to flow down than up?

In the TV programme, Japan was cited as a country that did not speak English and did well, with translators at meetings. I have had business meetings in Japan, with Japanese CEOs who spoke impeccable English (without translators). And the same in China too, where the country's young are being groomed in correct English to make inroads into the English-speaking world.

If one can speak correct English, without translators, the one-on-one relationship gives an edge and develops a much stronger sense of rapport with the individual spoken to.

Our children must be given this edge and not be forced to rely on translators to decode their Singlish for the English- speaking world.

The choice has to be made now.


This is an oft repeated argument, & I wholeheartedly support the author of this letter. I always see the die-hards who argue that Singlish should not be put down, that those of us who speak proper English are trying to show off blah blah blah.

The point of the matter is, many Singaporeans think that they speak English when they actually speak Singlish. It is advertised that Singapore is an English speaking country. But the reality is when foreigners visit Singapore & talk to the average man in the street, they find it very difficult to comprehend what he is talking about.

Recently, a friend of mine whose daughter just graduated from an International school in Beijing & is now attending a university in the UK, told me that her daughter noticed that many Singaporean students there tend to clique together. And when they speak, it is difficult for the British people to understand them. That is the sad state of affairs now, with regards to spoken English among Singaporeans, even the most highly educated ones.

Another friend of mine in Beijing, whose son attends immersion classes in Singapore during summer breaks, told me that her son has to switch to speaking in Singlish during his stints in the Singaporean school (an elite school, no less), otherwise he is ostracized & made fun of for trying to speak like a foreigner!!! A fine example of xenophobia in Singapore, which, unfortunately, is not that uncommon these days.

Singlish should be treated as a dialect of its own. And learning PROPER English is a must for Singaporeans, if they want to be understood by others. Keep Singlish, by all means. But know when to use it, & when not to. Otherwise we will all sound like we are speaking gibberish when we speak pretend English (i.e. Singlish)