Happy Mother’s Day

One of the best things about living in China has got to be that you can get a bunch of peonies for $1.50 from a street vendor! I had been wondering where they were because peonies originate from China and I’ve seen them in landscaping but not in florist windows.

For Mother’s Day, Roland made a scrumptious dinner of southern fried chicken which we gobbled up. It’s scary how much we can eat. He’s really been on a roll here in China in learning how to cook.

Here are the boys inspired by the Chinese acrobat show they watched. Look at Samuel!

Young Pioneers

It’s official. The world is coming to an end – George Clooney is getting married!

Just when you thought there were a few things in life that you could count on, things change. That’s what happens all the time here in Beijing (nice segue…)  We will be walking along and suddenly notice that one of our usual restaurants has up and closed. No indication the day before – it’s just gone today. One time we invited a friend to dinner and when we arrived at the restaurant, we found half the site demolished and that it was its last week of operation. The government had decided to take the land.

Yesterday Joshua started telling us about how he had gotten selected in class, by popular vote, to be the 10^th out of 15 students (of the class’s 38 students) to be part of “the team.” Curious I kept asking how this was done, what it was for, etc. He mentioned that in 13 days they would receive their red scarves. It’s a ubiquitous sight – school kids everywhere in China wear these peppy looking scarves. I had been wondering why some kids at school had these and others didn’t. I googled and found out that this is the Young Pioneers of China organization, part of the Communist Party. They start the kids out at age 6 and eventually everyone becomes a member and can then decide whether to join the party when they are adults.

Oy vey! Later that night I decided to explain to him that while we are letting him do this as a cultural experience, our family doesn’t really believe in what the team stands for. “Like what?” “Well…” Apparently, in 2011 a school in Xi’an tried to also institute a neon green scarf for under-performing kids. While this drew a lot of criticism in the blogosphere, Joshua’s progressive school still does thing like take photos of the four kids who got the top score on a test and text it to all the parents. Joshua was bummed that his picture was not taken. So we took his picture at home. =). The parents also regularly get texts from the teacher, warning about the exact number of anonymous students who need to study harder.

Roland and the boys went to Shanghai last week and had a fabulous time. It was so ultra modern. They took the high-speed train and stayed a night in one of the tallest buildings in the world. Apparently Shanghainese look down on Beijing as being backward, almost like a developing country. I was glad to hear it because I did want my boys to experience a different world and the daily life things we need to do here in Beijing.

The boys are really speaking a lot more Chinese to each other now – mostly about the cartoon shows they watch and when they play with each other. Chinese language has become a family hobby, although I cannot participate as much. I’m especially happy for Samuel who had a long dormant period. His teachers say that now he can communicate to classmates and he is the class clown, making everyone laugh. He had a little trouble in trying to insert himself with the biggest boys in class since he is a year younger than everyone. So, the conscientious teachers have been separating the younger boys from the older boys.

Samuel has always been the younger one in group settings so I look forward to seeing what happens when he is one of the older boys in his kindergarten in California. A common parenting advice now in the US is to delay a boy’s entry in school a bit if you can because it will give him extra confidence to be one of the bigger, older alpha males. I read somewhere that a larger percentage of pro athletes and other successful people’s birthdays fall towards the end of the year. One’s birthdate shouldn’t have anything to do with one’s natural ability. Their hypothesis is that a later birthday does delay their entry to school and that these people would develop their self-identity as being the bigger, older kid and therefore be more confident and apt to develop their skills fully. I do think this self identity or sense of self efficacy can play a powerful force in how we play out our life. But, no need to despair if your birthday is early. I also believe it is possible to alter the mindset that we have been socialized into. As the Bible says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of our mind.” And as Jesus said, if we “know the truth, the truth will set you free.”

The boys up high in their hotel room on the Pudong side of Shanghai.