Recent

Marriage
Who do you want to marry when you grow up?
> I don't know.
Auntie M asked A and A said she wants to marry you.
> OK OK!!! *nodding vigorously* I marry her!
*Hahhahaa*
Why not QQ?
> Too many.
What do you mean by "too many?"
> She has twins already!!!

Exhausted
Do you want to drink Milo?
> No.
What do you want to drink?
> Milo.
*I raise my eyebrows... the Big one started wheezing from trying to contain his explosive laughter.... the exhausted boy slowly realized what happened.... and laughed tears.

Entertainment
On the road, he plays the games we downloaded on the iPhone, Uno, blackjack and 4 different types of hand games.

Hand Game 1: Players stick out 1 finger on each hand. You start swiping your opponents fingers. 1st one to add up to 10 wins. Player with 2 on one hand and 8 on another can placed the 8 (shaped like a gun) on the 2 (shaped like a V and looks like a stand) to shoot your opponent down.

Hand Game 2: (2 players) Scissors paper stone - winner gets to swipe a finger on the loser's head... loser makes a guess which finger was used. If loser guessed right on the 1st try, loser gets to pull the other party's ear. If the guess is wrong, the other party gets to pull. ( 3 players)... Determine who is the loser by playing "black or white"... Odd one out is the loser. Remaining 2 player plays scissors paper stone... winner gets to play with the loser.

Hand Game 3: "Chee-koo-pak" (variation of scissors paper stone). Players show their chosen scissors, paper or stone sign(s) on both hands. On the players call, he/she gets to shout out the sign(s). The idea is to switch your signs such that it is not the one(s) being called out. Otherwise, the hand 'dies'.

Hand Game 4: Clapping sequence... determine and agree on a pattern  from the start. Start from 1 and increase the cycle to 2, 3, 4X etc. For example, if the pattern is
Clap both hands, clap right hands, clap front & back.
Then 2X will be clap both hands twice, clap right hands twice,  clap front & back twice... and so forth.

We were on a train for 18 hours at a stretch on one leg of our recent trip...these games, especially the hand games, helped us passed time joyfully.

Laundry
Been doing laundry non stop for 2 days now. We wore every single piece of clothing we brought along plus more that we bought along the way during out recent trip and wore them all for 5 days straight. The boy's record was wearing 8 layers on top, 5 pairs of pants, 3 pairs of socks, heat pads, hat under his multiple hoods, mask, scarf, 2 pairs of gloves and woolly boots.

Trip
We travelled from Shanghai - Harbin - 长白山(ChangBai  Mountain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baekdu_Mountain) - Shenyang  - and back to Shanghai.

Wouldn't recommend anyone make this crazy trip. It was sooo cold! The temperature at the mountain peak was minus 40 degrees Celsius...and the winds was so strong, I felt like I was being lifted every time I took one feet off the ground. The cold was so bad, my head hurt madly from skull-freeze. I think the boy could easily have been blown away had he not thankfully refused to wake up - he stayed in the car while we attempted to make the short climb to the lookout - to see the caldera. I didn't make it... Hah!

Unesco
The old imperial palace in Shenyang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukden_Palace is the 4th Unesco World Heritage Site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Heritage_List the boy has visited - after Halong Bay (Vietnam), Angkor (Cambodia) & Kakadu National Park (Australia).

Bad
Too bad we were only given an hour at the site before being rushed to shop ( guide gets 5% commission - a very maddening culture!)

Good
The meal specification on the tour is 8 dishes and 1 soup- a great way to learn how to dish up a 9-course Chinese meal!

Finally
2010 is coming to an end. It's been quite a journey!

今天下雪了!

He wasn't too keen on leaving his pre-school in August to come here to Shanghai with me. He wanted to stay in Singapore till December.

I told him that there is Autumn, and Winter, and 4 seasons here in Shanghai. He wanted to know if it'd snow in Shanghai. I said, "Yes." ( I didn't think then that it would not) So he said, 'Ok. I want to eat snow."

Found out after we got here that snow rarely makes its appearance in Shanghai. *Oh s**t!*

And so, you can imagine how happy and thrilled I was when I found out this morning on the news that it was going to snow... and it did! I shot this photo at 3pm:

Spoke to the boy on the phone.... the first thing he said was, "今天下雪了 ". I asked him if he'd tasted it... and he said, almost shyly, "Yes, it's very nice."

I am grateful.
I managed not to lie.
Thank you.

He did.

They had an Arts competition in school. He could submit a drawing or play the piano... or any other instrument. His drawings are .... nicely terrible. He just started learning the piano and have not yet progressed beyond playing the C-major scale. So, I suggested he play a piece on his violin. He wanted to play '童话' and I was fine with whatever he prefers.

But his violin teacher wasn't and wanted him to play "春天来了" & "茉莉花" instead. I thought the competition proper was to happen later this month so we all thought there would be plenty of time for him to prep. But no. I received a notification on a Monday that he is to bring his violin to school that Wednesday for the competition.

Right, out the window went the 2 pieces he was to prepare. He practiced his '童话' about 20X that Tuesday evening and went to school with his violin the next day. I took some time off to go to his school to play the piano part. 

While we were rehearsing, a teacher walked in... I did not know he was going to be the judge. So I was unprepared when he closed the door and said, "Let's start!".

Was quite disheartened. Since the Judge had already heard most of it. The whole thing was not quite what I had pictured in my mind.

The boy played his piece (again). But this time, the kids who were shut out of the room started jumping up and down outside, trying their darnest to peep in through the window...and he was very distracted by them, giggling at one point while playing his violin and eventually forgetting which line he was on midway through... Horrors!!! I continued the accompaniment solo while urging him to come back in at the next section. ... he gave up and put his violin down... the Judge encouraged him to continue. He did eventually.

This was not my idea of a reasonable/ fair/ ok performance and so I didn't think more of it.

Until this morning, when I was notified to send his teacher a photo of him because he had won a prize in the competition.

He won what?!?

阿姨一号

I think I should write about 阿姨No.1
Day 1 She's not someone who has to work and told me so.
Day 2 She didn't want to work past 6:30pm ( which would be a big rush for me) - fine.
Day 3 She didn't know how to use the vacumn machine - taught her.
Day 4 She didn't know how to iron - wanted to teach her but she said she sends her own clothes to the laundry to be pressed.
No Day 5.

阿姨三号？

阿姨二号第一句话是,"恐怕要给你失望了!"
> I'm afraid you will be disappointed.
She took an hour to get to our place... so she (rightly) decided that this job will not be viable.

*sigh*

啊姨

Everytime I have a new helper... my heart skips a beat. 阿姨二号 (Helper No.2) will come by tomorrow.

Not playing fair.

He hates to lose ... and tries to switch his cards recklessly - whether or not I'm looking - and thinks the only way to win is to snitch an arsenal of Draw 4's and +2's. I still win. Frustrated, he ropes in his friend, his Tigger so that 'they' can exchange cards. He plays both his and Tigger's sets of cards against me but won't let Tigger win. Even when Tigger is down to 2 cards, he gets Tigger to not say "Uno" so that he can catch him and give him a 2-card penalty. Hilarious!

UNO

The boy received a set of Thomas "Station Celebration!" game deck for his birthday this year. We only recently got around to playing it. Pretty fun the first 30 times or so but like all good things forced in abundance, I had to find me something else to deal with... so I bought us a deck of UNO. We started playing that last night. By the time we are back for Chinese New Year, he'd be able to earn a seat at the Blackjack table.

Growing wings again...

17-21 December - Macau, China
23-26 December - Harbin, China
24-28 January - Louisville, USA
29 - 13 February - Singapore!!!

就近 Education

Recently occured to me to ask: "Is there a Primary School Leaving Examination in China?"

"No."

Ok, then which secondary schools do the kids go to?

 "就近"  ... which means the school near where you stay.

Everybody has 9 years of compulsory education. And then they have the first major exams, after which they go on to high school (50%) and then take the university entrance exams. The other 50% go on to technical institutions, polytechnics or join the labour market.

Hmm... so there's really no pressure until the kid turns 15.

I'm on 3 year contract... why am I asking these questions?