I want to be ..... when I grow up.

Asked him several times before.... and again last night.
The answer is the same.

"I want to be a fireman when I grow up!"

Told him it's going to be hot!
He says, "I have a suit."
Told him he'd have to carry people on his shoulders.
He says, "I am strong."

Don't know where he got his career ambition from. There is nobody in my family who's a firefighter. We've only ever brought him to a Fire Station open house, once. There might be one book he owns ( which I don't recall him obsessing over) about Firefighters.

In any case, quite interesting to note that a survey by Reader's Digest Singapore last year showed that firefighters topped the 'Most trusted jobs' list:  Ref: http://www.asiaone.com/Business/News/Office/Story/A1Story20100226-201009.html

1 Firefighter
2 Doctor
3 Judge
4 Teacher
5 Surgeon
6 Pilot
7 Paramedic
8 Nurse
9 Pharmacist
10 Dentist

And suddenly inspired, I asked him.... There are 2 men in the house. One's blind and the other's crippled. Both were caught in a fire. How do they get out? He thought about it... then told me the blind man should carry the cripple and the cripple can tell the blind man the directions.
.............................. me wonders why a particular firefighter didn't turn up.

Chinese as a first language

The boy kept  his test paper again. Reason: 我还在做！(I'm still working on it!) I made him hand it to his teacher the next day, as-is. It came back with a "C".

His Chinese grades vary according to some unknown elements. Some days he gets it, some days, he just doesn't. Some days, he comes back with 83% for spelling and other days 95% ( I think the lowest you can get is 56%-60% since the teacher normally gives them 20 phrases / 40-44 characters and takes away 1% for each wrong character).

The thing is, these spelling tests doesn't happen on a fixed day, and there are no spelling lists. The only clue I get is when he writes 'Revise chapter 3-5' on his note book. Last Friday, his notes read: Revise chapter 11-15.

The boy was not at all concerned or emotional about it. I SO WAS! That's 5 chapters / ~ 50 phrases / at least 100 characters !!!! Here's a sample.....

以后，小巷，孩子，前脚，尾巴，几乎，江河，一枝，已经，闪闪发光，一团，做客，。。。

We worked on it Sunday evening... wonder who the bigger procrastinator? By 9:30pm, his eyes glazed over and I called it quits.

Sluorping

Had a conference call which took me way over lunch time... 1 hour 22 minutes over to be exact. Lunch hour starts at noon and over here, there is no reason not to eat. At around 11:45am, the chatter from my colleagues begins, "Where to eat?" and by 11:59am, everyone leaves to go eat at their chosen place.

Anyway, I went to get lunch after that call at a nearby eatery. It was not crowded anymore. Lunch time is over. Was eating my food, when I became aware that somebody else was chomping away loudly. I turned to look... a lady, enjoying her food with relish.

I smiled. I did.

Must be something to do with living in China for what? Almost seven months now? I actually think this loud 'sluorping' of food is totally acceptable. Where before I would have frowned and think it is unacceptable, un-cultured and rude, like the culturally acceptable way of slurping up your noodles in Japan, 'sluorping' up a plate of rice is now ok!

I like the way people here tuck into their food. Food comes to the table, you eat it while it's hot, in any way you want. No pretense, no nonsense. Eat.

And I like it, because I think you are suppose to eat this way - get food into your mouth and enjoy it without worrying about drips, making no sound or not being able to spit out the wrong bits.

Nice!

Art appreciation

I finished a sketch of the boy playing with his firecrackers and showed it to him.
He liked it so much, he used it to make a boat.