Rare Art

The next 2 weeks

One more week of school, then exams and then we are going home!
Except our home has been rented out...

He's finishing his first year in primary school in 2 weeks! WOW!!

He's not losing so much stationery nowadays, although occasionally he will do stupid things like sharpen his pencils both ends, break them in twos or saw them up with his ruler.

He had a few problems with his class bully earlier on in the year. Had food picked off the floor dumped into his soup, scratched his cheeks, hands, kicked, tripped etc. But last I hear, he says things are alright now, the bully doesn't bother him anymore.

So when yesterday he came back with a scratch on his cheek, I asked him how he got it. Refused to tell at first. I left it as that. But later, he did open up and told me he had a scuffle with his best friend's brother on the school bus. An older kid. Kid's brother took his 'shark' (he's into origami nowadays - it was a paper shark) so he grabbed that fellow's with his hands / fingernails but stressed that he didn't scratch him because there weren't any marks on the fellow's arm. Fellow retaliated by grabbing his face. Scuffle was broken up by bus auntie.

He's learnt how to add, subtract, count money, tell the time, recognize right angles and do 1-10 multiplications. Chinese speech and writing has improved dramatically and he's started reading chapter books by himself - Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

He's taller too. It became apparent after winter. His pants - the ones he had before the cold season, have all shrunk against those skinny legs of his.

He swims. Picked up front crawl, can swim 8 laps or so in that style without too much effort, and do a total of 16-20 laps during his hour-long lesson. He's also now learning backstroke.

Music education on the other hand, is a disaster. He punches the piano like he does the computer. Randomly and forever searching for the right keys.  He also dropped out of the school choir and joined the paper-folding / origami class instead. Finally, he is still struggling to hold the violin properly and plays it like an executor with severe finger spasms.

He lost 2 baby tooth and has a couple more loose.

I see only fleeting glimpses of the baby nowadays and so when he ran back for a voluntary second hug and kiss before going to school this morning, something he never does nowadays, I was reminded. He's not yet seven but will be soon, all grown up.

Attention span of a chicken.

I have no idea what a chicken's attention span is but I don't think there's a chicken in this world which would forget to swallow the corn that it has in its mouth. I do know however, of a boy who would write a chinese character halfway, start talking and forget that he has not yet finished writing it.

Children's Day

It's Children's Day today in China.

His school held a Charity Bazaar ( flea market + food fair).

A couple of days ago, he asked me how much I would give him... I said RMB20. He asked for more. RMB35 was the number we eventually agreed on.

On Monday, he brought a note home from school. Each food coupon was RMB5 and could be pre-purchased. So I gave him RMB20 for 4 tickets.

This morning, we argued over how much money he could bring to school. I thought I'd give him RMB15 ( 35 - 20 = 15!) but he said it was not enough and wanted RMB100. "That's 50 Da Niang veggie buns!", I exclaimed. Finally, we agreed to settle for RMB50.

Putting RMB20 in his right pocket and RMB30 in his left pocket, I told him that he could spend the RMB30 and urged him to save the RMB 20. As an incentive, if he brought back the RMB20, I'd double it - money he could spend next time.

He asked me to go to his school. I did.

Oh what fun! I observe the boy examining a bow & arrow game set at his class booth. Then he put it down and went away. Came back later with a small Optimus Prime (RMB1) and Mitsubishi toy truck (RMB1), spiderman stickers and some origami paper. I left him to himself and got myself 3 food coupons and exchanged them for chocolate ice-cream, corn on the cob and prawn crackers. He found me and asked if he could buy the bow & arrow set which was priced at RMB40. ( I think he asked only because he knew we had a spend 30 save 20 deal ) I told him to go bargain the price down  but he said, "No" and ran off. Came back with a box of Japanese rice maki, a really delicious looking cupcake covered with white icing and a pack of cookies ( 3 coupons gone). He asked again if he could buy the bow & arrow set. I relented. He happily rushed off and came back balancing the loot on his head. Told him to go spend his last food coupon before the fair ended. He flew off and came back with our 2nd pack of prawn crackers. *Yum.

(Addendum: he bought incredibles stickers, not spiderman stickers, a spiderman marker that has a roller stamp on the top end, a bottle of water, gummy sweets in the shape of a pizza, look-alike/taste-alike Yakult!?!)

We ate and I laughed so hard at the kids' conversations. One boy started jeering a girl who had applied glittery eyeshadow on herself - she had bought it and was delighted that it was 'real'!!! Another one regretted her purchase and placed it on her classmate's desk, who wasn't very impressed with the 'gift' and wanted to throw it away. One kid was given too much - he said he had RMB130 in one wallet and yet more money in his 2nd wallet. He had already filled 3 bags with stuff and became visibly very exasperated and exhausted with still having money left over after his nth trip.

My boy told me he had fun. I would think so.

Happy Children's Day!