Funerals

Life just got a whole heap more complicated.  My helper's grandmother died.  The funeral is on Saturday.  The grandmother that had been hanging on to see her in July when she went there on vacation. (No, she's not going with us to Singapore - a long story for another time involving dreams and ambitions and the reality of being a philipine lady in a world that tries to keep you down.)

Anyway, the only way she can be at the funeral on time is to leave tomorrow evening.  Should she go? Of course she should go.  She didn't dare to ask me, knowing that we're in the middle of the move and it's just the two of us juggling our presence, me trying to study and do exams, and stay focused and her holding the fort.  So I told her she had to go.  And then spent a few hours yesterday evening trying to book her a ticket (of course Philipine airline website was down), and debriefing with her on the feelings and emotions that are tied up with ending her life here with us (she misses the kids terribly - so much so, when I wanted to chuck out some of their art work she asked if she could please take some paintings with her to remind her of them), plus of course the end of her grandmother's life, the uncertainty of what she's doing next (I didn't warm to the lady who rang for a reference whose first question was whether she had an attitude problem.  Are you kidding me?)

I had to think back to years ago, also here in Hong Kong, listening to the last breaths of my grandmother in a coma in South Africa, missing saying goodbye to her in her life and then rushing to her funeral, paying for a business class ticket I couldn't afford as it was the last seat on the plane.  Being told by my parents that I shouldn't come as she was already dead.  Enduring the arguments when I got there which is my family's substitute for expressing grief and sadness and any other emotion inbetween.  There is a reason for rituals.  Whether you believe in the religious underpinnings of those rituals or not.  And rituals seem to be adapting and evolving as we move to a more secular society.  But we are not abolishing them.  And there is a good reason for this.

I phoned another friend last night to say goodbye.  We've been trying to meet for lunch or coffee or anything and our schedules just hadn't co-incided.  She admitted she also didn't want to say good bye, and hated goodbyes.  I'm a bit abrupt in my farewells as well.  Since the people who count you'll always see again, always keep in touch with a tiny thread, that once you're together again it's like you never parted.  And the rest? Well, it doesn't matter anyway does it?  As nice people as they are, they're just bit players in your life.

What am I going to do?  I don't know. Keep breathing I guess. Most of my friends have left for the vacation already.  And the rest are writing exams with me.  I'll just have to trust the moving company to do what they have to do without us, and it's all just stuff anyway.

Spilling the beans (4)

These are more general things.  Silly things, but perhaps worth knowing if you're new here ...

Catching a mini bus
I personally adore mini-buses, particularly the green ones, I must admit not the red ones.  I take them all the time.  I have my favourite drivers and ones who'd be better off the road.  I called the family from one the other day.  "Where are you mum" says my son "on the minibus on the way home", "Oh" says he, "which driver do you have?" "the old one with the half bald head who combs the rest over"  "Yes, I know him, he's a nice one"

Anyway, to the point, there is a trick to always having a spot (from Pokfulam anyway). It never ceases to amaze me.  If you catch the bus before 9am, say at 8.45 or 8.50 or even 8.55, you will have the choice of seats.  If you go at 9am, there will be a long queue.  I'm quite lucky that when I walk to the stop from my house, I'm one of the first on the bus, and if it's after 9 - no way the later people in long queues will get a spot.  Or maybe they like the social aspect of queueing?

Handbags

My nappy bag

I like handbags as much as the next girl.  But I'm not crazy about logos and the "latest thing".  Practicality, size, classical look and weight are my criteria. There has only been one bag I ever coveted, about 12 years ago, and I was really happy to find it on a 2nd hand taitai sale about a year later, at which point I snapped it up.  After the birth of my daughter it became my "nappy bag" - yes, honestly, when I went out with her, I'd put her in the baby bjorn in front, put that on my back, equipped with 2 nappies and a small packet of baby wipes and off we'd go.  Hands free, no stroller to worry about, no bottles, powders etc. (I breast fed both of them, so that made life a LOT simpler, and then when they quit around 13 months that was it - no formula, no milk, and they're really healthy kids.  Formula and milk is over-rated.  Do you hear that HK mums and Mainland mums.  It's over rated. It's expensive.  It leads to obesity.  It leads to allergies.  It's artificial and it's nutritionally unnecessary after one year of age if you have your kids on a balanced diet of fruit, vegetables, complex carbohydrates and a bit of protein.
Anyway, in Spain (if you're ever there) I used to frequent Carla Sade, who had super bags and matching shoes.  Here in HK, I'm not adverse to a little cross border shopping at Lili's wonderful shop, although I must say at times the quality can be a little patchy, particularly on the zip side.  So I was delighted to find the Halo shop on Gough street the other night before dinner at Shanghai lane.  I bought a rather nice brown and white bag for the summer which ticks all the boxes of functionality and style.  The lady there is also nice (I guess you see a pattern here, I like pleasant people to sell me things.) and took feedback seriously about a bag I really like but was missing a zipper which I said wouldn't work when I went to Europe for the summer due to the crime issues there.  Apparently they're going to open in I think Ocean Terminal or Harbour City - I hope that's not the beginning of the end of their simplicity and functionality.

Camera Shop
Digital Concepts - I usually go to the one in the Wanchai computer centre.  The guys there are pretty knowledgeable.  They also are quite good about throwing in a camera bag or upping your memory if they know you're local. I take my guests there as well, so you can build a relationship.  Otherwise I haul myself over to the Canon showroom in TST - it's superb.  Well worth a visit even if you don't need to buy anything.

Child psychologist
Dr. Tara Levinson (long waiting queue)

Chinese (Mandarin)
I've phoned around, I've shopped around.  The only group that takes adult learners pretty seriously (aside from full time university) that I found has been Executive mandarin.  The put you in the right ability group and they're the only company that will do the reading and writing, not just the talking (which I personally consider to be essential in learning the language).  They also support people in taking the HSK exam.  But it's slower going compare to HKU.  Despite my quibble about them, and the language, and some of the teaching / teachers, at the end of the day, I've gone from almost nothing to reading the newspaper.  And writing 600 character essays. (badly, but that's my fault.)

Chinese (Cantonese)
Well, Cecilie of course, I've attended one of her "guerilla Chinese" classes, and she teaches you more in a morning than most courses would teach you in months.  Plus it's all stuff you can use.  AND she REALLY knows how to teach.  She takes what you know in your home language and helps to scaffold Chinese onto that.  That takes talent.
Aside from that, the HKU Cantonese course is very highly rated by the people I've spoken to who have taken it.  And this year, they only had 8 people in 1st year (and listen to this) 2 people in 2nd year. That's practically a private education (in the true sense of the word).

So if you don't know what to do with yourself. If you're bored. If you want to work but are having "language" doors shut in your face, enrol yourself.  Try it out.  Do a term (HKU has 3 terms and you pay as you go, so you can quit at any point) .  Don't think "its a 2 year commitment" - think "I'm going to do this for a couple of months and see how it goes."  Otherwise you could be like I was.  Watching my friend do it, while I had all the excuses, and then the 2 years went by anyway, and I didn't have much to show for those 2 years.  And she'd mastered Chinese.  That made up my mind for me.

spilling the beans (3)

I'm clearing out my intray and my desk as the move becomes imminent.  Yes they were supposed to arrive today.  But they didn't.  I'm getting used to trying to stay calm and be polite and just suck up all the anxiety and pretend it doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter. Not in the large scheme of things.  Just this way my exams co-incide completely with the move, rather than them start while I'm around if they need to ask stuff.  And I'm jittery as a cat on a tin room.  Anyway, back to business.

Knitwear.  Like jerseys' and throws and stuff.  This is a rather nice little company as it's pure HK born and bred.  Love and Hope 17/F Stanley 11, which is 11 Stanley str in Central.  Which by the way, is a vertical arrangement of what should be horizontal and street level. Filled with rather nice and quirky shops of all types.  Including vegetarian restaurants etc.

Orthodontist.
Dr. Tsun Ma at Bayley & Jackson, Jardine House.  He's really super. Unfortunately we've had to leave before he started. But that's why I like him.  He gave an excellent consultation, didn't rush into anything, kids loved him, and then got me to send photos once certain teeth had come through rather than pay money for another consultation to assess things further.

Hairdresser
I have a super one, but she works from home, so I don't want to put this out in public. If you know me and want me to refer you, send me an email.

Ditto for my "body balance" massage / reiki / bowen therapy / massage for children lady

Gardening:
Mr Tang at Woodland Heights Garden, 2 Wong Nai Chung Gap Road

Kids clothes @ a reasonable price in central
I know everyone goes to Stanley, and yes they do have MUCH more and a greater variety, but if you're in town and don't want to schelp to Stanley, then Kid&Kinds, 19/F Li Dong Building, 9 Li Yuen St East is a good alternative.

Other kids stuff -
Ecomama if you don't want to spend money at ELC or Bumps to Babes (outrageous what they charge) and also great when you want to offload your stuff when you've out grown it.

Clothes & Shoes
One of the shops for real people (i.e not skinny models who have real things besides lunches to go to) who don't want to go to Causeway bay and battle the crowds, with a super friendly lady who lets you try on endlessly and has some great suggestions for less than perfect body shapes like mine, and some pretty nice Marc Jacobs shoes from time to time is C&C fashion, 5/F Thyrse House, 16 Pottinger Street, Central

Real estate
Habitat Property.   They have some really nice, quite different stuff on their books.  They're not pushy, they don't call you if you don't call them.  Rental and purchasing (just a pity I've never been able to afford to buy!)

Other nice places to eat
There are several great restaurants in Coda Plaza in midlevels, including some really good vegetarian places - sorry haven't got specific names.
I must also say that at the end of the day, I've decided that Ovologue is my favourite Chinese restaurant at the moment.  And not just because of their so called 'molecular' sangria which puts me in a state of bliss in minutes.  Their lunch is not bad, but the evening menu is really nice.

送友 人

This is the poem my friends in chinese class gave to me at my farewell:

青山横北郭
白水绕东城
此地一为别
孤蓬万里征
浮云游子意
落日故人情
挥手自兹去
萧萧班马鸣

（李白）

Farewell to a friend

Green hills lie beyond the northern city walls.
Surrounding the east side are white waterfalls.
From this scenery spot you are about to depart,
Like a tumbling weed traveling thousands miles afar.
Drifting clouds represent the traveler’s mindset.
But our friendship is eternal, just like the sunset.
We waive our hands as you are on your way.
Our horses call each other even from very far away.

sleepless

I think I'd better think this out again ....

The trumpet saga continues.  Experienced parents with older children and more wisdom I need some advice.
As explained a little while back, my son has become obsessed with learning the trumpet.  And owning a trumpet.  It's been an excellent medium for me to examine my prejudices and ideas about parenting.  And I still don't know the answer.

Am I making things to difficult?  Here are some of the issues.  The reason why it's come to the forefront again, is yesterday he went into a music shop with dad and sister and started trying out cornets (most trumpeters start with cornets apparently - don't ask me, I am so completely out of my depth here on this instrument it's not funny).  Of course then he wanted to buy one.  Or more precisely wanted my husband to buy him one.  Dad did the usual parenting cop-out and said he had to discuss it with me.  Of course all that does is buy time ...
At which point my daughter said if he could have a trumpet then she wanted a clarinet as that was her second instrument of choice.

I'm like "whoa, where does all this talk of second instruments come into the equation, it's hard enough focusing on one instrument and the required lessons and practise without adding a second"  - I know I tried to keep up piano and cello throughout my secondary school and there's a lot of sacrifice involved.

Ok, so what is the issue?  Well, cornets / trumpets are not cheap.  And they seem to be in astounding short supply on the second hand market - i.e. not available.  There are so many things tied up in this.  I'm having a hard time to untangle them.

First is the thing of giving kids what they want when the want them.  That for me is a big parental no-no.  I have absolutely no difficulty in saying no to my kids in the supermarket, the toy store, or anywhere else (besides the bookshop, but that's different).  And they know it.  So we never have tantrums, they say they want something, I say, sure, put it on your birthday / Christmas present list, and that's it.  And invariably they forget about it, or not, and then they may or may not get it.  I have to add that they're not very wanty kids.  They happily forego presents at birthdays for donations by their friends to a charity.  My daughter regularly resists going to get clothes for the next season (my husband phoned in dismay yesterday to say that she barely fitted into the clothes I'd packed for her - well of course they were from last summer and she refused to go and buy new clothes, insisting that last season's would do).  And yet, there is this puritan thing in me that says that just because he wants a trumpet doesn't mean that he immediately gets it.
Of course he's not stupid.  Of course he's offered to pay for it himself.  And he can.  Did I mention that he's quite beautiful, and therefore in demand as a model.  We turn down 9/10 potential shoots, but he's done enough to be able to afford a trumpet.  So why don't I just let him buy it himself?
Well, I don't really think he understands money at all, and I'm a saver.  I've always saved.  Everything.  From chocolates and sweets at lent when I was at a catholic school, to scrap paper to write on now, to a big chunk of my salary when I was working, to using the bus instead of a taxi here  and everything inbetween.

This incident has made me realise how much of parenting is by instinct and gut feeling. And yes sure, some of that is from some socio-biological urge for self preservation and perpetuation of the species.  But this type of thing falls firmly into the category of parenting by instinct due to the way you were parented.  And I remember everything my more exuberant and different thinking brother wanted being met by a "no" from my parents.  Some of it reasonable, a lot of it unreasonable and instinctual, no, because I don't want you to have it.  Which of course led to him being extremely entrepreneurial from a very young age, earning the money he needed to buy it himself without any concern to my parent's ideas on the matter.

Which means denying your kids stuff things is not always unreasonable, nor does it lead to bad things inevitably.  Of course it's rather stupid just to say no for the sake of saying no.  And it's not fun, and you start to second guess yourself and your motivation.

My son's really mad at me.  He started our conversation yesterday with "mum, I saw a cornet and it's great and dad says I have to ask you if I can have it"  boom.  I asked the price, "200 euros" and merely said, "wow, that's a lot of money, I'll need to think about it and discuss it with your dad."  And he put down the phone and apparently sat in a corner and cried his heart out.

OK, so other "stuff" clouding the issue.  They've both just reached the point in their playing where we can (and do) all play together.  Cellos and Viola, or cello, viola and piano.  And it's lovely.  And we can play with other people, and it sounds beautiful.  That little feeling and image is rather shattered when one tries to imagine the combination of a trumpet, clarinet and cello/piano.  Attachment, yes I know attachment.  I need to let go of these attachments.

I discuss with my husband, who points out that if we hire an instrument it will cost us as much over the few years as buying it, and unlike the strings, they don't come in children's sizes. So it's an investment. My daughter points out that my argument that he can take it up in Singapore with his new school is flawed, as she checked on their website, and brass instruments are only from grade 5, and as a grade 3 pupil he's going to be stuck with the recorder.  And then she quickly reminded me that if he gets a trumpet, she'd have to get a clarinet.  Oh joy.  The trumpet issue has blossomed into a trumpet and clarinet issue.

How about the delayed gratification thing?  You know that famous marshmellow test.  There's something to be said about saying no to kids and then it can either blow over, or really really really steel their resolve, so much so that they then go on to become brilliant in just that thing that you tried to deny them (look at Handel).

Should we make him "earn" it, with vacation homework, or with chores or behaviour?  Should we make him pay for half of it or all of it? What's the point of trying to teach him to save (his earnings and pocket money go into the bank at the moment) if he never has the pleasure of being able to use the savings for something he really wants?

Simplify this for me someone!

It may seem obvious, but why didn't anyone tell me?

As much as I hate hate hate exams and sitting for them, I have to admit the process of studying for them is an extremely useful exercise.  For one rather obvious reason, of course it consolidates the knowledge you do have, and it gives you a chance to pick up and understand things that may have gone past you a little fast the first time around.  Not to mention all the neurological / memory stuff about taking stuff and organising it in long term memory, retrieving it and reorganising, making additional links etc. etc.  So far so good.  I just turn into a jelly of nerves and blanking out when I'm expected to reproduce it all.  One of my class mates who does extra-ordinarily well in exams, although in class is just one of the 'guys' said to me, that the thing is he's just really really good at taking exams.  It's his thing. He can do it.  He goes into a zone when he's in an exam.  I remember reading an article in some newspaper somewhere from an expat who had returned to their home country after living in China for a while, and was saying how much they'd hated the kids having their weekly tests and dictations, and spelling lists at the time, but now back and without them were seeing the benefit it had had.

But yet another thing that I'm finding very interesting in this process, is that for some things, I really KNEW them, knew how to do them, would get them right (when I thought about it), but would get them wrong when I was put on a spot and had to for example say something quickly, so I'd not really internalised the logic.  The sentence order in Chinese is something that is notoriously difficult and counter-intuitive for native English speakers.  And despite that being a "known" the obvious is seldom pointed out to us.  Something about assumptions?  So today, after 2 years of getting things in the wrong order, I'm looking up the difference between co-verbs and prepositions on the internet (yes, Chinese famously doesn't really have a formal grammar, apparently what passes as grammar these days is western imperialism imposing a grammar on them....  so sometimes there are naming issues between what we think of as prepositions / coverbs and what functions similarly in Chinese - ditto what we call adjectives and they call stative verbs)** and I find this little nugget:
"In Chinese, when it comes to describing actions, sequence of actions is important. The first action should come first. For example, I went to China by airplane. You have to think that the action of 坐 sitting on the airplane happens before going to China, therefore 坐飞机 by airplane should be placed before 去中国went to China. If you want to say: I go to school by car, you must bear in mind that  in a Chinese person’s mind you have to sit in the car before you can reach school, therefore, 坐汽车 by car should be placed before去学校go to school."


I look at this, and have a huge "aha" moment.  I'm like, why didn't anyone tell me this about 2 years ago??


One of the commentaries to yesterday's blog was saying how she/he and their family were getting to grips with the Chinese language, but like me were also struggling with the cultural assumptions behind learning, and what was my opinion / were there resources / a book on this.  Well, not to my knowledge, and if anyone knows of one, please come out with it!  I know that Dr. Lin at Brown university has done a lot of research the other way (Chinese children's struggles with American assumptions about learning) but I don't know of research on western people's struggles with Chinese assumptions about learning, although if you get us all into a room I'm sure we could fill a book or a PhD thesis!


I had lunch yesterday with one of my ex-classmates, an English born and bred HK girl.  Who happily calls herself both Chinese and a "banana".  As we caught up with the gossip I could easily see that she had the same struggles with assumptions on the part of our lecturers as I did.  She was equally annoyed and outraged at the story of what had happened to my son as I was.  She was educated in a Western mindset so was more aligned with that than her Chinese heritage.  So it's a mine-field making sweeping statements about "them" or "us". 


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**28. S.V. (Stative Verb, Xíngróngcí 形容词). These entries are frequently translated into English as adjectives, even though they actually behave in Chinese as verbs. That is, the sense of 'to be' is already incorporated into these verbs, e.g. Zhèige hěn hǎo 'This is quite good.' In fact, it is simply ungrammatical to place the verb shì, 'to be', directly in front of a stative verb. Because stative verbs are actually verbs, they are directly negated by bù, e.g. bù hǎo 'not good', and can be further modified by adverbs of degree such as hěn 'quite', fēicháng 'extremely' and shífēn 'very; utterly'. One common function of stative verbs is that they may serve as adverbs to other actions, e.g. mànmàn in mànmàn chī 'Take your time (eating)' and rènzhēn in rènzhēn de xiě 'write carefully'.

not only ... but also ....

Conjunctions are a marvelous thing.  But so subject to abuse.  I'm feeling rather abused right now.  This morning our composition teacher - the red guard one, told us in no uncertain terms that research has shown that if you're no good in your native language you'll also be crap in any language you try to learn subsequently, and then with a huge leap of inversion of cause and effect stated that since one of the Japanese girl's chinese essay was so good, she therefore must be very good in Japanese (no kidding - she just happens to be a professor in Japanese in her prior life), and ergo sum, all of us whose essays are riddled with mistakes must be crap in our native languages.

On the way to the coffe shop to recharge on some sustenance, the guy I was walking with said "what a load of bollocks, she just happens to conveniently forget that Japanese has been influenced by Chinese forever and is therefore more closely aligned than other languages".  Phew, I thought I was the only one...

Quite apart from all the usual difficulties of learning chinese, the one thing that sticks out as being really hard is a huge attitudinal difference and cultural background of the teachers.  They are just so loaded with assumptions (as I guess English teachers trying to teach Chinese people English are ... I'm well aware it cuts both ways).  I remember my son coming home last term really upset.  Apparently he'd had a listening test in class and had done really well.  Instead of the teacher congratulating him, she'd assumed he'd cheated and had looked at the answers of someone else!  So she made him stay in at recess and retake the test.  He'd done equally well.  He was really dismayed.  He kept on telling me that he doesn't cheat and never has cheated, but he did need to guess some of the answers.  He asked if that was wrong if he guessed.  I just hugged him and bit my tongue and told him that I also had to guess a lot of the time and that there was nothing wrong with that. Just like there was nothing wrong with getting a poor result as long as it was all your own work, that was more admirable than a good result that was gained by cheating.

Now I have to put my mind to getting all my oral presentations and compositions to text-to-speech and trying to memorise them.  Another very specific way of teaching and learning that is inherent to learning Chinese....