Chinese school is off to a good start I think. MGJ and EHJ completed a lot of homework over the summer and are both pleasantly surprised by the new {and in their opinion, improved} curriculum this semester. The are continuing to keep up in the Heritage level classes, which is for first language speakers, and they are most certainly the only blonde children in their respective classes.
When their teachers email homework or updates, I have to run it through google translate to get the gist. I am unable to help my girls at this stage, which makes me even prouder of their independent progress. It is not infrequent that EHJ poses a Chinese query to MGJ, or I find MGJ pouring over her Chinese dictorary or on-line translator.
Mr Johnson has joined other dads playing pick-up basketball in the gym during the girls' classes. All the other 父亲 (fùqīn, fathers) speak fluent Mandarin, so he's getting a language lesson of sorts when he plays each week.
Bei Bei has the benefit of reading and phonics now firmly in her grasp, so tackling the sounds of pinyin {Romanized Chinese} where e says "uh" and i says "ee", is challenging but not entirely confusing. She did remarkably well today when the teacher pronounced various pinyin sounds and they were required to identify the pinyin sound, write it down, and indicate which of the four tones was given orally.
The group of parents in Bei Bei's Chinese as a Second language class are different from last year's group. Only two families have some Mandarin background, although all but three (including Bei Bei) are of Asian decent.
In this environment, there is an unfair amount of pressure put on a child who looks Chinese but cannot speak Chinese, and the blame is almost immediately put on the parent. {At this beginner level parents are required to attend with their children.} Parents that speak Chinese are grilled about why their child's level is so far from proficient that they must be placed in a class for 'foreigners' (a term that is extremely interesting, since by 'foreigner' they mean non-Asian, non-Chinese speaker, of which there are only three in our class, not to mention that the class is taking place in the Chicagoland.)
Parents who speak some Mandarin squirm as they try to explain either that their 'foreign' spouse doesn't speak Chinese, or doesn't permit excessive demands of language learning. But what is refreshing, I think, in our current class, is that most parents, whom are mostly younger that last year's group, and mostly second or third generation Chinese (or Malay, Indonesian, Taiwanese, or even Korean) simply shrug and say, "we just don't speak Mandarin." I wish that this group would be applauded for their efforts, because even if they don't speak Chinese it is their desire that their children might learn. They are young and modern and American, but they want to identify with part of their Chinese heritage.
But shame has long been part of the teaching and learning process in China. Asian looking kids should know how to speak Chinese. And if they don't someone must be to blame.
I got my own dose of Chinese Shame today when I ended up seated beside the only 'Fresh off the Boat' mom in our group. Her son is in her class because, I heard her explain last week in Mandarin, her 'foreign' husband doesn't speak Chinese. She speaks Cantonese at home with her son.
Today she erased the answers on her son's oral quiz and coached him with the correct answers for the pinyin sounds and tones. He got a perfect score. (Bei Bei got 11 out of 13, and did them independently).
I asked the FOB mama, in English where she was from.
"China." She replied.
I asked her, in Mandarin, where in China.
"The South," she replied.
It was clear from her Mandarin pronunciation she was more comfortable in Cantonese. I had a hard time understanding her.
{My layman's description of the differences would be Mandarin has four tones and a harsher sound. Cantonese has six tones and is more singy/songy ... I think Cantonese is more the sound people think of when they stereotype Chinese language}.
"How long where you in China?" She asked me.
Her Mandarin was poor, and my ears are rusty. I stumbled, and presumed she had asked me how long.
"Five years?" she said skeptically... "your Chinese should be much better."
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