Articles Tagged with chinese

More, 还要啊, & Encore

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Nina and Laura the cat
Nina and Laura the cat

One of the first words Nina started to speak was ‘more’, to indicate that she wanted more food, or she liked the game, or to identify anything that she liked.

One month later, she started to say ‘还要啊’ when hearing many time from me to ask for more food.

Since we arrived in France almost three weeks ago, she quickly learnt that most people here would react favourably to her demand when she said ‘encore’.

Now she tries her luck often in all three versions of asking for more, so to increase her chance of success. Of course if she got what she wanted at the first try, this little person would just stop trying and got on with what she just got, which very often would be a mandarin!

This is the second word that she knows in all three languages (English, Mandarin, French). The first one was ‘ta (as in thanks)’, ‘merci’, and ‘谢谢’,although I suspect she already forgot ‘ta’ as I haven’t heard it for a while.

But with this said, you never know, because the duration of memory of a child is actually quite amazing as I learnt the other day. I was pointing to an Ostrich when saying 鸵鸟  to her. Just as I thought she perhaps didn’t register anything as it’s quite a difficult word to pronounce, she said ‘走啊走，走啊走’.　 I was amazed because indeed there was an ostrich in a Chinese book back at home in Sydney when it demonstrated how different animals walk with the rhyme of the text ‘走啊走，走啊走 that went with it. The last tine when we read the book was at least three weeks ago already, and we didn’t even read that book very often. Yet she remembered the text when seeing an ostrich.

If ever we were able to find a way to get into a child’s brain and see what happens there, it must be really amazing.

P.S: to follow our RTW experience: Trilingual Family blog, or join Trilingual Family facebook group.

Legally United

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Visa Restriction Index
Visa Restriction Index.
Number of countries that can be entered without a visa by a citizen of:
(source: https://www.henleyglobal.com/citizenship/visa-restrictions/)

This is it. Since Dec 13th 2013, for the first time in our trilingual family’s history, all three of us became the citizens of the same country: the lucky country of down under, Australia.

While Nina was born Australian, Nicolas took up Australian nationality in March this year (by keeping his French nationality) by the desire of it, I took the plunge only very lately, mostly by the necessity of it I have to admit.

The moment we started to contemplate the plan of travelling around the world (even when nowhere near the certainty that we were to carry it out), I decided that, if I was to continue to hold a Chinese passport, there won’t be a need to contemplate. It will be just the end of it. As the chart below shows the number of countries that can be entered without a visa by a citizen of various countries, it’s 44 by Chinese citizen and 167 by Australian citizen (and to the delight of Nicolas, it’s 170 by French citizen). If we wanted to travel with lots of spontaneity in terms of where to go and when, a Chinese passport unfortunately became a permit not to travel.

The real issue is not about the taking up of Australian citizenship, nevertheless. The real issue is about the giving up of Chinese citizenship. Chinese government doesn’t accept dual nationality like France and some other countries.

This was the reason that has caused my hesitation up till this point. This was also the reason that many people were quite shocked when hearing my decision of becoming Australian.

Among those who were not shocked are Chinese, including my own family. It seems it’s such a popular thing to do to migrate to another country for Chinese these days, and every Chinese who travels or wants to travel regularly knows the pain of applying for visas, it hardly became surprising to hear such news. As my sister put it ‘as long as you are Chinese in heart, the rest is just the formality’.

Or is it?

When you think of it, there are just a few occasions in life that are REALLY defining moments, such as the birth, the death, the wedding, the birth of your own child. And there is the acquisition of a different nationality – which is not a given but something of enough importance that triggers some philosophical reflection. What does a nationality stand for: is it the loyalty to a country? Is it the root of where you come from? Is it your beliefs and disbeliefs? Is it who you would cheer for in the Olympic Games? Is it the law that governs it and the rights that are granted to its citizens?

Does the change of a nationality takes all these away from you?

Or rather, the change of a nationality takes a little bit of myself away. As much as I would like to think it’s more a matter of formality and a piece of paper – on top of a genuine fondness of Australia as a country – I still cannot shake off the sense of making a choice that betrayed the country I was born in. Or at least the sense of giving up, finally, despite years of resistance. It’s a feeling hard to shake off.

Someone has suggested that China – at least the one that is governed by the current government – is not one that is to be loyal to. But it’s not really the point. It’s where I was born and it’s where I grew up, regardless of its geographic location or political reality. No matter whether it’s in the heart of the best place in the world, or it’s in the middle of nowhere, it remains a very special place. To publicly announce that I am no longer officially part of it, no matter how special it remains in my heart forever, is not an easy thing to do.

Yet I made the choice.

It’s probably nothing but my conscious – and unconscious – desire of making our trip a reality that was demonstrating itself. The trip ought to be special with a major decision like this.

P.S: to follow our RTW experience: Trilingual Family blog, or join Trilingual Family facebook group.

Reading To Her – The Little Prince

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It just so happens that one of my all-time favorite books is ‘The Little Prince’, way before I had the knowledge that it was originally written in French as ‘Le Petit Prince’ by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (who was from Lyon, a city that named its airport after him and has a main square in the city center with a very very lovely statue of the little prince, and of course a few painted walls dedicated to him). Many (many) years back when I was learning French in Shanghai, I bought this Chinese/French bilingual version of 小王子/Le Petit Prince, and have ever since always been keeping it with me (along with nearly 15 times of moving from country to country).

So what is a better book to read to Nina than this one? The bonus is that Nicolas and I are able to read Chinese and French version respectively from the same book. What a visionary I was back in time! ;p

I always knew that I would read to Nina from very early on, and I started within the first week of Nina’s birth. Of course I know that she wouldn’t understand a word, and she doesn’t care what I am reading, and she wouldn’t even know that this is called reading. I am not expecting any of these. The idea here – which is not mine but linguists and scientists’ – is to allow her build  the neural connections (or rather not to lose the capability of building them) that enables her to distinguish the tonality of the language(s) we wish her to speak, and to relate reading as something joyful and interesting part of daily routine.

Research shows that infants are tuned to all the tonalities and nuances in all languages at birth, IF given opportunites for stimulation and exposure. However by the age of 1-2 years or so (I have read different versions, and it’s apparent not hard science), if not given opportunities, they lose the ability to hear the differences.

Of course, Nina would get her normal dose of Chinese/French from the daily conversation (as any parent would be advised, talking to the child is one great way of bonding even it’s a one-way communication verbally to start with), reading from a book certainly expands the variety of tonalities and expression.

On top of it (or rather more importantly), it has always been a pleasure to read this timeless masterpiece. Every time I read this book, I felt peace. Now I’m sharing this with Nina. I hope you like it, 小南。

The Arrival of Nina B./ 俞凝南 & OPOL

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Nina B, aka 俞凝南, came to the world super on time on the 18th of January, 2012, 3:06pm local Sydney time. She’s a healthy 3.45kg / 51cm baby.

BTW, that made her one of the 5% babies who arrive on their due date (natural birth). One friend commented: ‘she’s already showing a talent of punctuality :)’. Indeed!

The first words spoken to her by her mum was: ‘你好 Nina’, and by her dad: ‘bonjours Nina’. Both mean ‘hello Nina’. With big smiles and amazement of the magical creature we spoke these words. And for me with enormous relief that the labour was F I N A L L Y over. I had a natural delivery using only gas – the official document says that the labour lasted only 5 hours 44 minutes. What the official document didn’t say was the one whole day of pre-labour I had gone through before that 5 hours 44 minutes, the last 9+ hours of which were already painful enough for me to head to hospital believing that labour already started. By the time I realized that gas would not be sufficient and it was getting way too much, I was told it’s too late to use any other drugs because the baby was coming. So I had to push it through, literally. Nothing, I mean really nothing, had prepared me for THAT level of pain and I think my mind had to detach from my body to remain somehow half-conscious, and Nicolas said that he never realized I had so much force that his arms were almost twisted broken by me, lol (he was such a fabulous supporter during whole process, merci palomito). It was an outer-body experience, to say the least.

Enough rambling, back to the serious staff 🙂 So by day 1, Nicolas and I started with the OPOL – one parent one language – approach. In this approach, each parent speaks respective language with the child, under all circumstances, so that the child gets enough exposure to all languages in the most natural way. I read that young children will have this natural ability to distinguish the languages and acknowledge the fact that mum and dad are each speaking a different language to them, and in return would establish a language-per-parent communication system. They would have no problem switching between/among languages depending on the audience.

My delivery doctor Dr. Seeho (who’s btw a fantastic doctor, I couldn’t ask for more) and quite a few midwives at the Mater (hospital where Nina was born) are interested in – positively – the fact that we speak different languages to Nina. This allows us to be confident and comfortable in speaking ‘minority’ languages (Chinese/French vs English as mainstream language in Australia) with Nina even when there are other English-speaking person present. This takes off one of the most common pressures that many bi/tri-lingual parents face – feeling awkward/misunderstood/un-acknolweged/rude/embarrassed in using a minority language in a social environment, as suggested by researches. It takes some determination, confidence, persistence, and sometimes a bit of luck to overcome this challenge.

I’m grateful that we are in a supportive environment to start with. Way to go.

坐月子 ‘Sit Through the First Month’, eh?

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Since I cannot get my mind off this HUGE Chinese tradition around what to do during the first post-natal month, and its big ripple effect in my little family, I thought I’ll just post a blog. I believe this could easily be one of the biggest cultural differences/shocks in play in any sino-foreign family.

This tradition is called 坐月子in Chinese, which if literally translated means ‘sit through the first month’ – a weird name though because according to the ‘real’ tradition, it should have been called ‘SLEEP through the first month’.

The tradition basically governs what a Chinese woman SHOULD do and SHOULD NOT do during the first month after delivery, in all possible aspects that you would think of, and beyond. Some are real eye-openers (to put it mildly) to Nicolas, my French husband who is not new to Chinese culture. A few of the rules that stand out are:

– she should not take shower nor wash hair for a month (‘ca pue !!’  (‘it stinks!!) Nicolas’ reaction)

– she should not brush the teeth

– she should lie on bed all the time except strict necessities (such as going to toilet). Breastfeeding is done on her bed. Holding baby while standing is not recommended.

– she and the baby should not go outside

– she should not touch cold water nor drink cold water

– she should avoid fruits and vegetables, but eat/drink lots of fluid-based food such as congee, brown sugar water, chicken soup, fish soup etc. Food is an important part, and the list of dos and don’ts can go on and on.

– She should not cry

– she should not start breast-feeding until 24 hours after birth

– … much more …

Chinese believe that these measures help the women to fully recover from labour and otherwise will have disastrous result even into their elder years. Many of these rules came from a time when hygiene could be a real concern and nutrition & food variety were not readily available. However in the modern society most of us fortunately live in, a lot of them are no longer relevant to say the least, if not against the best interest of the young mother’s recovery and young baby’s development. As more and more people in China including doctors start to argue the scientific (or rather non-scientific) value of these traditions, some young mothers would no longer follow strictly what the tradition says. However, many still do. In fact, from what I gathered on internet, an amazing vast majority still do, even to an extent more than I would have imagined.

Another interesting fact is that although many people (esp. young parents) have very vague idea about what 坐月子precisely means – indeed you can choose to follow from 100% to just 1% of the strict tradition – everyone subscribes to the prevailing idea – 坐月子 IS VITAL. Listen to your mom.

As a result, the young mother basically becomes ‘immobile’ – synonym of ‘useless’  – during that month. So traditionally the young-mother’s mother or mother-in-law will live with the family during the first month to take care of everything (the young mother, the new-born, and household chores). Some may stay much longer – that’s another story altogether.The modern interpretation is to hire a specialised helper (called 月嫂 or ‘first-month-auntie’) or to stay in a specialized resort/care center (月子中心 or ‘first-month-centre’) during the month.

That who is around during 坐月子becomes such an integral part of the tradition itself that nobody seems to ask the question ‘Do I really need some extra help apart from just me and my husband?’. It’s commonly neglected as a question worth asking. And this is something that Nicolas has to come to terms with. Me too.

With no exception, during the conversation with my Chinese friends, one inevitable comment comes up: ‘your mom is coming, isn’t she?!‘

My mom lives in China, 12-hour flight away. Her entire family except me lives in China. She knows nobody else but me in Sydney. She speaks no English. She eats no non-Chinese food. She has never taken a long-haul flight on her own. She would be comfortable that I do not take shower for a month. She may have very different idea about bringing up a baby.

But none of the above matters. It’s decided that she’s coming. No discussion is solicited. Suitcase is being packed.

And that got me to think. Is that what I want? Is that what Nicolas wants? Is that what our young growing family wants? And equally importantly, is it what my mom wants?

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE the idea of being taken care of and doing as little house chore as possible, esp after a possibly stressful labour. And I LOVE the fact that my mom gets to spend time with her grand-daughter. But to what extent am I willing to trade/comprise/battle through potentially vast different opinion among my mom, Nicolas and myself? And how would it impact the dynamics of the family that’s already going through dramatic change with a new-born baby? And how much influence my mom will have on my following or not following some of the traditions?

I’m still looking for answer. I’m trying to find out each other’s expectation. I’m trying to understand where each of us stands for. I’m trying to figure out what each of us is willing to comprise, and what not. I’m trying to start a conversation that no one expects.

坐月子 is indeed a blur yet extremely powerful concept! It keeps me awake at night. I have four more months of such nights to reflect upon the subject before my 坐月子 period starts for real.

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A Chinese-german artist illustrates the cultural differene betweens Chinese and the Westerners by graphics. Here are two about ‘child’ and ‘senior person’s life’.