Adopt a baby girl from China?

I knew there's something unusual going on when I saw that many Chinese-looking baby girls in Disneyland for the past 3 years...This is a long article. Prepare for 10-15 mins to finish it.Or, not finish it.

The cover story on last Sunday's L.A. Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-adopt20-2009sep20,0,491086.story

Different Ads, different psyche

My friend M took a very "modest" Chinese "egg custard" ad in Shanghai this summer, and posted it on her blog. It says: "Macao's Lilian egg custard 'probably' is the best custard in Shanghai".

Weeks later, I found another not-too-modest ad printed on a menu of a restaurant in Santa Monica, which responds to the Chinese ad very well. The American ad says: "Omelette Parlor 'probably' (which is crossed out) the best omelettes in the west".

Just an interesting find.

Restroom Signs

I have been travelling a lot for the past 2 months... finally got some time to update my blog!

My currently 8-year-old super-cute niece has been visiting me in the U.S. once a year since the age of 4. I taught her some survival English sentences while she was here (those English lessons they taught in kindergarten NEVER comes handy in real life...).

One important thing to ask is knowing how to go to the bathroom. So, I taught her: "Excuse me, where is the bathroom?"

Then, when you arrive in front of the bathrooms, try to recognize the sings printed on either door (if, unfortunately, they don't have the universal icons on the doors, e.g. pipe/tie for men, skirt/high heels for women). If you see W-O-M-E-N, which means girls, then you can go in. And the way to remember women is easy. The word women starts with a "W", which looks like women's breasts, then "O" look like a pretty face a woman has.

So, there she goes without any problem at all time. Until one day, she returned with an anxious facial expression.

"What's wrong? You couldn't find the bathroom?"
"No", she said, "I found it."
"So, what's the problem?"
" I couldn't find the word you told me on the door. I didn't know which one to go into..."

I followed her to the bathroom. And see only one word on each door, without any icons or graphs.

"Ladies"
"Gentlemen"

I pointed to the right one, and asked her while she was doing her business:
"Ning-zi", I said, " Now you still think you're too busy to take English classes?"

I'm glad to know that her mom has already enrolled her in an English class, starting this September. Hopefully, she'll be more literate when she visits me next year.

Same thing in Chinese. Sure I always taught my students to ask:
"Qing wen, ce suo zai na?" before they traveled to China as one of their survival Chinese sentences, and how to recgonize the words "nan(2) 男”and "nu(3) 女". But, look at the following signs I took on the bathroom doors in Taiwan.

Which one(s) you can't tell right away?

The Name's Sake

Watched the morning news at KTLA this morning, and found out the most popular names of 2007 (per Social Security Administration):

BOYS:

1. Jacob
2. Michael
3. Ethan
4. Joshua
5. Daniel

GIRLS:

1. Emily
2. Isabella
3. Emma
4. Ava
5. Madison

Mmm... Not surprisingly, there are 3 out of the 10 most popular names in my husband's family!

The baby name expert in the show said that if a girl's name is ended in an 'a' sound makes the name sound more powerful. Hence the bella, ma, and va. Also, girls' names tend to be more romantic and old-fashioned these days. Of course the pop culture has another influence on the baby-naming business too.

The interesting thing is, many popular American names in the 70's have fallen out of the top 100 list. Therefore, when we were in high school in the 80's, those cheerleader types of names, such as: Jennifer, Julie, Stephanie or Megan, were not used to name baby girls in the new millennium any more...

This also reminds me my "Critical Thinking" class back in college. That summer in 2003, when I found out there were 7 "Jen, Jenny, and Jennifer" out of 35 students in that Philosophy class (thanks to my last name... it's on the very end of the alphabet chart that gives me the chance to hear everyone's name before the professor called my name), I decided it right away to change my American name back to my Chinese name. Ever since that smart decision, I hardly hear anyone has the same name like mine (though it usually takes a while to let people remember my name if they weren't told a story associated with it...).

So...Guess what my previous American name is? Haha.

China's One-Child Policy

After reading all those sad, shocking or touching "earthquake" stories happened during the past few days in SiChuang province, China, I had a very weird and pretty sci-fi nightmare last night.

Skip my spooky earthquake-related dream, I shed tears when I watched the TV news, and saw those heart-breaking parents cried and howled when they witnessed their dead kid being dragged out of the debris of the collapsed school buildings. I tried to explain to my step-mom-in-law that this is the biggest tragedy for those parents, because most of the parents only had one child under China's One-Child Policy established in 1979.

I personal had a few chances to deal with those mainland Chinese "only child" back in college. Unfortunately, I couldn't really get along with them. One common traits among those only child is-- self-eccentric-- which is also criticized by many social observers.

One girl A, who's like the 1st generation of the One-Child policy (the first generation should be 29 years old now, so she should be about 22, 23 then in 2002), never showed up in the meeting for our group projects or always called in sick after the meeting started. She always made all kinds of silly excuses for her absence (e.g. my boyfriend's mom is in town...). And the funny thing is, A is actually the first person who told me that she's going to attend a Chinese graduate program for an "easy" master degree. For that, I despise Chinese people who is going to get a master degree in Chinese using their native-speaking advantage for a while (that was way back to the year 2002, before Chinese is getting really hot).

Another boy, X, about 18 or 19 in 2005, came to the U.S. for college, had lived with me under the same roof for a few months (thank G-O-D, only a few months...). During those months, X never cleaned the bathroom or kitchen we shared, always left a mess (let me just mention a bit about the stinky yellow stains on the toilet seat.... not to mention he'd never had the slightest idea that he should lift the toilet seat when he has to share a toilet with a girl). I guess those "little emperors" (one of the popular nicknames for the "only-boy" in China) never learned how to share things with other people.

X would also shout (or chant? I never got it...) every morning during his morning routines: doing exercises (that's good for him, if he didn't mean to jump up and down for the last few forms of his exercises...), shouting some words out of his chest to wake himself up (and also wake the whole house and neighborhood), and running up and down the stairs in a 80-year-old wooden constructed house...

Another example: X never properly knocked on my door after he found out I used to be an ESL teacher. He felt so lucky that he got to ask me questions regarding English anytime. Yep, I meant, any-time to him.

I actually had to post the rules on my bedroom door after he totally disturbed my daily life.

Anyway, I might be just in bad luck to meet the wrong Chinese "only-child"s. Only child in general does has some unique traits compared to the child has siblings. However, when the whole society and the whole country is going for the only child, they were, are, and will be spoiled in a way, or two.

Boba or Pearl Tea?

Checked a new lesson on Chinese Pod today regarding "Pearl Tea".

I enjoyed reading all those comments, and mostly agreed with what "elee8888cn" said there that "Pearl Tea was originally invented in Taiwan in 1983 and has became one of the most famous branches of the Bubble Tea. It was later introduced to Chinese and US market by a couple of Taiwanese owned cafes..." .

However, since Pearl Tea was invented by Mr.Liu(2) Han(4)jie(4) 刘汉介 in my hometown, Tai (2) Zhong(1) 台中(the biggest city in central Taiwan), and I had had at least 5 tons of all kinds of pearl tea from mid 80's to 2002 (I moved to the U.S. in 2002), I think I have to add a little bit history to the commonly called "Boba" tea (it refers to the bigger sized bubbles added in the tea).

The original meaning of 波霸 Bo(1) ba(4)，is quite a condescending nickname for women who have HUGE breasts.

• The word "波 bo(1)" means "tits" or "boobs" in Cantonese (since it's a nickname from Hong Kong, and Cantonese is the main dialect in Hong Kong area).
• The 2nd word "霸 ba(4)" means huge or gigantic.
• Hence "波霸“ actually means "HUGH BOOBS" in Cantonese (now you know why I said it's a condescending word for females).
  

Why it's from Hong Kong? Why huge boobs?

In the late 80's, there was a very famous actress in Hong Kong named "葉子媚 ye(4) zi(3) mei(4)", who was famous mostly because of her 36F cup sized breasts. As you may know, for most Asian women, they tend to have flatter breasts. So, when this Hongkong-nese "Pamela Anderson" type of actress showed up in media, people soon gave her a nickname "波霸“ to compliment on her breasts (sure, there were also all kinds of rumors said that she'd done some plastic surgery to make them that big, but, hey, it was last 80's... and we're not going to discuss this here).

Anyway, after the "Pearl Tea" was so popular in Taiwan for a few years, people seemed to get tired of it. Therefore, one bartender at a tea house in 台南 tai(2) nan(2) (a big city in southern Taiwan) was "inspired" by that actress' popularity, and made some special orders of multi-layered "pearl", "bubble","tapioca" (which-ever you'd like to call it), and sold it with the also super-sized straw (so you can suck the bubbles up smoothly), tried to make this special tea drink a new life.

BOOM! Big success!

Then the name "Boba" tea spreaded around the world; people enjoy drinking it without knowing it's actually named after an actress with speical talents.

More info on this actress (or if you want to see what she look like), check this link on Wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Yip

I personally prefer "Pearl Tea 珍珠奶茶“ though. It is just more elegantly original. I'm so proud of Pearl Tea. Not only it's invented in my hometown, but it has become one of my best dishes when it comes to party time!

Cure for Eczema?

One of my tutoring student D is visiting her sister in Taiwan these days (her sister is currently learning Mandarin in Taipei). Got an e-mail from her today asking me if I can tell her where my Chinese doctor's clinic is because her sister is suffering from very bad eczema and allergies.

As a veteran of having eczema and all kinds of allergies forEVER and had lived in Taiwan for over 30 years, I gave some suggestions for her sister:

• Find a TCM (traditional Chinese medical) doctor that is close or convenient to her (or covered by her student's insurance), so she can pay frequent visits whenever the symptoms get worse.

If you go to the western dermatologist, you will get the ointment, take some drugs to suppress the symptoms (or give you a shot of cortisone if the symptoms are really bad). Then you can only prey for a delay of the next burst sometime again. However, in TCM theory, eczema or many kinds of allergies are the results of the dampness in the spleen, ill digestion in the stomach, excessive heat in the liver and hence the depletion of liver energy.

Therefore, to possibly "cure" eczema (There's no way to cure eczema with today's medical technology. You can ask for living with eczema peacefully, and it only comes visiting your from time to time), the TCM use the herbs, acupressure and acupuncture, or moxibustion to enhance the funtions and circulations in certain organs, and therefore remove the stagnation/dampness/excessive heat of relative areas, and more effectively relieve your symptoms.

If we use "an overheated kitchen stove on a very damp tile floor" to be the analogy of eczema, let's compare how the western and Chinese way of dealing with the issues in the kitchen (our body).

• Western dermatologist: first of all, the doctor might splash some cold water or throw some ice(drugs or shots) on the stove to cool down the hot kitchen (so the kitchen will be cooled down right away). Then the doctor lay some paper towels on the damp floor (the ointment), so the cook (our skin) won't fall on the slippery floor. Then, the cook can still perform what he/she supposes to do in a short term.

And when the kitchen is soon over-heated again, the doctor might tell the cook to turn on a fan or air-conditioning(depends on how rich you are) to control the possible up-coming hazard...

• TMC doctor: first the doctor try to locate the origin of the hazard. If it's the broken knob on the switch, turn the switch down a bit to low fire, so the surface and back splash behind the stove (the breakouts and rashes in our skin) will gradually cool down. Then the doctor tries to find some rag to slowly absorb the dampness on the floor, so no one will fall on it again. However, the whole process will take a while (depends on how damp and over-heated this kitchen is).

I'll write more about other "cures" some other time. Go to run some errands now.

Chinese Hot Pot

I accidentally watched one episode of "The Essence of Emeril" on Food Channel yesterday (he's generally not my favorite cooking show host though), and surprising found out this re-run show (originally broadcasted in 2003) was introducing 2 types of Chinese hot pots.

He showed the audience how to build a Mongolion Lamb hot pot, then a Chinese seafood hot pot. The process he used and the result he presented looked somehow awkward for a Chinese like me who loves to eat hot pot a lot, and sometimes even have it for 3-4 meals in a row.

Anyway, it also reminded me how many "Americans" perceive the Chinese culture/food/ideology in a very biased (or "different" from we Chinese) way. For example, you can use so many different ways to build a hot pot. And not all the hot pots are made of hot and spicy, heavily seasoned with ginger, garlic and chilly pepper broth. There are ways to use only boiled water (that's the usual "broth" I use for my hot-pot), chicken broth, veggie broth, seaweed based broth... etc. to create a healthier hot-pot.

While I was watching the cooking show, I was so worried about the audience who watched it and copied the exact same recipes would suffer from the aftermath later. Without further understanding of nutrition concepts (e.g. the super high cholesterol content in that rich seafood hot pot will sent someone who has high blood pressure or chronic kidney problem directly to emergency room), and how to eat according to your own constitution and current physical conditions (e.g. if you have cold or flu, you should NEVER have that lamb hot pot...), and how to consume them in a mild or colder weather (hot pot, especially the hot and spicy one is definitely not an ideal meal in hot, warm weather), these 2 Chinese hot pots might make you sick, have constipation or diarrhea, heart burn... and then you will say "Chinese Hot Pot sucks!" and move on forever...

Just some observation from the cooking show.

On the top is a typical hot pot I will prepare for my family.

John Adams

I've been interested in history in all times.

Not until last week had I had the interview at a private school, the Lang. dept. Chair told me to be prepared that the school might want the Chinese teacher to teach one Chinese History class outside the regular language classes (IF, there aren't enough enrollment...). I remembered I used to think that if I didn't teach the language subject, I'd like to teach history instead.

History, i.e. his+story, apparently it's a genre about all kinds stories. Who wouldn't love stories? That's also the reason why I like watching movies, I guess, to see how the director tell a story.

Anyways, after Elizabeth I and II, almost all Jane Austen's adopted movies & TV series, I really enjoy watching HBO's John Adams for the past 2 weeks. It was only 5 years ago that I took the American History class during my 1st semester at SFSU. I could never remember the original 13 states at that time. However, after the 1st 2 episodes on HBO, those 13 states are easier to memorize now.

One interesting thing I observed in "John Adams" and it's also related to my profession is, when Johan Adams was assigned to gain the $$ and alliance with France in 1776, even as such a eloquent lawyer like John Adams himself failed to accomplish his mission due to the cultural difference and language barrier (Yeah... when the French king Louis XVI made fun of him:" No French? Not even one word?!" That really humiliated Adams).

Thank goodness, Adams' very political accurate wife Abigail asked him to bring their eldest son, John Quincy Adams (later he was elected as the 6th U.S. president in 1825 ), with him during this long trip. Little John Quincy went to school in Paris probably from ages 10~14, then at the age of 14, he travelled to St. Petersburg, Russia under his father's will to serve as translator and interpreter to the newly appointed American minster because the new U.S. diplomat needs a secretary who speaks French to help him survive in Queen Catherine's French-speaking court.

When I was watching this segment of the episode, I couldn't help but wondering what Mindy said in the comment about why most American are monolingual... So, we might see what things were like 230 years ago in the colonial America era. Sure, we can always debate that there might not be any resources for ordinary people to acquire a foreign language when they were struggling from day-to-day life. But, what about now?

Even now, most Americans still don't value the importance of acquiring foreign language(s). Of course the Bush Administration has stressed the need to have more Americans master “critical” languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi and Farsi. Officials, noting that fewer than 2 percent of American students currently study any of the target languages, said that they are critical to national security and cultural understanding. However, from my previous interview experiences with one language school and 4 private schools in L.A. area, either none of the school directors have ideas of how the Chinese program will thrive (or we should say "survive" here, if they can't get enough students to enroll in the class, or drop out afterwards) or they don't know what to expect and achieve in this new Mandarin Chinese learning trend... There are still a lot of seeding and plowing to do in this newly developed ground.

Being able to speak French might not be the sole reason that John Quincy Adams later became the 6th U.S. president, but it was definitely the main reason why he was chosen to be the secretary at the age of 14. I believe that knowing a foreign language won't necessary bring you any immediate benefit, but surely will broaden your horizon of the world. And when the opportunity knocks on your door, you'll be more ready than others who don't posses this ability.

Teaching Demos

Went to a private school for teaching demo/interview this morning.

I prepared for this event for about 3 hours last night (sure I'd had a rough lesson plan in my mind earlier on).

• I pulled out a few authentic materials I think I can use on teaching numbers and asking for directions;
• Some chopsticks, as the counting sticks in ancient time which I got for free from supermarket;
• A map of Beijing for asking directions;
• A name tag with my name on it for asking names... etc..

Created a handout for each class. Then some props I've been using for the past 10 years. When I showed my husband the hour glass and a pair of click boards (castanets,响板), he was confused at first why on earth they have something to do with language teaching.

Anyway, after I thought I was well-prepared for the teaching demos, I still couldn't sleep well last night. I laid down in bed around 10 pm, and then I kept having all kinds teaching ideas/stories/activities popping in my poor little brain... And of course, those old scary "school nightmares" were once again coming back, haunting me...

Luckily I got up at 6:10 am. Only 10 mins behind my schedule. Since I've been training myself to get up at 7 am sharp for the past week (just for this super early interview this morning), I didn't suffer too much for getting ready in the morning. I took a hot shower, had bagels and a small cup of coffee, made tea into my to-go thermo mug... It feels like living a student life, or I'm working full-time again.

I taught 2 classes from 7:40 to 9:15 am, and then I had the interview (or sort of walking around the campus and talked) with the chair of Foreign Language Dept. for the next 40 minutes. The director gave me some very "fair and insightful" feedback to my teaching demos.

After living a comfortable married life for the past 2 years, some of my teaching skills are rusty now. Even though I know I should have

• jumped into the topics right away,
• listed all the key words/sentence patterns on the board before I started to teach the dialogue or activities,
• or even though I should have changed my strategy (or lesson plan A to B) right away when I found out the air in the class was kinda dead at one point....

I didn't manage to perform 100% this morning. For that, I loathed myself a lot while I was waiting for the bus to get home around 10 am (just an upset feeling that I could have done better than this... but not purely just sad, or almost-want-to-cry upset, so that's OK).

Here are things I have to work on before I have the chance to do a 2nd interview at the same school (if they contact me again for a 2nd interview) or doing another demo at other schools:

1. Work on my simplified characters: As a native speaker, a wanna-be Chinese teacher, and with the sense of competition, if that English-born director could manage to master both characters, there's no reason why I can't do it. And as he criticised on my teaching skills and claimed that "...You native speakers don't understand the pain we have to go through in learning Chinese..." (ha, it sounds so familiar... But now the role is reversed...)Oh, I do. As a native speaker of Chinese, I still have to learn different spelling and written systems on my own because of the stupid political scheme. And being a less privileged Taiwanese Chinese, we also have to learn the Northern Chinese linguistic usage. And don't mention that the equally painful process we had been through when we were learning English.
2. Polish my teaching skills by reading the lesson plans, reference books, and articles I've collected over the years. It always helps to generate some new ideas when you read something old or new. The key is to stimulate your stale-as-old-bread brain.
3. Research Chinese History materials: The director asked me to think about teaching a Chinese History class. Even though I have no idea what my audience will be, it will be fun to refresh my memory in Chinese history. And history is always something I'd like to teach, if I'm not teaching a language subject.
4. Practice my Chinese calligraphy: That's one extracurricular class my mom has always regretted for NOT letting me take when I was little (except for swimming, English and piano). "At least, you'll have a more beautiful penmanship...", she always said. Yeah... I don't know how I managed to survive as a teacher with a ugly handwriting for the past few years, how it would affect my future career or how much I could improve my penmanship at this old age. But, it's always good to upgrade things in your life, isn't it.

Eating is the most important thing! 吃饭皇帝大

One of my tutoring students sent me this comic strip from Germany (he's on a business trip) today: (I've tried to post the comic here, but didn't work...)

The dialogues between these 2 businessmen are:

• A: I've been very impressed by the Chinese approach to business...
• B: Yes, me too.
• A: I came here expecting to find a country whose traditional ways of doing things would hamper its aspirations to be a 21st century economy...
• B: (listening)
• A: But in fact, many aspects of ancient Chinese culture are fully in tune with modern business requirements...
• B: Yes... Chopsticks in particular.
• A: Quite. One doesn't have to waste valuable Blackberry time whilst one's eating...

Indeed. I find chopsticks super useful for me. I don't really need a fork or a spoon, all I need is a rice bowl and a pair of chopsticks, then you can have almost any kinds of food with them (mm, I even use chopsticks for eating French Toast or salad). You don't need tongs when you're cooking. And you can even use chopsticks as a knife when it comes to eating some tricky food (like steak). Or even better, if you have long hair, you can fix your hair with it, you can fight (or stick) your brothers with them at a dining table... Very useful...

So... I guess that's why ancient Chinese invented chopsticks and keep using them even now -- to force you focus on eating only, not reading or typing at the same time?! Haha (it's healthier for you to concentrate on eating anyway).

Speaking of health, here's some "Chinese way of living" for everyone.

An old Chinese saying: 吃饭皇帝大 (chifan huangdi da)

When one is eating, one is greater than the emperor.

Meaning: When someone is eating, even though he's only a peasant, we should treat him like an emperor and respect his basic human right of satisfying his tummy.

Underlined meaning: Food is the most important thing for commoners (or, for us middle class nowadays). We don't care who the emperor (or president) is, when we're hungry, we want food. If you bother me when I'm eating (or, can't even provide food for us, or can't 'SHOW ME THE 'FOOD'), I don't give a dxxn that even though you're a emperor (or president).

I attached 2 pix for you. One was my niece demonstrated how to use ONE chopstick to eat a cob of corn during the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner. Another was my brother (my niece's Dad) showed you how to stick people with chopsticks (pls do not imitate, it's very dangerous.... haha).

Chinese Curriculum & Landlord

March 09,2005 (Reposted old blog entry)

2 things interesting today.

1. I followed my classmate Jen to her CHINESE 101 class to see how horrible this class is presented. The instrutor is an American male teacher today, speaks pretty good Mandarin, very knowledgable in Chinese (I poped out 2 tricky questions to test him… Ha Ha), got his Chinese education done in Taiwan, taught in an OK way in class, sometimes quite entertaining. But, some problems observed:

• Too much new vocabulary and new sentence patterns in 50-mins class time.
• Too less drills/practices/activities among students.
• Students are lack of enthusiasm to learn.

When I heard my fellow classmates complained about how much they have been suffering from the Chinese class they’re currently taking, I had somehow suspicion on what they’ve described. Not until had I had the close obervation today, I was not suprised at all. (They told me another teacher, Miss Wong, is the total bi-o-tch for teaching them on Tue. and Thurs, who is also from Taiwan…)

Why can’t those teachers I met at the university and city college use a more fun,diverse and inspiring way to teach students in class? Why do they have to murder all the fun and joy learning a new foreign language? Especially Chinese, it supposed to be fun learning the culture and interesting sotries behind those "tricky" characters… I wonder how many of my poor classmates will continue taking advanced Chinese class next semester, or just hate it forever~I began to have the idea of revolting the boring way of teaching Chinese outside of China.

Secondly, I know I’ve never liked anyone I knew from Mainland China. After being seperated for 56 years, Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese have lived in totally different political & economical backgrounds, we’d never be the same people anymore ( I think the same analogy applies to English/Americans/Canadians).

My Chinese landlord (immigated from north-eastern China, 山東省 Shan-Dong Province 13 years ago) threw away my housemate’s heater without even thinking about inform him first. He blamed him as the “evil young man” living in the house, who uses the old-fashioned heater to not only try to burn down his house and cause the blackout in the house all the time. He also accused him as the sole reason for the increasing electricity bill for the past 3 months.

Is there any RESPECT in his dictionary or crazy mind?

I’ve tried my best to talk him into not doing so. No use. I could only translate what he meant to my Japanese housemate after he returned from school. Of course, you know how VERY angry he turned to be now …

Anyway, my poor housemate was calling his another Chinese friend over to translate for him so that those 2 people can have a huge fight later and settle part of the problem down. I don’t think I’ll have a peaceful night. The on-line fortuneteller was right. This will be a very chotic year for me. What’s wrong with all those stars in the sky? Couldn’t they just orbit in the right tracks?

Filed in Cultural Differences, Mandarin Teaching No Comments »