At least during my first few weeks in their home, I’ve made it a priority to spend as much time with my host family as I can manage. Much of that time has been spent playing with my Mei Mei, or little sister, Ma Yu Jie. She is a sweet, smart 7-year old with an abundance of energy, mixed with a bit of an attitude. So when she wants me to play Barbies or building blocks with her, she gets her way. Ayi, my family’s live-in housekeeper, who I understand was hired primarily to take care of Ma Yu Jie, and my host parents, however, are not such push-overs. When Ma Yu Jie doesn’t want to drink her milk in the mornings or practice piano in the evenings, she will often put up quite a fuss. In the end, though (most of the time, at least), she will grudgingly end up following orders.
Like lots of Chinese parents seem to do, Ma Yu Jie’s parents and Ayi, who is like a second mother, are able to balance their love for their daughter—and their desire to fulfill her every will and wish—with their desire to make sure she has the brightest future they can provide for. That means piano lessons, calligraphy classes, extracurricular swimming, and plenty of homework outside of that assigned at school. In a country bursting at the seams in terms of population, many parents hope their children will grow up to succeed and stand out in the crowd. Seeing as most parents have only one child, they’ve got only one chance to see that wish fulfilled, proverbially putting all their eggs in one basket.
Chinese language abounds in cheng yu, 4-character-long proverbs or sayings of sorts that often have some story behind them. One that I’ve heard more often than others is “望子成龍,” expressing the wish parents have to see their children grow up to be “dragons,” in other words, great. To help their daughter turn into a “dragon,” my host parents have been taking Ma Yu Jie to an assortment of extracurricular activities every week for the past couple years. This week, I was invited to come along and get a taste of the dream of dragons.
First: piano lessons on Friday night. The teacher, upon greeting us at the door of his apartment on the top floor of a 33-storey building, looked surprised to see a foreigner tagging along for the lessons, and pulled out an extra pair of slippers for me to wear. I’ve always had the utmost respect for music teachers, like this man and my new erhu teacher, for their endless patience. The next day, Ma Yu Jie and I practiced her newly assigned songs together.
Then, like every Saturday at noon, shu fa ke (calligraphy class). Around 20 Chinese children, all around my Mei Mei’s age range (7), sat at double desks next to a parent while the teacher briefly explained the way to write that week’s 6 new characters, all containing a common radical or portion. The art school where the class was held is a walk-able distance from home, so this time it was just Ma Yu Jie and I. She showed me the way and we gave mom, dad, and Ayi the afternoon off.
But it wasn’t that long of a respite: we showed up just in time for class, the teacher did about 15 minutes of explanation, and the students were left to practice on their own—under the more or less watchful eyes of their accompanying parent (some strictly kept their kids on task, some used the time to nap)—for the rest of the class as the teacher went around the room to each student’s desk and, with amazing speed and skill, copied the 6 characters of the week on a paper the student could take home and use to practice. After the teacher finished at one desk, he moved on to the next, and on down the line while the students continued to practice. As soon as he finished at Ma Yu Jie’s desk, however, she started to pack up and insisted that, even though none of her fellow students had yet packed up and left, it was perfectly fine to do so. I didn’t buy it, but she refused to touch her brush again. So after 10 minutes or so of trying to convince her, I caved and let her lead the way out of the classroom, where the other students were still practicing away, and back home.
That brief break aside, Ma Yu Jie still seems to get plenty of opportunities to play. About a block away from our apartment, a fancy new department store just had a grand opening: there seem to be growing numbers of such high-end shopping centers in this city. Anyways, on the 3rd floor, my sister soon discovered, is an arcade. Young and old alike—especially groups of teenage boys or couples around my age—seem to enjoy going there to dance DDR, shoot hoops on a time limit, whack plastic gophers as they emerge from their plastic holes, play slot machines, and the like. My sister seems to like the games where you can win tickets, and later exchange them for little trinkets such as stuffed animals or Hello Kitty alarm clocks. Her second—and certainly not last—time at the arcade, I tagged along. The noise and flashing lights, the colors and the crowds—and most of all the cutesy-ness—was a little much for me. Regardless, I’ve been back many times since, and every time I leave feeling a little nauseated. The only time I stuck a coin in a machine was to play a round of table hockey with Ma Yu Jie. When I go, the most entertaining aspect is watching the action.
For a mix between the fun and the educational, one Sunday morning, my host mom took Ma Yu Jie and me to the Nanjing DianShiTa (TV tower), once among the tallest constructions in Nanjing but now being outdone on a regular basis. The bottom few floors contain a science museum designed especially for kids around my Mei Mei’s age. Upon arriving, we met up with some colleagues of my host mom and their 2 kids and entered the museum (although not after spending about 20 minutes to get the guards at the door to accept my student ID, seeing as I hadn’t thought to bring my passport and very well might be a terrorist or spy).
It was reminiscent of Chicago’s Science & Industry, smaller on the one hand but more hands-on on the other hand. The two mothers and I followed the trail blazed by the kids, who ran from one science station to the next. The father of the two kids we went through the museum with, however, disappeared soon into the visit. Once we had walked through the whole museum and experimented with about every single station in working order (several weren’t), we found all the fathers clustered together in one of two places: the internet station in the technology section or the café next to the gift shop, where several of them sat sullenly or could be caught nodding off. In matters of fun as in the pursuit of the “dragon dream,” it seems to be both parents who lend their support but the mothers who make it happen.
Like lots of Chinese parents seem to do, Ma Yu Jie’s parents and Ayi, who is like a second mother, are able to balance their love for their daughter—and their desire to fulfill her every will and wish—with their desire to make sure she has the brightest future they can provide for. That means piano lessons, calligraphy classes, extracurricular swimming, and plenty of homework outside of that assigned at school. In a country bursting at the seams in terms of population, many parents hope their children will grow up to succeed and stand out in the crowd. Seeing as most parents have only one child, they’ve got only one chance to see that wish fulfilled, proverbially putting all their eggs in one basket.
Chinese language abounds in cheng yu, 4-character-long proverbs or sayings of sorts that often have some story behind them. One that I’ve heard more often than others is “望子成龍,” expressing the wish parents have to see their children grow up to be “dragons,” in other words, great. To help their daughter turn into a “dragon,” my host parents have been taking Ma Yu Jie to an assortment of extracurricular activities every week for the past couple years. This week, I was invited to come along and get a taste of the dream of dragons.
First: piano lessons on Friday night. The teacher, upon greeting us at the door of his apartment on the top floor of a 33-storey building, looked surprised to see a foreigner tagging along for the lessons, and pulled out an extra pair of slippers for me to wear. I’ve always had the utmost respect for music teachers, like this man and my new erhu teacher, for their endless patience. The next day, Ma Yu Jie and I practiced her newly assigned songs together.
Then, like every Saturday at noon, shu fa ke (calligraphy class). Around 20 Chinese children, all around my Mei Mei’s age range (7), sat at double desks next to a parent while the teacher briefly explained the way to write that week’s 6 new characters, all containing a common radical or portion. The art school where the class was held is a walk-able distance from home, so this time it was just Ma Yu Jie and I. She showed me the way and we gave mom, dad, and Ayi the afternoon off.
But it wasn’t that long of a respite: we showed up just in time for class, the teacher did about 15 minutes of explanation, and the students were left to practice on their own—under the more or less watchful eyes of their accompanying parent (some strictly kept their kids on task, some used the time to nap)—for the rest of the class as the teacher went around the room to each student’s desk and, with amazing speed and skill, copied the 6 characters of the week on a paper the student could take home and use to practice. After the teacher finished at one desk, he moved on to the next, and on down the line while the students continued to practice. As soon as he finished at Ma Yu Jie’s desk, however, she started to pack up and insisted that, even though none of her fellow students had yet packed up and left, it was perfectly fine to do so. I didn’t buy it, but she refused to touch her brush again. So after 10 minutes or so of trying to convince her, I caved and let her lead the way out of the classroom, where the other students were still practicing away, and back home.
That brief break aside, Ma Yu Jie still seems to get plenty of opportunities to play. About a block away from our apartment, a fancy new department store just had a grand opening: there seem to be growing numbers of such high-end shopping centers in this city. Anyways, on the 3rd floor, my sister soon discovered, is an arcade. Young and old alike—especially groups of teenage boys or couples around my age—seem to enjoy going there to dance DDR, shoot hoops on a time limit, whack plastic gophers as they emerge from their plastic holes, play slot machines, and the like. My sister seems to like the games where you can win tickets, and later exchange them for little trinkets such as stuffed animals or Hello Kitty alarm clocks. Her second—and certainly not last—time at the arcade, I tagged along. The noise and flashing lights, the colors and the crowds—and most of all the cutesy-ness—was a little much for me. Regardless, I’ve been back many times since, and every time I leave feeling a little nauseated. The only time I stuck a coin in a machine was to play a round of table hockey with Ma Yu Jie. When I go, the most entertaining aspect is watching the action.
For a mix between the fun and the educational, one Sunday morning, my host mom took Ma Yu Jie and me to the Nanjing DianShiTa (TV tower), once among the tallest constructions in Nanjing but now being outdone on a regular basis. The bottom few floors contain a science museum designed especially for kids around my Mei Mei’s age. Upon arriving, we met up with some colleagues of my host mom and their 2 kids and entered the museum (although not after spending about 20 minutes to get the guards at the door to accept my student ID, seeing as I hadn’t thought to bring my passport and very well might be a terrorist or spy).
It was reminiscent of Chicago’s Science & Industry, smaller on the one hand but more hands-on on the other hand. The two mothers and I followed the trail blazed by the kids, who ran from one science station to the next. The father of the two kids we went through the museum with, however, disappeared soon into the visit. Once we had walked through the whole museum and experimented with about every single station in working order (several weren’t), we found all the fathers clustered together in one of two places: the internet station in the technology section or the café next to the gift shop, where several of them sat sullenly or could be caught nodding off. In matters of fun as in the pursuit of the “dragon dream,” it seems to be both parents who lend their support but the mothers who make it happen.
1 comment:
It seems that you are exploring deep into Chinese life ... maybe it's time for someone to knock the idea into the parents' head to stop messing up their kids' life.
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