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kircharaLast year I fell into Chinese* fandom via random YouTube algorithm. I ended up chatting with fellow fans online (many of them overseas Chinese with varying degrees of fluency), when I came to a sudden realization:
If I don't teach my kids Chinese culture, nobody else will.
Prior to this, I was resigned to River and Brooks** growing up as Asian Americans who are only Asians in the broadest brushstrokes of the term. We're not a traditional Chinese family, I'm not fluent in Mandarin, and my husband can’t even write his own Chinese name. It's an uphill battle teaching them Bahasa Indonesia; how much harder would teaching them Mandarin be?
In a way, I see the language as secondary to the culture. They don't have the luxury of absorbing the culture via osmosis (like I did), and even if they do observe things, they might draw incorrect conclusions because they're coming from an American point of view.
So I made River watch Nirvana in Fire with me. I paused the episodes at certain moments and explained various Chinese values and tradition to him (e.g. The concept of 孝 aka why Xiao Jingrui is a good, filial child (TM)).
I parsed the phrase "在Rui山上生的那个Jingrui" (That Jingrui who was born on top of Mount Rui) for him. (He knows how to read 生 because it's in his Chinese name.) I explained that Chinese people don't name their children after people; they name them after places.
I was motivated to go through Better Chinese books with them more often. Brooks watched Peppa Pig in Chinese on YouTube while I repeated a few phrases for him.
Then, late March earlier this year, we finally have a semiprivate Mandarin teacher. (Thank you V for the referral!) She comes and teaches the kids once a week for an hour. This was a great boost to my motivation to teach/tutor them, and I have been eating, sleeping and breathing Mandarin education for the past month and a half.
So far, the kids have been learning/practicing/playing with Chinese almost every single day. Brooks*** would complain occasionally, but I stood firm. After learning the characters 1-10 and hundred, their learning speed suddenly became 50% faster. I don't know why the switch suddenly flipped, but I'm thankful for it.
I wish River had started learning Mandarin earlier (he's turning eleven this June), but better late than never. I'm content knowing that when the time comes for River and Brooks to leave home, I would have shared enough Chinese culture with them for them to consider it part of their heritage.
* It was a Chinese supernatural show that's so bad it cycles back to being great. All the budget goes into the two main characters and the opening theme song, and nothing else.
** Their online handles, not their rl names
*** River knows me well enough to know that complaining is useless.
If I don't teach my kids Chinese culture, nobody else will.
Prior to this, I was resigned to River and Brooks** growing up as Asian Americans who are only Asians in the broadest brushstrokes of the term. We're not a traditional Chinese family, I'm not fluent in Mandarin, and my husband can’t even write his own Chinese name. It's an uphill battle teaching them Bahasa Indonesia; how much harder would teaching them Mandarin be?
In a way, I see the language as secondary to the culture. They don't have the luxury of absorbing the culture via osmosis (like I did), and even if they do observe things, they might draw incorrect conclusions because they're coming from an American point of view.
So I made River watch Nirvana in Fire with me. I paused the episodes at certain moments and explained various Chinese values and tradition to him (e.g. The concept of 孝 aka why Xiao Jingrui is a good, filial child (TM)).
I parsed the phrase "在Rui山上生的那个Jingrui" (That Jingrui who was born on top of Mount Rui) for him. (He knows how to read 生 because it's in his Chinese name.) I explained that Chinese people don't name their children after people; they name them after places.
I was motivated to go through Better Chinese books with them more often. Brooks watched Peppa Pig in Chinese on YouTube while I repeated a few phrases for him.
Then, late March earlier this year, we finally have a semiprivate Mandarin teacher. (Thank you V for the referral!) She comes and teaches the kids once a week for an hour. This was a great boost to my motivation to teach/tutor them, and I have been eating, sleeping and breathing Mandarin education for the past month and a half.
So far, the kids have been learning/practicing/playing with Chinese almost every single day. Brooks*** would complain occasionally, but I stood firm. After learning the characters 1-10 and hundred, their learning speed suddenly became 50% faster. I don't know why the switch suddenly flipped, but I'm thankful for it.
I wish River had started learning Mandarin earlier (he's turning eleven this June), but better late than never. I'm content knowing that when the time comes for River and Brooks to leave home, I would have shared enough Chinese culture with them for them to consider it part of their heritage.
* It was a Chinese supernatural show that's so bad it cycles back to being great. All the budget goes into the two main characters and the opening theme song, and nothing else.
** Their online handles, not their rl names
*** River knows me well enough to know that complaining is useless.
