Today M started her dance class at the local Chinese school. While our family has always been recieved well at Chinese events and activities before, it felt like there was a lot riding on our first attempt to send M out to fend for herself among the midwestern Chinese masses. I would say our experience was mixed.
I won’t lie and say I wasn’t nervous. We missed the first day of class sign up, so we had to try to get M registered two hours before her class started today. Honestly, I was afraid to try to navigate the registration so I sent A ahead with his intermediate and quite rusty Chinese to do it.
When A arrived at the school, it was utter chaos. About 300 kids and adults were milling about trying to find their classrooms, sign up for classes and visit with friends. In true Chinese fashion, there were no clear lines or instructions about where to register. When A found the registration room, he finally found someone to direct him to the appropriate table. That was when the fun began:
- At the first table, A turned in our registration form. It was examined by a man who signed and stamped it. Then A was directed to get in line at another table.
- T the second table, A wrote a check to pay for the class and the security deposit. The person at that table wrote a receipt and stamped a form. THen she sent him to another line at another table.
- After waiting in line at the third table, A turned in the form and the reciept. The person at that table filled out yet another peice of paper with information gathered from the first two forms. THen she stamped that piece of paper. THen she sent him to another line.
- At the fourth table, a person collected all his paperwork and copied information onto another peice of paper. THen she stamped all of his paperwork and gave it back to him.
The entire process took about 50 minutes. By the time he came home, he was mumbling incoherently about communist China and inefficiency. He was muttering things like “….and then SHE stamped it and sent me to another line to get ANOTHER stamp…!” He also kept talking about the fact that the other parents around him were signing their kids up for like 5 classes a piece. “Chinese 6, SAT prep, Math, Basketball and Chess!” he muttered. “Everyone was trying to get their kids into chess! There were like 6 chess classes and they were all full. It nearly started a riot!”
When we took M to her class, the chaos had not lessened at all. There was much debate about whether or not the room assignment had been changed. We were told it was. THen it wasn’t. Then it was, but it was switched back. With the help of one of M’s preschool classmate’s mom (who speaks Chinese), we finally found the right room.
I had been worried that my white face would cost M her Chinese cred, but it turned out that her class was about 2/3rds adoptees from China with white parents. I didn’t know that the kids needed leotards and ballet shoes, so M stood out more because she wasn’t wearing the proper clothes (I know! She was clearly distressed that she didn’t have ballet shoes like the other kids.)
The class was hilarious. It was a bunch of 3,4 and 5 year olds who mostly didn’t speak Chinese and a teacher who rarely instructed them in English. As can be expected, they were all quite fidgety and didn’t understand what the heck they were supposed to be doing. They kept picking up lint from the floor and handing it to the teacher. They also kept asking her to tie their ballet shoes. More than a couple of them fell over trying to dance. At one point the teacher told M to look up at the ceiling (a dance move), but M didn’t know when she was supposed to stop. She looked at the ceiling for at least 5 minutes and eventually toppled over.
Cuteness aside, Chinese school gave us a lot to think about. A is still having flashbacks to his time in China and claiming he may go crazy when we are in the PRC for the adoption. We noticed that there were very few hapa kids there (though there are lots in town) and we wonder what M will think when she gets older.
I also realized that even with the great progress M has made with her Chinese tutor, she is fucked when it comes to Chinese school. The vast majority of the kids in the language classes clearly speak Chinese at home. Even with help, it is an understatement to say that M will find the classes challenging. It is pretty likely that they will be frustrating and possible that she will fail outright. We are committed to Chinese school, but already both A and I feel bad about potentially putting M in such a stressful situation. We have been talking about it a lot tonight, but there isn’t much we can do besides throw her in the deep end and hope she doesn’t sink.
You are doing the best you can. And you know what? M. may not ever be the star of her Chinese lanaguage class (but hey, maybe she will!) but she will learn a heck of a lot about CHinese -American culture and meet a lot of her Chinese American peers. Umm, the academic expectations of many Asian American families are intense (as you well know). And it is a completely authentic part of CA heritage. While you and I might no think it is the most positive – it is good that she is getting exposed to it. Just think – she can bond with every other Asian american during college with all the crazy shit their parents expected of them while they were babies.
or maybe I am just a total pollyanna asshat in this post. you decide.
Could A speak Chinese with her at home? It would help both of them increase their language fluency.
The stamping and paperwork had me giggling. Yeah and very truly, needless Chinese paper shuffling.
the signing up for school and stamping part gave me a much needed laugh this morning….thanks!
OK, I could have totally written your entire post, WORD FOR WORD, since I too had the exact same experience here in NJ just yesterday while signing Leah up for her first Cantonese language class. Tons of kids, extremely disorganized and utter chaos, to be frank. And this is just the pre-school class. Yikes.
Lord, that sounds a bit like what we just went through as well. My kiddo is just in the language class. As all the kids came in to sit down, at first it looked like this: all hapa boys in one corner, all Chinese adoptee-girls in another corner, one lone blond boy, and the other side of the table were the full-blooded Chinese kids with full-blooded Chinese parents. Then all the adoptees and a couple of the hapa kids left because There Will Be No English Spoken In Class and they were forced into the bilingual class. *sigh* Meanwhile, every time my husband writes something down they make a huge deal about the fact that he doesn’t write simplified Chinese … and he managed to forget that, duh, most people can in fact speak English when we were talking about this with some white mothers. I think we’re already the pariahs of Chinese school
I don’t know how much A knows about current Taiwanese culture, but I got re-intruduced to it by my wife who was native born and raised. I quickly discovered how difficult is it to raise a child with some sort of Chinese-ness is in the US. A few trick I was thinking was to let my child be familiar with the children’s learning material in Taiwan; the children of my wife’s friends are all growing up watching ETTV’s Yoyo TV. I soon discovered that ETTV is available on directv and I’m planning to let my kid watch it as soon as they are ready for TV. Perhaps he’ll grow to love and dance with the Peach Older Sister (ShuiMiTao Jiejie) as well.
I’m also hoping to let them have free access to popular Chinese culture such as music and TV as they get older. My wife’s 9 years-old niece told me how much she love Rainey Yang and S.H.E. (a idol girl group), I’m surprised to find that the music and lyrics are actually suitable for kids that young. We watch Taiwanese drama and shows in our household daily so it should rub off on them.
I know I won’t have a hapa kid but if I do, and she’s having problem with her self-confidence, I will probably show her pictures of Rie Miyazawa (one of the most popular singer and acttress in Japan of all time) and Lara from Taiwanese band “NanQuanMaMa” (Russian-American dad and Taiwanese mom) and tell her that millions (billions in term of NQMM) of people love them dearly. If I was worried that the’s not exposed to Asian male on pop culture, I’ll let her enjoy the music of Jay Chou, Wang Leehom, and David Tao, all great Taiwanese singer-songwriters (although technically both Leehom and David Tao are Asian Americans). Plus she’ll want to learn mandarin since it’s part of a cool modern Chinese culture. As for your adopted child? You can safely raise her with the Chinese culture from Taiwan since if you ever been to China, you’ll know that Taiwanese pop culture dominates Chinese youth of today. In fact the biggest recent news among Chinese youth is the release of Jay Chou’s latest album “Still Fantasy”, project to sell over a million legal copies in pirate-infested Mainland China.
I don’t know how much A. knows about Taiwanese culture since it sounds like he’s ABC, but if he does know a bit it would help tremendously in balancing M’s Asian side. A should know about David Tao though; their backgrounds almost identical. At least your MIL knows who “Tao Da Wei”, David Tao’s Dad was.
The description of the lines brought back memories.
There was a similar demographic in the Chinese language classes I took in graduate school. Most of the students were undergraduates, children of immigrants whose parents spoke Chinese at home.
Also, many of them had gone to weekly Chinese classes as kids but hadn’t learned or hadn’t remembered, leading their parents to make comments like, “We are paying x thousands of dollars in tuition so you can study CHINESE!? Why didn’t you pay attention?”) I’m pretty sure there was a separate class for the students who did speak Chinese, but needed to catch up with written language.
This may help giving you some perspective. Thousands of Asian-American (and Asians living everywhere in the world) are learning mandarin just to sing and rap like their idol Jay Chou. Visit this English site to see how it helps them with their Asian identity:
http://jay-chou.net/forums/portal.php
BTW, Jay’s latest album is superb, great mix of Chinese root and Hip-hop ques. My wife and I can’t stop listening to it in our ipods. Don’t know what’s your taste, but you guys should give it a shot. You can get it from YesAsia.com.
shriek! giggle. Wow, who would have thought that everyone in the country was milling around trying to register for Chinese school all at the same time in the same way? Our school started last Satruday as well and it was just as described: line? whas’ that? No lines just craziness. But this is my fifth registration so now I know the drill: push shove and go for it!!!!!
Interesting comment about the lack of hapa kids. My kids have always had several in their classes–indeed my daughter’s best friends in c-school are both hapa with Chinese moms and white dads. I think attendance all depends on how strongly the Chinese partner wants the kids to speak Chinese and it also depends on whether the Chinese partner is the MOM!!!! In most language school families specifically Asian Americans, its the mom who gets stuck dealing with homework and all the rest. So if Dad is the Chinese speaker but leaves it to Mom who doesn’t speak Chinese, then no Chinese school.
This summer my daughter took Chinese dance. One Chinese american mom there was married to a Japanese American. He wants the kid to be learning Japanese. Mom says “fine, then you do the homework and take her to school” dad says “uhhhhh.” result: kid is learning Chinese.
Similarly, I have friend with adopted daughter from China, bio son and husband from Peru. Husband wants kids to attend Argentinian spanish language school, wife wants daughter to attend Chinese school, son could attend Chinese school but really just wants to sleep in. Wife says “fine, you take kids to school on Saturday and I’ll pick them up.” Husband says “uhhhhhhhh.” result: one kid learning chinese and one kid sleeping late.
I think M will do fine. And if you don’t like that school, look around. There’s probably another rival school out there somewhere!
Last thought if you are wanting M to speak more Chinese, in addition to Chinese school, we are also using “better Chinese” on-line. I think its a really good program and our Chinese school is actually using the written materials for the little kids now.
have fun!
This is probably an unpopular opinion but if M finds it too stressful, how about dropping the classes? My bio kids are Spanish/Portuguese and I don’t ever plan to enroll them in language classes. When I was growing up, my neigbors were from Spain and they forced their kids to go to Spanish class every Saturday. I was never forced to do that and I speak better Spanish than those kids ever did. I take a fun approach at home and teach my 3-year-old Spanish words here and there, but I don’t put undue pressure on him. He’s an individual and I don’t think because his grandparents happen to be Spanish/Colombian/Portuguese that he absolutely NEEDS to go to school to learn the language or about the culture.
I know, I know, this is not a popular opinion (judging by the other comments here). I just thought I’d throw it out there. I know because you are Caucasian you feel very driven to have your daughter embrace her Chinese background. I used to be embarassed as a kid when my parents made me speak Spanish to them in public. A kid just wants to fit in with his/her peers. You can always teach them at home and make it more fun.
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