Seth slurping a new fave, Ramen Nagi.
Today was the Chinese New Year celebration at Seth’s school.
Just to give you a little background, Seth’s school offers Mandarin as the only
foreign language. This was pretty intimidating to me when we decided to enroll
Seth, but we just crossed our fingers and shrugged our shoulders and started
praying.
Lo and behold, Seth’s first term grades came back, and he was
pulling in a solid B in Mandarin. (This was one of his best grades that term as
British schools don’t seem to give participation trophies or smiley faces.) His
attitude towards Chinese was pretty dismal, and I couldn’t blame him. Mandarin
is only one of the world’s most difficult languages. BUT, we talked to him
about his grade and told him that he seemed to have an aptitude for Mandarin.
He could go far if he applied himself, we told him.
This kid turned his attitude right around. He became a
dedicated Mandarin scholar. His Chinese teacher began to love him. You want to
know who the only kid in the upper school was that signed up for extra Chinese
enrichment for fun? Yep, my kid. This blue-eyed American boy speaks Mandarin to
unsuspecting and delighted Chinese grandparents in elevators and Chinese kids
at the passport photo office. He sings Chinese counting songs as he walks
through the aisles at Filipino Costco, earning him smiles and turned heads from
our Chinese neighbors.
He works hard. So hard. And he’s doing so well for having studied
Mandarin for less than 2 years.
I went to his school celebration today, and there were
several kids from his year that were emceeing the program in English and
Mandarin. Most of them were native bilingual speakers, but there was also a
French girl in his grade.
And right there, I got annoyed. Seth works so hard. I can
understand why the native Chinese speakers were chosen to emcee, but what about
her? Her accent didn’t seem much better than Seth’s to me (though I know I’m
biased). I felt the tiger mother rising in me, red as the Chinese New Year
banner. I wanted more recognition for all his hard work.
The program ended, and the kids went back to class. I congratulated
his French classmate’s mother on her role in the program. (Treat others the way
you’d like to be treated today. Check.) And that’s when I got educated. I found
out that this classmate had moved here from… Shanghai. She’d been taking
Mandarin for 5 years and has had a tutor. She is trilingual in French, English,
and Mandarin. Ah, glorious perspective.
It is dawning on me almost 2 years into this that there are
things about our family that may be making it harder at times to navigate the
waters of living as expats. Our family is not bi-cultural, bi-racial, or
bi-lingual in an expat community where most people are at least one or all of
these things. It didn’t occur to me before that this may make adaptation a
little harder for us, no matter how much I wish it wasn’t so.
So I need to cut us all some slack. I need to cut us all
some major slack.
I know what we are not. But I also know what we still are.
We are brave, dang it. Day in and day out, in big and small
ways, even when we don’t feel like it, we’re still brave.
And when Seth feels like he doesn’t measure up at school
because he doesn’t speak at least 2 languages and have other particular creds on his expat kid resume, I will say, “Baby, you are so brave. Look at what
you’ve done. Look at what all of us are doing! Don’t compare if everyone else
seems farther along in some areas. It’s not just you. There are probably a few
other kids like you if you look around who are feeling the same challenges. We just need to find
them.”
They say that a foreign accent is a sign of bravery. It
really, really is. I will remember that when I hear those beautiful tones
around me when we’re living again in the U.S. But going overseas when you have
no toehold and experience outside of your country, and it would be easier to
stay where you are? That's brave, too.
