Chinese Express and Big Castle

Hooray!  Ryan actually slept in until 7:15 this morning.  Unfortunately this was only after I was awoken in the wee hours by a loud 'thud' noise followed by crying.  For the second time this week he fell out of his bed.  We've been here two months and until this week he has managed to stay put unless he wanted to get up.  I'm not sure what has changed.  I know he is becoming a bit of a violent sleeper.  A couple of times he has crawled into bed with us and I have woken to him kicking his legs and/or slapping one or both of us in the face.  Perhaps he has seen a little too much Tom and Jerry.  I think we will put a stop to that and stick to Curious George, Franklin or Thomas.

I had my first Mandarin lesson today with a lovely woman named Rachel.  She brought a text called 'Chinese Express' and started by showing me the letters that are used in pinyin.  For now I will not be learning to read or write Chinese characters but will focus on being able to converse with people.  To do this I need to learn pinyin, the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet (thank you wikipedia).  Chinese is a tonal language so a word with one spelling can have several different meanings depending on the tone that is used.  What this means to me is that I have to make my mouth and tongue do things that they are not use to and sound like a complete fool while doing it.  Luckily I did do some of my Rosetta Stone online language training before coming to China and a bit of the vocabulary has stuck but I do need to work on the tones. 

After going over the letters and tones we began lesson one in the book.  It actually went quite quickly and Rachel was very pleased with my progress.  She said I will learn very quickly, which I believe as long as I start using what I have learned right away.  I practiced some of my new words with Tian Ye this afternoon and will try to continue using the words daily.

The first two hours flew by and for the last half hour we chatted and she looked at the kids' scrapbook that Darlene made.  We went through it and used it to learn the words for various relatives.  Xie xie gu ma!  (Thank you aunt!)

This afternoon I decided we would check out the kindergarten that a fellow expat had recommended.  It was a lot closer than I thought at only fifteen minutes away.  It's called Big Castle Bilingual Kindergarten and it's very nice.  The have a security gate and you need to have a good reason for getting in, which makes me feel good.  I had a difficult time getting both boys, but especially Ryan, inside the building once he saw the outdoor playground equipment. 

I finally convinced them to come in with me and once they saw the indoor play area they didn't want to leave it either.  A good sign!  There are (I think!) nine classes and each class has an English teacher, a Chinese teacher and a helper.  The place opens at 7:30 and goes until 5:00pm, they will feed the children breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks and there are beds for them to sleep in from 11:30 - 2:00.  I told her that my kids probably wouldn't sleep so she said I could speak to the teacher about what other activities they may have for them to do.  The best thing about this place is that you can drop off and pick up your child whenever you choose.  They can go as many or as few days as you wish.  If they go ten times or less per month than the fee is halved.  It is exactly what I was looking for (at least it seems to be right now) so we are going to give it a try.  The first thing we have to do which I am not looking forward to is for the boys to have a physical health check, including a blood test.  This is required no matter what kindergarten you choose so Nicholas would be getting it in August anyway, still not fun though.  We will do that early next week and they should be able to go right after that.  Maybe Wednesday while I have my massage!

Following our successful trip to the kindergarten we got Tian Ye to drop us off at the Carrefour to go to Happy City.  Nick found a friend there who was his age and the two of them had a great time together.  Ryan played with them for a while but then wanted his brother back.  When the boy came along Ryan tried to stop him from following Nicholas by blocking him and when that didn't work he threw a small fit.  Eventually I had to drag him out when he started throwing balls at a little girl and hitting her in the face.  That didn't go over especially well.  He did a lot of crying and even the grandparents of the little girl were feeling bad for him.

It was a busy day today and I must go get ready for tomorrow.  I will keep you in the dark about our plans for the day.  The suspense will drive you crazy, won't it?

In the meantime, I will give you something else to think about.  My sister and her husband are selling their home in Harmony, just outside of Truro.  They are having an open house Friday night from 5-7pm and Saturday from 12-3pm.  It's a great place and I think that if they sell they may move to China with us.  That would make for lots more great adventures for the blog.  Just kidding!  Well, about the moving part anyway, they are selling the house though.  Have a look:  http://propertyguys.com/property/index/id/55745.

Mingtian jian!  See you tomorrow!  (Not really but I need to practice).