Jewelle Tan Personally

Eu has been going to school for more than 4 months now.

It has been interesting for us at home to hear her adventures of learning new things from school - from new words to many new songs which Qi picks up instantly. Let’s just put it this way, there are that much singing at home courtesy of the songs that Eu learnt from school that even their Ah Mah (grandmother) can sing some of their songs.

Her Mandarin has improved tremendously too and although I can understand some basic everyday Mandarin, there has been one occasion when she said something to me and I had to ask her to translate. My husband’s warning that I will soon be lost when my kids start speaking more Mandarin is fast coming true.

But I am in a way luckier than some of the other parents who have nil Chinese background and knows not a word of Mandarin and yet have their kids in a school where Chinese language is dominant.

At least for me, I learn a new word every few months or years judging from my how much I understand Mandarin and I’m sure I will never be that clueless. Unless Eu and Qi learn to converse in poetic Mandarin in which case even their father would be lost, I’m sure!

And 4 months along, I noticed that these few kids still shy away from the rest of the Chinese speaking students including Eu and I wonder what is it like in class for them.

I wondered because I have a cousin who comes from a non-Mandarin speaking household and his first few years in a Chinese school was a funny family story - he would regularly run out from his class. He now speaks passable Mandarin and my aunt is having second thought about having all her kids in a Chinese school as they have began to talk in Mandarin around her.

And I have another cousin who has not an ounce of Chinese blood and yet has mastered the language so well that she won an award as the best speaker in a statewide debate competition in Mandarin some time ago.

So I will not be surprised if these few students who now communicate with Eu with a combination of body languages and face expressions, might even speak the language better than her in a few years.

This will be an interesting thing to watch.

JPPMom led me to Mumsgather and I thought I’ll share my opinion on what I expect from a pre-school, to help an undergraduate student who is doing a research on this.

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I was told of an amusing story today.

Because our district is very small and roads are fews, we tend to drive past the same cars often, learn to recognize a person from their cars and if you are extra observant, you’d even know a household’s changes or latest additions.

This was how I, or rather my husband, noticed that a certain household in my neighbourhood recently sported a swanky new car in their garage.

When I commented on this to my family, I was told that this car was acquired to give the owner a more respectable standing.

Apparently, because he drove a modest car before this, he had trouble convincing certain people that he belongs to a very important committee - which is perhaps because most of the other committees came in with not only expensive cars but were probably chauffeured.

It doesn’t matter that he has the documents to prove his membership because his very ordinary and relatively cheap car obviously tell these group of people that he could not be someone in such important position.

In short, cheap car = no money = NOBODY!

Lucky for this man, he was able to get himself a car that equates his standing and command the respect that he deserves.

But isn’t it sad that some of us would quickly judge a person’s social standing based on his material possessions - his car, clothes, watches and etc.

Don’t they know that some of those who drive prestigious cars like BMWs have more red than black in their accounts and some that drive simple cars like Madzas have very long numbers in their accounts?

We brought the kids to see the famed statue of the Merlion on our first family trip to Singapore last year and for a few weeks, Eu was informing everyone at home that the Merlion is “part lion and part mermaid”.

For our trip this year, they insist that we visit the Merlion again and we only indulged them because the alternative is shopping and as you know, that is quite pointless.

So on our last day in Singapore, we took a taxi ride to the Merlion Park and joined the never ending throngs of visitors.

Across the river from where we were at the park, was the Singapore Flyer and because I wasn’t keen on trying it out, I kept mum when my husband casually remarked that he heard it cost an outrageous $200 a ride and was glad when he didn’t pursue the subject.

Now that I’m safely home, I could find out more on the Singapore Flyer and of course, it’s nowhere that expensive. But I’m still not going for a ride in it.

It was a short trip at the Merlion for us that day. The weather was hazy and after a few shots, we decided to go look for the nearest air-conditioned area and that was the Esplanade.

At the start of a bridge which led to the Esplanade, we saw this vendor selling these strange ice cream on wafer biscuits.

At the end of the bridge, we found another vendor selling the same thing and you can imagine how happy Eu and Qi were when their father got one for us to snack on before we went inside the Esplanade for a while.

That was our visit to the Merlion for this trip.

Eu and Qi were still fascinated by part-lion-part-mermaid statue and until today, Qi will perform her Merlion trick whenever I brush her teeth.

Going to Singapore with kids mean one thing : Singapore Zoo.

We made our trip the following day - much to the kids excitement and we were pleased that there was no queue at the tickets and strollers counters.

Upon entering, we were invited to take a few family photos and we later bought one of the shot. My husband told me that they also tried to sell him a frame for the picture and he declined it saying that he had “other plan for it”. Undeterred, they asked him about his “plan” and was stumped for answer when he told that he is going to “stick it on the wall”.

Since our last trip, some of the animals were in different locations.

But the white rhinos area still smelled as strong as ever. We also caught this funny incident of a “staring contest” between one adult rhino with a bird which lasted for about a minute.

The rhino finally turned away and the bird straightaway hopped and flew to his back. Now we know who’s the boss!

We missed the Papa Lion (male lion) last trip but this time we saw him and a few of the lionesses on the open ground.

Qi was most looking forward to the White Tigers and although she napped for a while, we waited until she was awake so she could see these animals.

It’s too bad that we did not hear any single roar from both the lions and the tigers.

We skipped the reptiles areas on our last trip so we made it a point to come here. We finally saw the Komodo Dragon but it was not as big as I thought it would be.

There were also some huge crocodiles and Qi refused to go near the glass tank for a closer look.

This time, we made it for more animals shows ; the polar bear show and the lion feeding show. And it was the Splash show with the penguins, sea cows and Carlos the Sea Lion which we enjoyed the most.

We had fun at the Zoo but I think the kids will enjoy the place more when they are older. Eu refused to go for a pony ride and at the end of our visit here, only two animals were mentioned by the kids : White Tiger and Sea Lion.