For the Need of a Plastic Bag

Life as a mostly stay-at-home mom with some part-time working on the side is pretty mundane for the most part. I pack lunches. I grocery shop. I do laundry. I wash dishes. I clean toilets. And then I get my 3-4 hours per day where I feel like a competent, knowledgeable human being. Honestly, I love it. It's the best of both worlds with my two dream jobs which occasionally compete with each other.

But sometimes, the mundane has small excitement. 

I was at Costco this week picking up a few items (yes, I mean "a few" in the Costco sense. Six to be exact!) and had an interesting encounter. A man came up to me and said,  "Excuse me, where can I take this one?" *tugs my bag gently*

His actual reference was to locating the red plastic bags used for meat/seafood. In truth, I myself had been darting my eyes around looking for them just minutes prior. So I pointed my finger in the direction of where they were. He saw them, his face lit up, and then he went on a mild sprint to get them and return back to where I can only assume his cart was. 

I forgot to take a picture of the meat in my cart, but here is a representative pack of meat in a plastic bag, similar to the one the man was asking for. 

 

 

 

 

Now I'm not going to lie. There were a few seconds there where my brain was actually wondering if he was politely asking if he could take the ribs I had just chosen and bagged for myself. Or if he was asking me where he could find the ribs. (I was standing right next to them). English was not his first language and with the way he had phrased his question, it could have been misunderstood in a few ways.

His use of the word "take" was not the most appropriate. "Find" would have been the ideal word choice for his request. "Take" is the word which led my brain to wonder if he wanted something I had which was more valuable than a plastic bag. He also tugged at my plastic bag which made me wonder if he wanted my actual item/the bag with my item in it.

Our encounter was actually cute. When I think back on the way he approached, his mannerisms, his voice, it brings a smile to my face. On the contrary, I can see how someone without an understanding for language and patience for differences could have been annoyed or even angered at this situation due to a misunderstanding if his or her brain led them to the possible conclusions I listed above.

I've always believed the primary purpose of communication is to be understood. I still believe that. Through all the language barriers, nonverbal gestures and reading body language can communicate a lot in itself. However, the piece often overlooked is the bias the person receiving the communication adds to the situation. If I had an issue with someone touching my things or reaching into my shopping cart, I could have gotten very defensive very quickly without meaning to. If someone is triggered by grammatical errors in speech, an initial response might be one of shutting down or getting angry.

The more you know, the better you can be. Never stop striving to know.

Wordle in Review

(Disclaimer: these are all past Wordles and do not include today's word)

So I got sucked into Wordle a few days after the New Year just like everyone else. It's actually been a really nice daily activity. It's also been a great bonding topic between one of my college friends. We are celebrating about 13 years of friendship this year :) I remember meeting her at lunch one day in the dining hall after a large lecture class. I liked her. She was like an older, smarter version of myself. She gave me rides to church during college and was my church buddy because very few people wanted to wake up for the 9 o'clock service. She let me cook at her apartment for a large event once when I volunteered to handle refreshments. She attended our wedding, and now she lives about 10 minutes from my in-laws. Wordle is another nice way to add to our friendship. 

I take a screenshot everyday, but I wanted to explore some more thought processes with the rest of the world. I know people post their scores and people are so impressed when someone can guess the word in two or three guesses. But let's be real, sometimes it's just luck. What's the actual thought process behind guessing? Let's take a look at some of mine....

This was the one day I was unable to guess the word. I was very frustrated. This was also the day after the word "tacit" so I was thinking along more posh lines. Rouse was a great word. It should have been the Wordle. Much more sophisticated than "other." "Error" was a good guess after rouse. "Oiler" put the three letters I already had in the correct spot. "Odder" was probably a bad guess, but hey, those double letters really trip me up. "Otter" was another guess at the double letters. Unfortunately, it was my last guess, so I did not solve the Wordle that day. I should have tried a word with more variation in letters like "other"....but hindsight.

I got pretty lucky on this one. Caulk just came to mind first when I saw it started with a "c" and ended with a "k" and had an "a" in the middle. I blame my renovation and homeowner experience. 

Look at how many times I had to guess "-der" before I got it right...

This was a fun Wordle. I guessed three words that were all moving forward in guessing technique AND they have a theme! I bet you've never guessed a Wordle and had all the words match together in a theme. 😂

After I'd guessed "prove" I really thought of the word "proxy" first, but I didn't guess it because I didn't think they would pick it as the word. Turns out I was actually right and wrong....since I decided to guess prowl first. I don't know why my mind went to "proxy" but it did. Should have trusted my gut. Just for that day. 

This is the only Wordle I've solved in two guesses. I don't know how I got so lucky. 🤷🏻‍♀️

So far I can't say I've learned any new words from Wordle. They're not all common but I've heard of them all at least once in my life. I've come across a few new words just by guessing combinations when I reach my wits end, but that doesn't happen very often. Although lately I've been getting frustrated a lot more....haha. But in all honesty, I really enjoy Wordle if not solely for the purpose of texting my friend. 😊

Bilingual Benefits

 I was cooking dinner and my daughter was playing with playdoh. She was talking to me as I cooked. 

S: Mommy, look, I made a wok!

Me: A wok? I turned around to look. 

S: No, a wok! 

Me: A walk?

S: No! A wok! 石头！

Me: Oh! A rock. 

S: Yea, mommy. I made a wok. 

Not the same “wok”…but that’s when I pulled the camera out. 

I chuckled to myself but didn’t correct her. It would happen eventually. She was still only three. I was just glad her comprehension in two languages was good enough that she could translate to convey. 

That’s impressive. 

I secretly kinda wish she had made a wok. 

Elephant and Piggie

I first discovered Elephant and Piggie at the library a few years ago when I would check out books. I purposely searched Chinese books at the library and would pick from what they had. One of the books we checked out was an Elephant and Piggie book. I didn't even realize it was an entire series until one of my student's parents saw the book and recognized it. At first I thought she had read it in her native language, but then she told me it was a popular children's book series. 

That's when I realized there was a whole series on Elephant and Piggie. This series can be slightly controversial because the "quality" of the books is debatable. Some people argue that they're not great books because the language is simple and there's no real point to the books. For an English book, I might agree. There are other books in English I'd rather my children read. So no, I would never buy the series in English. Library? Sure, why not. Buy? Nope.

I did enjoy the one we checked out. In English, it would have been Are You Ready to Play Outside? I enjoyed reading this book to my daughter in Chinese because I could actually read most of the characters. There were a few I had to look up, but overall, it wasn't bad. 

The first Elephant and Piggie book I discovered, in Chinese.

At the end of last year, I found an entire set of them in Chinese I could purchase for a reasonable price. I bought it, almost no questions asked. It shipped quickly, and I was so excited to open them after they arrived. My daughter loves reading them with me and I love being able to read most of the text. 

A few of the books in the series have words above my vocabulary so I started out reading them with my phone next to me to look up words I didn't recognize. Thankfully, I understand stroke order and the dictionary handwriting recognition is very smart so it's a pretty quick process. 

The "quality" of the books doesn't bother me because I don't believe it contains anything that is necessarily  bad. Sure, the grammar is simple and the book itself is pretty basic, but since it is in Chinese, I would be happy to read it to her knowing we would actually read it. I am not against having more quality Chinese books, but the problem is I cannot read half of it easily. If I can't read it easily, I'm less likely to pick it up and want to read it, and it is less likely to captivate my daughter. The few I do have, I've had to work really hard reading multiple times to become familiar with the text and recognize more of the difficult words. 

I will probably need to study up and learn new words as I read to my children in the future. Let's hope my kids have the patience to wait for me, too. 😅

Valid Concern

My Chinese has never been very good, but by some miracle, I've been able to keep most of my speaking fluency and some of my reading abilities.

After my husband and I found out we were expecting two and a half years ago, I made a mental note that I would speak solely in Chinese to my child(ren). I knew early on that my children would only be as good as or worse at Chinese than I was, so I was going to have to work really hard to pass on as much as I could.

Now, there was a second factor into this situation: my husband! Unfortunately, his Chinese skills when we got married were not very good. When people asked about his language skills, I'd have to explain to them that his parents were fluent in too many languages, and because of that, he never got to really focus on anything other than English. It's also just really hard to pay attention in Chinese school as a kid growing up: I'm guilty of that myself. 

One day in the car, this conversation popped up, and it was noteworthy (and funny) enough for me to share it with his permission:

Two years later, I have to say, teaching my daughter Chinese hasn't felt like very much teaching at all because complete immersion is the best way to learn, and she has been completely immersed since she was born. I also have to say I've never actually pushed my husband to learn Chinese from me. Sure, I've joked with him about it here and there, but I've never sat him down and told him straight up: you will learn Chinese and I will teach you. We maybe had one evening when I taught him colors. :) 

Our daughter really started talking and took off with her language skills around 18 months. I will never forget the day I was laying in bed one morning, pregnant with my son, and I see my daughter come walking through our bedroom door to my side of the bed. She came up to me and said very clearly, "妈妈起来.” Mommy, get up. And with that, I was wide awake, getting up, and amazed at how fast my daughter was growing up right before my eyes. 

When she started speaking more, I noticed my husband would ask me what certain words meant as I said them. I would tell him and he'd say it a few times. I'd correct him if it was way off in pronunciation, but for the most part he was close. 

Slowly, he picked up phrases and started saying them more: 洗澡， 吃饭， 睡觉， 过来。

And now he's saying even more phrases and even getting close to using complete sentences: 最后两口， 躺好换尿布， 你的 (object) 在哪里,  穿衣服。

Toddlers learn language so quickly at their young age - it's absolutely amazing. My daughter will say words or phrases during the day and I'll ask my husband, "Where'd she learn that from?" 

And he usually always replies, "I don't even know what that means so she didn't learn it from me!" 

Of course, she learned it from me, but I didn't realize she could remember so much of what she had heard me say. 

There was one day I was speaking to my daughter in Chinese and then I turned to my husband to ask him a question. I almost asked him in Chinese, not having completely switched languages in my head, but I caught myself. 

Unfortunately for him, her language skills will surpass his - they probably already have - and chances are, they will be better than his for her entire life. She's got the advantage of time on her side. However, I am very proud of him for learning as much of the language as he has in the last year two years. However valid my concern was two years ago, I am not concerned anymore. One of these days, I may not have to catch myself to switch languages, and he may even be able to reply (in Chinese!)