Would You Turn Your Child in if They Committed a Crime?

My husband and I ran into an interesting difference of opinion the other night. He said the parents of a confessed murderer who escorted their son to turn himself into the police should have done more to protect their son.

My response: “What? They were bad parents because they made their son own up to killing somebody?” Seriously, I didn’t think there would even be much thought there. But the case is more complicated than that. As a brief background, the young art student’s car hit a young mother riding her bike, and then he stabbed her to death when she started writing down his license number.  The act was witnessed and he injured more people on his escape.

As for his parents, it seems they escorted him to the police after investigation and witnesses had already led in his direction, making their act far less noble than it would seem. The family was reportedly affluent and with connections, though just how much is being debated all over the Internet. At least, it wasn’t enough to avoid the death penalty. Compensation offered the victim’s family was rejected.

But, whatever went on with his parents, my husband’s reaction brings up, to me, an aspect of a single-child society that isn’t usually addressed. That even the idea of protecting your child who has taken someone’s life could be supported shows a high level of protectiveness that some Chinese might call a sacrifice along the lines of spending all their life’s savings to guarantee a good future for their child (in this case, it seems the seemed affluence came from his parents spending what money they did have giving their son a comfortable life, i.e. the car).  

Now, Chinese parents certainly don’t corner the market on this level of protectiveness and I’m sure there are plenty of parents in other countries who hide their child’s criminal behavior. But it's probably not an attitude that would be publicly voiced (as much as my husband's opinion is "public"!) And in fact, is the only-child sense of entitlement leading to the greater possibility of criminality? Many netizens believe this killer was justified and might have done the same themselves.  

We all say we just want our kids to be happy, while all the while planning for them to become doctors, lawyers, presidents (goodness knows why for the latter two… J). We look at cases like this and shake our heads, but I won’t deny the horrible possibility hasn’t crossed my mind  of any of my children doing, well, something I would be less than proud of. What would I do if it were a case like this? What I believe is the right thing, I hope. But I hope and pray none of my sons ever makes his parents have to have this debate for real!

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Sand Gets in Your Eyes: Spring in Beijing

Spring is windy and stormy in much of the world. But in Beijing it brings with it the added curse of sand. A common news topic this time of year is tree planting – trying to stop the evil Gobi desert from sending its sand our way. Recently, we looked out our window and saw our English-Polish neighbor kids digging a hole to plant trees, while hotel staff looked on.

I assumed this was hotel sand-fighting propaganda, but after we ventured outside we discovered the neighbor boys had themselves requested and chosen these trees – one cherry blossom and one peach. The kids all had fun digging and pouring water. And we big people all had fun toasting it with neighbor Kasha’s cherry brandy.

But the belief the trees were a sort of symbolic sand-fighting effort at all was all my assumption on first glance out the window. Flipping through hotel channels soon after, my attention was arrested by a photo on the hotel channel. It was us and the neighbors in full digging mode.  Turns out the hotel is promoting the act as planting “memorial trees” for “departed foreign experts”, presumably referring to the man who dug up his own trees on moving.

Tiger Dad + Kitten Mom = Flexible Cat Kids?

Surviving - and thriving - in Chinese schools

I knew my 5-year-old twins would start speaking Chinese if we threw them into a Chinese school. But still somehow I’ve been surprised to see it happen. Being a worrying, coddling mother I wondered what traumas they might suffer along the way.  Their father, more of a “stop crying and just do it” sort, wanted them to be happy but knew they’d survive.

And they did complain at the kindergarten (more equivalent to a US preschool) in Beijing where we first enrolled them. They complained that the teachers yelled, and they couldn’t tell me what they were doing all 8 or 9 hours they were at the school everyday.  Still, their Chinese progressed and instead of complaining that they couldn't understand the teachers or talk to their friends, they started coming home telling me about conversations they had in Chinese.

Example of a Chinese textbook for 5 year olds

Still we were concerned they were just playing all day and knew that at nearly 6 years old, they were up to more challenge than that, in any language. Finally through chance, we learned of another school with smaller classes, a more educational focus, and better yet – more than half the price! On the last day at the old school, Isaac told his teacher in Chinese he was “going to university” (which translates literally to “big school” in Chinese).

And then, my boys who previously had to be coaxed and coerced and bribed (Isaac more than his twin Ethan) to do homework at night, suddenly last weekend, just two days after starting the new school, couldn’t stop doing it. They just wanted to write characters all night, while their dinner went cold. And then, at school the next day, Isaac raised his hand to answer a question and boldly went to the front of the class to answer. Shyer Ethan soon followed suit.

Suddenly, for now, I feel better about the prospect of throwing them in competitive primary school.

Home again, home again … at last

We are soooo incredibly happy to be in our own home again. It seemed like returning to a palace. Central air, clean, spacious and ours! Pulling into the garage, Ethan exclaimed “Our house!” and that has continued to be both their mantras. It’s so nice having our own stuff, our own yard and noone telling us what to do. Of course, jet lag is another story. I think I slept 3 hours last night, the boys 4. They wake up at 3 or 4 just like last time. Hopefully in a few days it will start getting better.

The trip went relatively smoothly, despite Isaac throwing up a couple times (once at McDonald’s, once on the airplane). They both slept a lot though – we didn’t even have to pull out the DVD player. The only problem was whenever we had to deplane, they would both be screaming for mama to carry them. I would try to carry both of them for a while but when my arms were falling off I’d have to pass one off to Jack kicking and screaming. It was very hard to maintain patience when we were also tired. After the longest leg when Isaac was throwing a fit, I overheard the flight attendant working our aisle tell another one, “he was so good the whole flight”, and I am at least grateful there were no mid-air incidents to disturb the other passengers.

Well, that’s really it I guess for this blog! We hope you enjoyed are adventures and stay tuned for more :)

Homeward Bound!

July 29, 2008

Several days to catch up on and so little energy! Boys are ensconced in front of the TV watching The Fox and the Hound for the second time so I can get a few minutes to sit. It’s kind of a mixed blessing when they are old enough to sit through a movie! In two days we’ll be halfway home, and none too soon. We are all completely knackered and ready to be in our own home. The boys got sick on the train from Fuzhou, which was not the most pleasant train ride despite the soft seats. The train was fine, I just didn’t feel well myself nor sleep well. Now the boys have been feverish. Isaac has recovered pretty quickly but Ethan has been pretty puny but is perking up. They napped early today though and will be exhausted by bed time – we all will. And Pamela and Vincent will be coming late to say hi and bye. Still we want to see them again before we go.

The PSB just showed up at our door. Never had that happen in China before, though I wasn’t altogether surprised. So many so-called “Olympic security” people are everywhere watching everything going on. Now if only they could apply that energy to traffic and forming lines…. Anyway, he was relatively nice, even knows an old senior editor from CCTV that I used to work with. Jack has gone with him to swipe our passports. He just gave the spiel about how it’s China’s law, etc. I half expected a fine, but apparently it’s okay. Hopefully he won’t cause any trouble about all the other time we stayed here unregistered.

Meanwhile, our last couple days in Fuzhou were nice. We endured another hot morning with family in Jack’s village, where Jack’s dad showed up in what is supposed to be also Jack’s house (though he sold all the land without consulting Jack) though he didn’t say hi or join us, partly since he’s not happy with Jack and mostly because he has bad relationships with a lot of the family in the village.

We then moved into the hotel where Jack’s cousin was staying for training (the cousin who bought us the train tickets). It was pretty comfy and there was a big park with an amusement park a few minutes walk away. We enjoyed eating familiar food and food that wasn’t being forced on us in large quantity by family. Jack enjoyed the breakfast buffet, but it was all a bit too local food for me – a lot of pickled stuff and stuffed buns. The boys liked the Chinese doughnuts and watermelon though.

The train rides, besides aforementioned punyness, was nice. It was a very long train (as in many cars), with two regular soft sleeper cars (usually there is one) and one luxury soft sleeper car. We didn’t even know about that! For an extra $100 we could have had a room to ourselves with our own toilet and little couch. Not really worth it though with the kids, esp since one bed was on top. The next time we come back the boys will be big enough we will have to buy a whole four-bed soft sleeper room. The train food was decent and people relatively okay. Isaac forced an older boy to play with him, as he is wont to do (he did the same with an older boy at our hotel breakfast table).Ethan loved to just sit and watch outside (especially excited when he saw train tracks), making comments. He is quite the chatterbox these days. Even if his vocabulary probably isn’t as large as Isaac’s, his grammar is better. He says things like “Mama, wait. I coming!” and when scared says “Scares me!”. Even though they still only speak a few words of Chinese, their English has at least improved, even if I’m not sure anyone else would understand most of it!

Okay, better tend to the sickies…

Terrorizing two-year-old

July 23, 2008

The little cousin is something of a terror, but naturally still sweet in the way all kids are. His parents yell and threaten and swear they’ve tried everything but seem otherwise proud of the fact that their toddler scares away 5-year-olds. Half the time he does play well with the boys, but the rest of the time he pushes, shoves, grabs and bites. He knocked Ethan off the scooter car and has come close to causing serious injury many times. Still, he can be really sweet. In some ways I’m a little impressed his parents have the patience that they do. I have seen them sometimes rather than yelling or smacking telling him gently that he’s a good boy and to share and showing their affection often, even on occasion removing him from the scene despite his rather hearty (and he is very strong!) protests.. Still last night I nearly blew a fuse when he was taking all their blocks into his backpack and Ethan was quite upset (he’s definitely more sensitive). So there were four or five adults huddled around trying to reason with this spoiled two-year-old and unwilling to just remove him from the situation. Meanwhile I was the only one who remembered the boys’ potatoes cooking on the stove before they burned. Another lady was there playing with her 9-month-old and she kept shaking her head. Apparently that’s the reaction most parents have around here and apparently also it runs in the family – his grandpa is tough, a fighter, his dad has been known to easily get in fights and his uncle in recent times beat his parents, the kids’ grandparents, not to mention his own wife and kid. Still I tell Jack he may be genetically predisposed but his strong character can certainly still be turned for the good.

The good news is Jack’s cousin in Fuzhou managed to secure us soft berth tickets for Sunday back to Beijing. I am very relieved about that! And excited it’s only a few days away. We’re trying to work out right now what we’re doing the last few days. The plan was to go tomorrow to Jack’s village, but right now Jack is very upset at his dad. He first wanted us to stay in the village in his “own” house, a complete dump, then to stay with another uncle, who Jack says his place is not much better. Jack wanted to stay with an uncle that has a nicer house. But his dad is on the outs with that uncle (as he apparently is with much of his family) and refuses to come if we do that. He tells Jack he should build his own house, and Jack says he would if his dad had ever done anything for him, but he sees all his cousins getting houses from their parents, not to mention just generally being raised well and gets upset that his dad expects him to do it for him. So now we are thinking we may stay where we are one more hot, boring day and go the village for lunch on Friday then head into Fuzhou to a hotel for the last couple nights. I cannot wait to get some peace and quiet, hopefully air conditioning, and not to mention Internet!

Speaking of air conditioning, I can’t believe we’ve lived over two weeks now in scorching heat with no central air. We load up on the icy water and turn the fans on high but it’s still unbearable. Still, I have to count our blessings that at least, except for a couple nights a couple times, we’ve had AC in our sleeping room. So at least naps and nighttime are comfortable.

Despite being really in the middle of nowhere (though not for long, a new highway is coming through), we have found one thing to entertain the boys. They love swimming in the river. We have to trust it’s not toxic, but most of the locals don’t seem to think so, swimming and washing their clothes there. We go in the evening after 5pm when the water is lower so we can pretty much wade all the way across. The cousin has inner tubes and little blow-up boat too they like to play with. He and another boy had been playing with us for a couple nights but we realized these festering sores on cousin’s leg were getting worse and suggested he shouldn’t come anymore. I gave them some antibiotic ointment and bandages but not sure they’ll really use them. The kid is covered in injuries. When I had to drag him downstairs to his dad a couple nights ago when it was bath time for the boys, apparently the trumpet he had in his mouth cut in his mouth. I felt awful since I didn’t even realize at the time. I went to check on him later after Jack told me and everyone just pooh-poohed me – “oh, this happens all the time”.

His grandparents seem to appreciate American medicine more. I gave them a bunch of ibuprofen when his grandpa, Jack’s uncle, had a fever and headache (spends too much time cooking for us, then also tending to his mother who apparently is a fussy eater and wakes also at night demanding food). Apparently it helped though he also took some Chinese medicine. I hope he doesn’t overdo it. Still he was taking more today for some other pain and asking about what kinds of things you can get in the States, like for nerve pain and such. I told Jack that was a strong as you could get without seeing doctor. Jack told him my mom uses Chinese pain patches for her pain but he hasn’t found them quite as effective!