My daughter attended Chinese schools in China, and US public schools during the few years she spent in the US. When I say Chinese schools, I don’t mean the expensive hybrid schools with dual language programs, I mean honest-to-God local schools where a combination of flattery and my obvious desperation convinced the principal to overlook my daughter’s US passport and admit her as just another local child. Thus, at 3, she was enrolled at a university kindergarten program, where she learned to dance and paint beautifully and to rock an abacus before she could count to 20 in English. However, I was concerned that she couldn’t speak any Chinese, as she refused to speak it at home. My students often came over to visit in the evening and they would speak Chinese to her: she would shake her head, tight lipped, and refuse to reply. Since I couldn’t speak Chinese, I couldn’t ask her teacher, the beloved Feng Mama, about Lulu’s communication skills. All I knew is that she skipped happily away in the morning to school, and was a bit reluctant to come home at 5 pm for supper. Well, I figured she was picking up the language, even if she wasn’t using it yet: I didn’t know about the silent period or much about second language acquisition, but since she was happy, I was content. All in good time, after all.
One afternoon shortly after her 4th birthday, there was a very loud knocking at the door of my apartment. I opened the door to find the owner of the corner shop standing there, looking both angry and contrite. A visiting student gladly translated: apparently I owed the shopkeeper 63 yuan (US$9), a huge sum at the time. He explained that my daughter was going to the corner store every afternoon and buying a bag of Wo Wo Jia Jia candy. She would squat flat-footed behind the store, eat a piece or two, then walk back into the kindergarten. Stunned, I asked how long it had been going on: about two months, he told me. What time? Every afternoon at 1 pm or so, which coincided with afternoon rest time. I was struck by a thought: how had she managed to buy the candy without money, since she couldn’t speak Chinese? And then the blow came: he explained that every day she told him the same thing in perfect Chinese: My mom’s a rich foreigner and she’ll pay you later for it. I earned 1,200 yuan (US$167) a month, which was four times what my Chinese colleagues earned, it was the end of the month, and I only had 70 yuan(US$9.5) to my name. Of course I paid him, deeply ashamed that my daughter had run up a bill, and that he had to wait for payment. It didn’t occur to me until later to question how a 4-year-old could sneak out of a kindergarten on a regular basis to go buy candy, but that was the charm of that time and place: it was so beautifully safe. There were no cars. Everyone knew everyone. Kids roamed around the closed campus like packs of wild dogs: if I wanted my daughter to come home, I just shouted Lulu, come home! Neighbors would pick up the cry, shouting Lulu! Mama says go home! And eventually, Lulu would show up, usually covered in sweat and dirt and wonderfully happy. I’m not sure there are many places left in the world where kids disappear outside for hours at a time to play freely, but this idyllic childhood interlude was one of China’s gifts to us. However, the freedom to walk out of rest time without being noticed – eh, not so much.
That afternoon I went to pick up Lulu: I noticed that she avoided looking at the corner shop as we passed by. Once home, I started cooking dinner while she sat on the floor nearby, drawing pictures of the Little Mermaid. I said as casually as possible, “So, I met a new friend this afternoon. It was the man from the corner shop. He told me you go there to buy candy every day. I owed him quite a bit of money.”
A horrible look crossed her face as she realized she had been caught out, not only for sneaking out of school and buying candy on credit, but for her Chinese language abilities. A torrent of language burst forth from her rosebud lips, at which point I realized that not only could she speak Chinese, but she could swear like a soldier in it too. I’m still trying to figure out how that happened.
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