Half Pint goes to Asia

It’s been years since I have read aloud to the girls, but I just finished reading a book that I enjoyed so much that I’m reading it to Julie and the girls at the dinner table each night.

In the Newbery honor book Homesick, Jean Fritz tells her story about growing up in Hankow China for the first fourteen years of her life. Born to American missionary parents, Jean longs to return to a country she has never visited. More than anything, she wants to meet her grandma, roller skate, and not have to sing "God Save the King" anymore at her British school.

The book offers a fascinating look into the world of mainland China in the 1920s. The book is alternately tender, funny, and heart-breaking. It reads like Little House on the Prairie: Asia edition.

It’s been particularly fun for us to read it as a family, because many of Jean’s experiences parallel what Julie’s Dad and his family would have experienced in China in the 1920s where his family also served as missionaries. Even though Julie’s dad Paul is twelve years younger than Jean and his family left when he was two, there are many similarities. Jean’s family spent their summers in Kuiling which is where Paul was born and lived. In fact, it’s quite possible that Paul was born in the same hospital in Kuiling in which Jean’s baby sister was born. It’s probable that the two families knew some of the same people.

If you are at all interested in reading up on China, Homesick would be a pretty good place to start. As a book written for young adults, it’s a quick read at 160 pages. Maybe you could even do it as a family read-aloud.

-Jack

Word Nerds

The Middle School Scrabble Club is up and running again for the year. I am pleasantly surprised by the amount of students we can get to turn out for Scrabble Club each Wednesday. Attendance is up this year.

Last year, we kept it really simple. Students (and a few teachers) simply showed up, set up boards and played. My colleague who helps run the club and I decided to try something a little different this year. We devised a spread sheet to keep track of the scores each week. We announced that we will have two winners in each grade level: one for highest average per-game score and one for the greatest number of accumulated points. This way, a kid with so-so scores each game can still win a prize by simply showing up every week and accumulating a lot of points.

We post the results on the classroom door every Friday morning. The response has been phenomenal. The weekly standings generate a lot of buzz among the students. Last week the sixth-grader boy who held the top spot for three week running was dethroned by fellow sixth grader Phoebe Lo. She currently holds a two-point lead.

Who said competition and education don’t mix?

-Jack

Man on the Pier

Show a Little More Concern

Show a little more concern Wish other's mothers good health more often

Hong Kong's Narrowest Soccer Pitch

Otherwise known as the hallway outside of our apartment.

Just when I thought . . .

. . . I might run out of things to post, I see this guy strutting and dancing his way down the Ladies Night Market.

Thank you crazy Fuzzy Suit Man with fresh dance moves.

Flash Mob

When my friend Tad sent me a FaceBook invite to a flash mob happening on Saturday meant to protest shark fin soup, I couldn’t resist. I even managed to talk my wife and daughters into joining in.

We –all 120 participants- met up at the fountain at the West end of Victoria Park down on the Island. Shortly after we got there, Organizer Dude got up on a park bench and used his megaphone to go over a few procedural items. Then he announced the much anticipated, previously undisclosed location where this flash mob would be happening: Time Square.

We all synchronized our watches and we starting making our way toward Time Square.

We each timed it so that we were walking through Time Square just before 12:40 and then –bam!- we all froze in whatever pose we happen to be in a that moment. All 120 of us. My buddy Tad froze mid-bite on his banana. Julie and I froze while I was pointing out something on the side a buildings. The girls were checking out Annika’s i-pod.

Pedestrians did a lot of double takes, stopped, and consulted each other. A lot of cameras came out.

We held our pose for precisely three minutes. At exactly 12:43 we all resumed whatever activity we had been doing just before we froze. We blended back in with the crowd and exited the plaza. It was all over just as quickly as it had begun.

It left behind more than just a few puzzled pedestrians.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYMnnh6GnDk&feature=player_embedded

Later that night, I was regaling my friend from Australia with all the details of our exploits. At the end of my story, he asked me if I’ve ever had shark fin soup. No, I had to confess. I’ve never actually had it before.

He told me that growing up in Australia in had it once or twice a week. It’s good, he said. You try a bowl, and let me tell you, you won’t protest any more.

Fair enough.

-Jack

picture: eating sharkfin soup may not be a crime in Hong Kong, but wearing that shirt in public certainly should be.