Ni Hao and a Short Introduction

Sandy, by the grace of Nothing, Queen of this Apartment, Lady of Kits, Duchess of Vancouver and the GVRD, and Countess of British Columbia, to her merchants, dentists, doctors, librarians, garbage men, cashiers, family and loyal friends, Greetings.

OK, so I'm not writing the Magna Charta. This is a just a simple blog by a homeschool mom to let my family and friends know what's happening with our family as we prepare to leave for Shanghai in January. Priorities at the moment are to tidy up and sublet the apartment, sell the RV, learn some Mandarin and try to keep the homeschool bus from running off the road while we prepare. All this before we go to Ontario for Christmas.

When we brought our daughter home from China in 1995, we vowed that learning about her cultural heritage would be a priority. We attended FCC events, celebrated Chinese New Year and, most relevant to our minds, enrolled her in Mandarin lessons at 5. How naïve we were! We know now that copying hundreds of thousands of characters does not make a Mandarin speaker. Nor does an enthusiastic teacher’s kind compliments and inflated marks on homework. If I could do it all over again, I would have started learning the language at the same time she did, but I was full of excuses. (Oh, I’m still learning French, or the Latin’s so much work already.)

Then last spring my husband, Sebastian, took a job mixing sound on a movie that shot in China and fell under the China spell. We tease him that he just likes the bargain shopping, but I know it goes deeper. He feels we can help to make a meaningful connection for Leila, as well as give her language skills a boost.

I know, some will say we are still naïve. But we are striking out for adventure and it’s never failed us yet.