We don’t think we are being ridiculous.

Succumbing to the pressure of Singapore education system, spends all energy on stretching the kid, making sure the kid scores the highest possible marks, questioning the teacher professionalism when homework is scarce and when teacher doesn’t comply to the teaching norms (ie, more homework, more challenging syllabus, more notes, more worksheets and never try to go experimental about new teaching methods, more is always good). Ace the exam, gets into top school, becomes a scholar.

Or returning to Singapore every winter and summer vacation, put the child back into the primary school here for immersion before heading back to Beijing when school reopens for the new semester. No month long extended holidays, no academic stress, hoping the kid can excel too, somehow.

We certainly think the other person is ridiculous.

There is only one reason why the kids love going Chinatown - besides getting to eat fishball noodles and drink Ribena, they get to go to OG after the meals, heading straight to the 4th floor to get new toys. Why do I absolutely condone such behaviour, because I enjoy buying toys as much as they do.

Ultraman Mebius Phoenix Brave and Zero

And the next day, I found this adorable Scooby Doo metal candy box at Candylicious. Couldn’t resist not owing this silly dog.

Couldn’t believe my eyes when I opened it. $5 for that tiny packet of candy that couldn’t even fill one tenth of the tin, luckily I still got to keep that tin.

Primary 1 enrollment here in Shanghai is as crazy as Singapore if not more. Parents here buy property near key primary school （重点小学）, find connections, pull strings, seek backdoor, donate money or whatever within their means to secure a placement.

From what i have known, public schools here aren’t allow to conduct Primary 1 pre-enrollment interviews, unless approved by the state. However, private schools （民办小学）, international schools or international division （国际部) of public/private schools are free to do so.

While the interview is like one of the standard procedure when applying for international schools and international divisions, it is a really competitive and serious affair for students seeking a place in the mainstream education （中文班，local stream, local school）. Parents start preparing their kids by sending them to Maths, English, Pinyin classes to make sure they are able to handle the interview (and written test as well!).

Zeeyau’s class teacher also started preparing them from early this year. They have a short practice sessions in the morning where the teacher will ask questions like : Where are you from? What is your favourite food? Name 10 colours. Name 20 fruits. Name 20 countries. I had a shocked when I first learned about that. Can applying for primary 1 be so stressful and demanding!? Are the schools really going to reject the students if they can’t name fruits or tell you who their favourite author is!?

Took me some time to calm my nerves. I am sure the questioned posed will be simple enough for the kids to handle. However, I have heard from some parents that some extremely competitive school asked questions like “北极熊为什么不吃企鹅？”(why doesn’t the polar bear eat penguin) and also expect the 6years old to know additional/subtraction within 30. Well, that sounds demanding, but nothing surprising when you know that some schools recieved 800 applications for their limited 60 places.

As for Zeeyau’s case, she was asked questions like:
你叫什么名字？
你是哪里的人？
你在学校学习了什么？最喜欢学习什么？
11－3＝？
3＋4＝？
你愿意不愿意到芳草地念书？

Luckily this kiasu mom has been practicing basic additional and subtraction with her at home, else she would be stumped by those two maths questions. Anyway, I felt as long as the student is decent enough, can hold simple conversation and doesn’t require special attention/care, they will accept whoever applied. Well, all her classmates who applied to international schools or international divisions have been accepted by their choice school.

It wasn’t the imperial exam, but Zeeyau had to 上京赴考. Most of the private and international schools here (including some popular public schools) requires an interview before admission. We have registered Zeeyau with 芳草地小学 in Bejing. It is one of the more popular public primary school in the capital city, but we are applying for the international division, so getting a place would not be ridiculously difficult. Nevertheless, we still need to bring the kid for an interview.

The interview process was well organised. As we enter the school lobby, there was 2 staff manning a little reception table, ticking off interviewee’s name and informing us to proceed to the second floor. We were handed a formal application form at the next stop and directed to a classroom to have it filled up. After that, we have to go to the next classroom to submit the form, have the documents (passport, visas, etc) verified and also paid the 500rmb application fee (which really isn’t too much compared to the 1000-6000rmb+ elsewhere).

After that, the kids will be lead by a teacher to the 3rd floor for the interview. Parents weren’t allowed to follow, but the school kept us occupied with information with regard to PTA and school bus routes.

Anyway, Zeeyau came back like 10min later. The interview went smoothly and she has passed. So we handed the result slip back to the teacher in charge and were done with the process.

We were then given another piece of paper informing us to set up a bank account (within 4 days), have the school fee deposited into the account and leave the ATM card with the school, the school will deduct school fees from it in future. This method is so much better then having to bring a whole big stack of cash to school for school fees payment (we don’t have cheque here!). This step finalised the whole application and acceptance process and confirmed a placement in the school.

Stubborn, bad temper, a tendency to hit people when he got agitated, plus high school fees, we decided to keep didi at home though the school informed us that he could attend Okiki’s nursery 1 class (托班）last July. What if he throws tantrum in class, fights with the other boys, bullies the girls and refuses to take instructions from teachers? So no school for him until I am convinced that he is ready to behave.

After months of 悉心调教，Didi finally started his nursery 1 class on 1st of March after delaying it for a semester. He thoroughly enjoys his playschool and looks forward to it everyday, and no complaints from the teachers so far!

We visited a dermatologist today for a second opinion on Zee Yau’s nail. Her nail on her middle finger lacks lustre and is becoming very rough. Initially, I thought it was due to abrasion resulting from playing with sand. However, I realised that it has gotten worse lately. I had a GP seen her last week, he didn’t say much about it except telling me to keep her hands dry and said it will take a long time to recover. Zeeyau was prescribed a cream to apply. My guess is the GP himself wasn’t too sure what was wrong.

I wasn’t very confident about the GP’s diagnosis (or no diagnosis). My brother then recommended me to visit Dr Goh S.K. clinic at Paragon, saying that he is very experienced and charges very reasonably. We made an appointment to see him very quickly. True to what my bro. said, his clinic is really those no frill kind compared to the other clinics around that look expensive, posh, tendy, high class or whatever decor.

Dr Goh diagnosed Zeeyau condition to be the Twenty-nail Dystrophy. Following the diagnosis, he gave me a little education on the condition, showing me books and asked me to read the description of that condition.

He said such condition usually occur in childhood. Early symptoms are small spots on the nails, which will slowly join together to form longitudinal ridges that makes the nails look rough. He found small spots of Zeeyau’s nails and the badly affected nails fits the description of the condition. The cause of such condition is unknown, and there is no known medical treatment. Well, the good news is, it is not fatal and would not affect her health in any way. It might go away when she grows older, hopefully that wouldn’t take too many years.

I was told to stop applying the cream since it has nothing to do with fungus infection. However, Zeeyau wants to continue with it, believing that it will help her nails recover by Christmas. I told her it might take 2 or more Christmas before it will return to normal.

Two important reminders.

1. always bring the child to consult a doctor to get a more through checkup during emergency even if everything seems alright.

2. avoid letting young kids handle glass.

It was really quite a freak accident. 弟弟 and I were enjoying a bottle of juice and he accidentally dropped the glass bottle. The bottle broke upon hitting the hard concert pathway. Then he rubbed his right eye with his hand and begun crying in pain. I thought he was terrified by the shattering sound of the glass. As I dried his tears with a piece of tissue paper, I saw a faint stain of blood on the white tissue.

Damn shit happened. My immediate reaction was to send him to the hospital right away and then warned him not to rub his eyes any more . He stopped crying after a minute or so and I started wondering if his tears had successfully flushed out any glass fragments that had gotten into his eye. Should I just go home since he wasn’t in pain anymore?

Better be safe then sorry and always trust our ultra kiasu motherly instinct. We went to the nearby Ruidong Hospital and was directed to see an eye specialist straight away. The initial checkup didn’t show any sign of foreign objects in his eye. However, closer examination with proper equipment found a stray piece of glass .

She had it remove quickly and his corneas wasn’t injured in any way, just a little cut on the minor eye area. Thank goodness the little lad was sensible enough to heed my warning not to rub his eyes. The amazing thing was, the kid was in total compliance during the whole process. No crying, no fighting. He followed the doctor’s instruction to look to left, right, up down and could even keep himself steady while the doctor was removing the glass fragment. Imagine someone holding a cotton bud and tried to swab it on your eye. I think he was quite brave.

Anyway, that was our little emergency last Thursday.

Great Wall climbing day today and I have picked 慕田峪 to visit. Took us almost 3 hours to reach the destination by car as traffic was quite heavy.

Zeeyau completed the amazing feat of climbing up the steps to reach the great wall and continued effortlessly for the rest of the trek followed by more climbing up some more steps. 弟弟 climbed and walked and cried for half the journey and demanded to be carried every now and then I would have given up if there was a choice to turn back, carrying 弟弟 while walking up the steps was killing.

弟弟 climbing up the steep steps on the great wall.Getting down the wall was much easier as we bought the cable car tickets. Though it required more effort to reach the great wall by foot, walking down the long flight of steps with children will be too dangerous.

It is May day holiday today in Beijing. I guess it will be crowded everywhere, so the plan was to make a trip out of the city. Well, not a perfect plan as the Beijing city dwellers were having the same plan and some parts of the road was packed with cars driving out of the city.

We left the hotel early at 7.30am, so the traffic weren’t too bad except for a few bottle necks. James did the driving though I was against that idea initially, and it turned out to be a smooth and event less drive after all (thank God).

Anyway, we were heading for 龙庆峡, which took us about 3hours to reach. It was bloody warm and sunny yesterday, so we were all dressed lightly today. However, it was raining in the morning and there was chilly wind blowing. We were confronted with a 14degC temperature and cold wind when we reach our destination and James was without a jacket. Zeeyau was crying and wanted us to return home immediately. We almost headed back home, but decided to have an early lunch and wait for the weather to clear.

We had a meal of 农家饭 (err…country style meal), and their 柴鸡蛋 (range free chicken eggs) were really yummy. However, such simple, non fancy meals cost us around 200rmb. That was really expensive since we could easily have a meal in a nice restaurant for that price . Well, thanks for the meal, the rain stopped, the sun showered its warmth and we managed to make our way into the gorge.

Boat ride in the gorge, kids friendly and leg muscles friendly.

金刚寺, small temple, nothing special.

百花洞, or rather, 假花洞, ultra amusing cave full of fake plastic flowers. The kids found it interesting, we thought it was amusing looking at the plastic flowers, spotting buildings that were falling apart. The toy pandas even had the same expressions and pose.

No more kiddie friendly visits today. Forbidden city and such were off my itinerary as they were too touristy and crowded. Plans were made to visit 雍和宫，国子监，孔庙 in the morning.

Well, 雍和宫 was the former residence of emperor 雍正 and birthplace of 乾隆 and was later converted into a Lama monastery. Bringing children to monastery or temple weren’t a relaxing experience. First, they architecture didn’t interest them, secondly, they simply couldn’t follow the instruction not too step on the 门槛 (doorsill)。Anyway, the children disrespectful behaviour of stepping on the doorsill did not annoyed the monks or the Buddhas, instead, a friendly monk who was on duty to change the 供品 (offerings) gave the 3 children present an apple each. Oh, that attracted lots of attentions from the people around. The guide then told me it is considered great blessing to receive the offerings.

Next stop were 国子监 and 孔庙 which were just a street away. They were so much deserted compared to the other tourist attractions around. I hope the children could absorb some of the positive elements present at these educational institution but they clearly didn’t. They were more interested in playing with the wooden plaques (for blessings) hung around the institution. Zeeyau was tired and complained of leg pain and 弟弟 kept wanting to touch the relics on exhibit. I had to flee the various rooms before getting chased out of the premise.

James finally joined us in the afternoon for the visit to 恭王府(Gong Wang Fu). The huge and beautiful mansion was definitely overcrowded with tourists. The show at the 戏楼 (theater) was too short, too commercialise and lousy, what a waste of time. There was a long snaking queue to touch something, should be something to do with fortune or blessings. We weren’t keen in doing that and left our tour group before the queue start and wander around on our own. Well, no guided tour, but at least we didn’t have to endure the guide rattling uninteresting information into our ears.

We ended our tour with a trishaw ride visiting the 胡同 (Hutong, small lanes) 四合院 around 什刹海 (Shichahai). Many of these traditional Beijing houses were undergoing renovation or restoration. It would be interesting to live in such houses, though the floor area seems rather small.