Taste of independence

The first days of school were an interesting experience for our boys: they joined the summer school where everyone speaks French only. Actually, that was the whole idea that they would be totally immersed in French for 5–6 weeks. The absence of anybody to indulge them in English ought to speed up the learning process.

When I brought them home the first two days, they feigned not understanding what I was saying when speaking to them in French. I capitulated after about half an hour of exchanges during which I spoke in Voltaire's language and they in Shakespeare's, but I could tell they understood more than they were letting on, and this was after just two days. I heard the elder child singing the cacahuètes (peanut) song to himself in bed one night.

My boys reported to me on their interactions with some of the other children: they already found out which of the orientals could speak Chinese, and which could not. They also reported that they were involved in a dispute with a girl over a toy frog on their first day, and began showing some misapprehension of blacks. I had to remind them to share, and that 'good' and 'bad' were uncorrelated with a person's skin colour.

After their second day, they complained to me that some black child(ren) were behaving very aggressively. Of course, this is all alien to a child schooled in Hong Kong, where 95+% are ethnic Han; there may be one or two Indians in my children's school, but no blacks. Furthermore, most Hong Kong children are very well behaved; teachers survey them like hawks, and playground bullying is usually nipped in the bud. Boys, being boys, will have aggressive tendencies. Away from the rarefied Hong Kong atmosphere, I hope they will understand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of aggression at the tender age of 4 and 6, so as to learn to handle their own disputes better in the real world. To that end, I am glad that they have both been learning judo. I always remind them it is not something they should use as a first resort, but something they can use, in extremis.