Polish and proud!

"He speaks Portuguese with his Brazilian father, Polish with his mother, he was born in Sweden and speaks Swedish, he speaks quite fluent English and now he's learning Mandarin. During my 14 years of work overseas I have never had a student like this. I would like to welcome on stage Vincent De Paula."

Vincent with his teacher and Amy

Before the parade

This is how Vincent's teacher introduced him before he gave him a Global and Community Appreciation award, during the assembly of UN International Day of Peace at school.

All children in their national clothes

OK, I know he speaks all these languages, I am used to it and at the same time amazed every time I think about it. But to hear Vincent's teacher saying that in front of all students, teachers and parents made me the proudest mother in the world. I stood there, with a smile around my face (literally), taking 100 photos per second and felt how proudness and happiness are filling every cell of my body. My boy, with his shy personality, started international school and found himself there in an amazingly great way.

"Dzien dobry"

But lets start from the beginning....

Today was a big day for kids at school, and for Vincent it was extra special. As a part of the celebration of the Day of Peace, he was carrying the Polish flag in the parade (as he is the only child in the school having anything to do with Poland), he went on the stage and said 'Good day' in Polish (all kids with the flags did that in their languages). Later he has performed with his classmates singing 'Hello world' and playing paper board guitar (they made them themselves in the school). And after that he received his award. His friend Amy also got one. She is born in Singapore and has Dutch parents. She speaks Dutch and English and is the true citizen of the world :)

Vincent was so relaxed and enjoyed himself so much that for a long time I couldn't get my eyes dry...

Racuchy z jablkami :)

After the assembly we had a food fair with food from all the countries represented in the school. All food was prepared or arranged by parents. You should have seen all the kids (and adults)  with their mouth full of all possible food :)

I shared a table with Slovakia and made 'racuchy z jablakami' :)

It was a great day! Now Vincent is sleeping peacefully :)

Vincent speaks Chinese

We are still fully enjoying Vincent's progress in speaking English and yesterday he has surprised me big. He started counting in Chinese, as it was the easiest thing in the world :)

yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba :)

Whitening not anti-wrinkle

Chinese women are not worried about wrinkles... They worry so little about them that there is no market for anti-wrinkle cream... When you go to expensive cosmetics store or to the supermarket, you have to look very carefully to find any anti-wrinke cream... When I asked about it, pointing at my very own wrinkles the girl didn't know what I meant...

What they worry about is to have a lighter tone of the skin... so you can find a lot of whitening creams...

And there must be something about it since it is very difficult to tell age of Chinese women. They all look young until they become very old and their faces are covered with a lot of wrinkles. And by then there is nothing you can (want) to do about it....

One-child policy

City Weekend has published information that 45% of Shanghainese  couples would not like to have more than one child even if the one-child police was relaxed... Children are seen here as an expensive investment...

One moth was enough

Vincent has been exposed to English since his very first days as we always spoke  English at home. Since some time we were noticing that he understand a bit of what we were talking about. But now the English issue became much more serious as he started the international school.

From the first day at school we could see that he was picking up a lot of words and expressions. He was asking about the meaning of words he heard at school.

But this weekend there was a break through... Vincent started speaking English. For the first time we had a conversation (all three of us) in one language :) We are used to hearing Vincent speaking 'foreign' language, but we felt so proud of him :) One month was enough for him to get going. We have tested him on various topics and he has impressive vocabulary as for 5 year old boy. He can even do the simple math in English :)

It is so funny when he initiate a conversation in English :)

Now we, parents have two important tasks to take care of:
1. Secure Vincents knowledge of Polish, Portuguese and Swedish.
2. Learn new language Vincent doesn't speak since English is not our secret language any more...

Two very bad decisions

When you move to a very different country with small kids (especially few months old) there are some things that you want to work without any problems. Before we left Sweden I was promised that Marcel will get all the vaccines according to Swedish schedule and made in Europe or US.

You can imagine my surprise when I found out during our visit at the doctor that two months earlier (exactly when we came to China) Chinese government has banned import of vaccines in order to support sales of locally produced ones... As for China, fully understandable, but as for me, a mother... bad news... A doctor suggested with a smile on her face that I can get all the vaccines I want in Hong Kong or Singapore... No comments...

Second bad decision was made recently by IKEA. They are limiting assortment in their food stores to only IKEA branded ones... That means no Kalles, no pepparkakor, no blue berry saft and more... The only hope is that maybe they will get suppliers for these goods that will brand them IKEA... Will you IKEA?