Jonah's birthday

Today is Jonah's birthday.
We had a little party at the parenting Journey group, because I figured, he has the kids he's been playing with there already so might as well take advantage of the friends and the space.
And then today we are doing something small as a family.
We'll see how all that goes and we'll have more on that later.

It went pretty well! We invited one friend instead of having a great big party. We did build a bear, and the mall was almost completely empty, Which meant that the little playground was open to them. Plus we ran into this big bunny (a person in a suit) and from the pictures it would look like we hired someone. We got free balloons too. Then we went to California Pizza.

I was with Jonah for the build a bear thing. He picked out a tie dye Hello Kitty I didn't much care for.
"Is this the one you want?"
"Yes." He said very sweetly.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."

So Jonah ended up with a tie dye Hello Kitty with a Karate outfit. When filling out the name for the birth certificate Jonah picked YUI at first. But then he picked WER and other names that were the order of letters on the key board.
So I asked him what the name was and he said Hello Kitty, so that's the name we typed in.


Noah was with Grace and they came out with a rabbit in Captain America uniform named Peter.
I also had a stuffed bunny named Peter as a child (that Grace knew about.) and when Noah told me the bunny's name was Peter I asked, "Did you pick that name or did Mommy?"


Later on we went to Showa and did our usual dinner and playground, with English conversation. The kids are wild during the conversation, but I think the purpose is still served in terms of the SHowa students getting practice with English. However, my kids aren't learning Japanese or really even conversing with them. They just get all excited every time we go there.

On the way back to the car, Grace saw a rabbit. Actually the students saw a rabbit but it didn't move until both children came over.
Rabbits have a significance in our family.

Grace thought it was my mom trying to say Happy Birthday to Jonah.

The significance had crossed my mind, but I didn't put the connection together until Grace mentioned it.

In fact it wasn't until writing this that I put together the whole Giant Rabbit handing out balloons to us as a possible sign as well.

Noah's stick form

I took the kids to shoot bows and arrows. Their arrows were fine, in that they didn't really work. But mine worked a little better than expected so I quickly unstrung my bow. In the winter it would be cool because you can shoot right into the hill and see where it is. But in the spring there is too many weeds and poison Ivy plus a lot more people walking by. Not a good idea.
In any event when we got back to the house I was telling all this to the neighbor, who was serious about Karate in his youth, and while we were talking Noah grabbed the arrow and started doing stick forms with it. My neighbor commented that all the foot work was correct and everything had intent. Well almost everything. There were some parts where he tried to do something fancy that maybe he saw in a video or something. That stuff looked off. But HIS stuff looked great.

I talked about how if I tried to teach him a form, forget it, but he could naturally do this stick form of on his own. So long as he had a light enough stick.

Frightening Fours

Today me and Jonah visited many playgrounds. First was tot lot, where he played for a bit and I read my book even after I heard screaming whcih sounded like it was coming from Noah (who wasn't there) and upon looking at Jonah, he appeared to be happily waiting to get on the see saw. Then I saw that in fact the screaming was coming from a boy already on the see saw. He was yelling nasty things at Jonah and excluding everyone from the see saw. A girl played Bonnie to his Clyde. His justification for why only they could ride the see saw was he was four years old. Noah is also four years old. I sort of stepped in at one point, only to put Jonah on one of the extra seats and sit with him and telling Jonah he could play whatever he wanted.
They could play what they wanted, but so could he.

Would you believe it? This kid started calling my names and telling me I couldn't sit on the see saw. Usually the parent would step in by this time but they were clearly occupied, perhaps by another child or maybe just doing their thing the way I do.

"I bet your mom wouldn't like it if she knew you were acting like this."
"She can't hear me."
"Yeah but I bet she wouldn't like that you weren't being nice."
"Mom! Nope she can't hear me."

Whatever.

I took Jonah to the swings and said we would wait for the see-saw to free up. The kid kept calling me names, so I told Jonah that we didn't have to listen to people like that. It occurred to me that in real life, we Do listen to people like that. They are the Sharks, the Big Business, the Governments of the world. Taking this and that and saying that we can't have it because insert reason X.

At some point the boy got off the see saw and I hurried with Jonah to get the seat.

We made it there. But then that kid tried to come back and push Jonah off the See Saw While I was holding him.

Now Noah does this stuff with me. But I'm his Father. I thought he only dared do that sort of thing with me because he felt comfortable enough that, being his father, I wouldn't eat him like a demon in a children's story.

Oh wait, they have edited all those demons in children's stories to make them less scary. And I guess I give off that "safe cuddly Dad" vibe to everyone now. Which means children think they don't have to listen to me.

When I was teaching other people's kids Kung Fu in my 20's kids would listen to me. When they tried something like this, well the Kung Fu school was just starting to teach kids back then and I only ever hadone kids (who was not even a student) pull something like this because he was visiting from the suburbs where he probably had exposure to more males like the one I have become.

 I pulled a more clannish gang warfare type worldview out and he got right in line.


That is not what I did at the playground.

I simply listed all the things the boy had done that were wrong that I had chosen to overlook, and explained that I was about to not overlook this last one and that I would find his mother. His mother had already started walking over and brought him to give him a time out. He yelled at her too, much the same way Noah would yell at me. Everyone talks about terrible twos. Clearly there is some sort of Four year old issue.

Guess what. Every single kid in the playground now came over to the see saw because everyone had been waiting for that kid to get off.


I set up a twenty times rule. Twenty times and then we had to rotate. Bonnie was still not rotating.
Then Clyde comes back and starts flipping out that he wanted his seat, which was not occupied but a child other than Jonah and Jonah was waiting his turn. I tried to explain the twenty times rule and that his next turn would be in his accomplice's seat because she had already gotten three turns and hadn't given up her seat yet.

A couple of teachers were cracking up at Clyde's tantrum.

Turned against each other, there was a pause between Bonnie and Clyde. Then Jonah ran off to do something else.

"Okay you guys are going to have to figure it out. I have to go watch my son."

As I followed Jonah around another mom actually came over and congratulated me for standing up to a four year old bully. This sounds silly, but seriously what are you supposed to do in a situation like that? The kid has to be dealt with, but he's not your kid and he is also only four. If he were ten you could be a little more firm. If he were 13 you would probably call the police if reason didn't work. Which is why reason usually does work for kids as they get older. They understand potential consequences.


Of course adults don't block see saws. But they do bully in other ways. Like building a highway right through your neighborhood of non white people. And then they turn the law on you if you flip out. Or if you don't flip out, they make it look like you did.


So I guess we never really outgrow that stage as humans. But at four it seems to be the strongest. And that's where you have to learn you limits or learn why your not supposed to act like that (or learn that it in fact benefits you to act like that since nobody is putting you in check)

Well in the upcoming weeks, Noah will be spending a lot of time at the tot lot. So I will be able to see if he acts like that boy did around other people too. Or, maybe when there are more people like that around their ambitions cancel each other out. We'll see.

End of school

Today was Jonah's last day at his playgroup and tomorrow will be Noah's last day at school. Also, class pictures are coming up and the teachers said I could bring Noah back for that. I'm confused by the letters and choices because the dates are off to the corresponding days of the week and all the choices seem to be about portraits when all I care about is the class picture. We have and will continue to have a ton of pictures of Noah by himself. The whole point is to see him with all the other kids and post the thing on Facebook and then later when he is like 20 try and see if he can spot all his friends, and see if he knows anyone in those pictures still.

Well next week he won't be going to school. Noah doesn't seem either upset or excited about the idea. He seems excited that he will be going to big boy school at some point. I actually have a ton of stuff planned out fro next week and then after that I guess it will be tot lot most days, little panda on Wednesdays... it won't be that different from when he was in school.

Grace's Martial Arts dream

Grace asked me the other night if I ever dreamed about the children. I of course do and told her a couple of my dreams. She paused and then said that she usually dreams about work, even though she wants to dream about the children. Then after some more conversation she revealed her dream from the previous night.

Someone from work had taken them all out to dinner, but then kept leaving in the middle of dinner. And then everyone found out later that he kept leaving to go home to his apartment to do Muay Thai with dead people.

"What do you mean dead people?" I asked after laughing out loud. I should mention that the entire time she was talking to me, I was doing Kung Fu. Because I hadn't done Kung fU yet that day and I try to fit in some sort of work out everyday, even if it is a half assed Kung Fuing in the house while Grace is talking to me and while I simultaneously have to do other things. Because something is better than nothing.

She then blamed me for her dream.

I don't do Muay Thai. And I don't do Muay Thai with dead people. And I am not someone from work. I told her this. And I told her that technically, everyone in her dream is a version of herself. Furthermore, she hardly ever sees me do Kung Fu because she is either at work or downstairs with Jonah, or looking at her You tube videos.

"Yes I do. I see you doing Kung Fu all the time or I hear it. And I must be thinking how can someone keep sparring by themselves so they must be doing it with dead people."

Anyway. That's my story for the day.

Isaac Newton and Kung Fu

I got a children's biography about Isaac Newton at the library. I got it mainly because after story time I usually read Noah "an adult book" which will put him to sleep. That is the time for him to close is eyes and just listen instead of looking at the pictures and asking questions. But I think he finds the sound of my voice comforting.
But it turned out I just ended up reading this book for myself. And I am beginning to think that this children's level of reading is just better for me.

Anyway, I never thought about the fact that Newton is actually probably older than Hung Hei Goon. Think about that. And his personality was just not what they teach you in school. Probably because he was not about what is taught in school's. He was a lot like how Kong Ming was said to be, and he was a lot like the "eccentric master" from a Kung Fu novel.

He was weak and sickly but it turns out he could fight. In fact fighting a bully was sort of a turning point in his life. A bully kicked him in a stomach and Newton challenged him to a fight across the street.
Newton won and actually pulled the bigger boy by the ears slamming his head into the wall. Interestingly this is probably a perfect example of Newtonian Physics put into a combat application. The bigger moving body exerted force to move in. Newton probably grabbed him by the ears and side stepped allowing the body in motion to continue (helping him along with a pulling motion) until his head crashed into the wall where the bullies body became a body at rest.

Winning the fight was a turning point because he must have gained some confidence and after that was at the top of his class academically. (Socially people still didn't like him. But when you think about the fact that Newton was different, had no real family life, and how cruel kids are today. Just think about what assholes they were back then when boys impaled dogs up the ass with sticks for entertainment.)

Newton never turned out to be too nice either. He would send counterfeiters to the be hung and would watch them hang (he wasn't required to) so he must have liked to watch. But there's probably something scientific about that.

He was however, extremely moral in his own terms and extremely religious.

He's most famous for his works on bodies in motion and his work with light. But it turns out what he actually spent most of his time and effort on (and possibly gained Mercury poisoning doing) was Alchemy. And alchemy was illegal then too.

He is the one who invented the Scientific method. So when these modern martial artists on the shows from Hong Kong claim that that they take a "scientific approach" to Kung Fu, that Scientific approach is supposedly Newtons method. And I've met people like this through teaching so let me just say they are full of shit.

First of all they are full of it because they don't actually follow the scientific method. They just say stuff like "oh traditional martial arts are fake and superstitious. I don't like animal styles and meditation and chi gung are bullshit." Usually they sort of practice MMA or Wing Chun by themselves. I think the reason why they are usually from one of these two styles is because these are the most popular right now and therefore the most likely for someone dabbling in martial arts to be practicing. But then I've would never here someone who took a months worth of traditional Karate say something like that. I don't think it's the system, as there are many MMA people that value tradition and Wing Chun is a traditional martial art itself. And my "personal experience" is of course not a study and only a few people.

But anyway, if they actually took a scientific approach, they would be skeptical, but they would experiment with meditation and chi gung and the traditional methods. I've seen plenty of students like that. And after trying it and feeling the results for themselves, they might remain skeptical of higher levels but are at least convinced of the value of such practices.

Furthermore, when these guys are putting down "traditional systems" (usually they are talking about Hung Gar and often times they think they have White Crane all figured out and countered because of their armchair philosophizing or at best their experiments with their own version of a "cup" which is actually is more like them mocking and mimicking a bootlegged version of what we do) And of course they will have a ton to say about this system or that system and how they've got all that countered. Anyway, they don't realize that a) they aren't really employing the scientific method.

I haven't either. Because the method would not only be to actually fight all those people from other systems in a real fight. But what would that amount to? I mean how many fights can one person have? You would need fight after fight after fight. Now MMA is arguably actually doing this. The scientists wouldn't be the athletes, but someone spectating and taking notes. But their experiments are flawed because of rules, and because of the purpose of the UFC. I'm not saying they necessarily should do scientific experiments instead of matches for entertainment. Hands down other forms of combat like guns, bombs, computer hacking, use of money and propaganda are just more effective for war.

But let me take an example of stuff I've heard on the news about the U.S. military, an organization that probably does take a scientific approach. They've started introducing meditation into the Marines. All soldiers do drills that are a lot like forms (though not as fancy of course.) And they've started questioning whether some of the combat stuff they teach is actually harming their soldiers. For instance, a soldier can get a concussion training by being kicked or punched in the head with a gloved hand. They are "okay" after ward. But then their reactions are slower when a roadside bomb (IED) goes off a week later. So that concussion is actually putting their life and the life of others around them at risk. I.e. did they really need to get punched with a gloved hand? Was that "full force" strike actually necessary? Is doing something like push hands "too fake."

I'm just saying there is a reason why these thousands years old martial arts developed the way they did. And maybe doing push hands doesn't mean you are a great fighter. But there might just be a reason why people who practice that martial art lifestyle live long and are happy with their practice.

Back to Newton. The guy who created the Scientific method that a lot of these self taught masters are spouting off at the mouth about, probably got Mercury poisoning practicing Alchemy illegally. I'm not saying we should all go drink Mercury for fun. I'm just saying the father of Modern Science experimented with ancient forms of belief. Plus Chi Gung and Taoist body alchemy, has scientific data showing it is good for your health. At the very least, it relieves stress and improves circulation, even if it doesn't make you physically fly or live forever or able to throw Hadokens. So you won't come to harm dabbling in it they way you would, if you drank mercury. Newton wouldn't have put it down necessarily. Why are they?

And also Newton was probably poisoned and also did a lot of damage to science by being a jerk to other scientists and being petty about a lot of stuff. If you want to be scientific about your Kung Fu, go ahead. Try a lot of systems, or make friends with a lot of people  from a lot of systems. Listen and learn about their experiences. Share your experiences. But don't be a jerk hitting your wooden dummy by yourself, thinking you are the most brilliant person in the world. (maybe you are. It's possible. Unlikely but possible. Look at Newton. He was pretty damn brilliant.) But share your ideas and change them for the better when someone criticizes them.

The mending wall

Robert Frost wrote about a mending wall. I haven't read the poem since middle school so I haven't seen whether maybe there is some dark satire in the poem, so I'm just going to take the idea as is. That you need some separation from your neighbors to be good neighbors. I will have to say the same is true of family.
Maybe I don't spend a lot of time with Grace. But what she doesn't get is that I spend all day with Jonah. All his testing and constant need for attention. And I need some time where I am not the person having to give everyone their attention. And today we did that. Grace took the kids to Costco and I went to Church, where I just sat their taking my dose of opiate of the masses. I really did need some of that prescription. It works similar to my controlled psychological breakdown or Kung Fu rituals (not the same, but similar) with the added benefit that you can do this group prayer thing in public, everyone else is doing it, and nobody thinks anyone is crazy for doing it. In fact it is what you are "supposed" to be doing. Furthermore you are supposed to actually believe in Magic, God, Supernatural powers while you are doing this, and the whole time, again, nobody there thinks you are crazy because that's what the building and the organization was built for.
I needed that and I needed it without Noah crawling everywhere.

Plus there is the sermon. Which today (a day when there were a bunch of confirmations) was about God noticing the hard work and sacrifice you put in, and how hard it is to be a parent and what not. Ding ding ding. I needed to hear that. And actually at first I was like, "bullshit" at the notion that there is a supreme being that notices my work that I put in (which is mostly just patience and taking (trying to take) insult and disrespect without losing my temper) which finally I did lose anyway. But then I thought, "wait, I came here to a Church. And that's what I need. To believe that God is taking notice whether it is true or not."
Plus whenever they bring up Jesus's preaching about sinning in your heart I know all about that, and it is good to hear about Jesus in a calm way acknowledging that there was a lot of pent up hate in me building up and not going anywhere. And then the preaching about love. Have I been loving Grace in my mind? And that loving your neighbor (wife family children) not only as yourself, but Jesus was saying that you should love them the way he loved us. (Not historical Jesus now. The story, true or not.) The love of a God sacrificing himself for us out of love.

Oh yeah.

If Jesus can take that brutality, I can handle a few slights and disrespectful tones and still love the person doing it.

Now, to try and do this all the time, is not only not easy, it will also lead you to have a break down (a real one) most likely. That's why you need that weekly shot in the arm where you just sit there in Church (in the dark, just like the woods) and close your eyes, listen to the priest doing the bell thing, smell the incense, and if you can get communion. (which I can't) and go to confession (which I can't.)

Well Grace is back. Time to get the groceries out of the car.

Controlled Psychological Breakdown

Last night after "Parenting Journey" Grace was telling me a story on the way home about something she heard on the news or saw on Facebook. Jonah does not like it when I talk to other people and started talking over Grace to get my attention. From past experience I knew that I would get yelled at by Grace were I to tell her that I could not listen to her story. Plus Jonah's doing this annoys me. So I yelled at Jonah to Shut up. Then Grace yelled at me. After we parked in our space at home it quickly escalated when Grace told me to dig some Tuna fish Noah had spit into my hand out of her clean Duncan Donuts coffee cup and why had I put it there in the first place and don't dare throw the styrofoam cup away.
I yelled at her to ask me to do this nicely.
"Do it!" So I slammed the door and went inside.
She then left the kids outside and told me I better get them or else.
I got them out. I decided that either we all had to go to sleep right now, or I had to leave, because the situation was just getting worse. She was really pissing me off and not letting up at all.

"You can leave now or leave in six months you take your pick!" So essentially I was being thrown out.
The only reason why I am here is for the children and it seems they don't need me. I just wanted to walk around a little bit. But my mind went right to a friend of mine (though I was not a particularly good friend to her at all) who had walked around late at night and finally threw herself into  the harbor.

I was out walking and pondering this moment in some one else's life.
I saw cars passing by and my anger tempted me to jump in front of them and be hit.
Not "to end it all" or "to give up." That's when I understood how violent suicide really is. Or at least in my mind at that moment. It wasn't something passive. It was an angry wave of emotion. In the past I would have gone toward downtown and started an argument with someone or hoped someone would pick a fight with me. If I was a pirate from hundreds of years ago I would just go on some sort of raid and kill a bunch of other people. But right now, in my stay at home dad situation, there was nobody to blame but my own temper and nobody to inflict harm on but my own body.

Luckily I am a coward and did not throw myself in front of anything. Plus I have no desire to die.
But I knew that something was going on and I needed some sort of ritual death and ritual rebirth.

A grave.


I decided then and there that instead of walking around the pond, I would walk to Forest Hills cemetery, meditate in their by my parents grave for the night and then come back when the sun rose.

But walking towards there I already regained some of my sanity.


I decided on a compromise.
I would not move out (willingly)
Instead, as we had talked about before, I would try to be an EMT. Except instead of waiting until Jonah got into Public school, I would start training now, and try to become and EMT within 3 months and put Jonah in day care. Hopefully Little Panda. And hopefully my salary would pay for this day care. I would work nights, so Grace would never see me anyway. Thus it would be as if I had moved out, without moving out.
Plus I would be like a ghost haunting my family instead of being there. A compromise.


Well I don't actually remember how to walk to the Cemetery so when I saw a sign for Arnold Arboretum, I went in there instead.

There was more to that night but that will have to wait for the next post, as Noah seems to be bawling right now after fighting with Jonah.
***


So I went into the Aboretum and walked through a dark path. That's really what I needed. Most paths a lit by street lamps, and I don't want to walk off a path and get lost. So I needed somewhere I could walk, not get lost, and also be enveloped by darkness. I was angry but now also sort of scared. Not sure of what. Maybe I thought I was doing something wrong. Well the truth is I didn't know where I was going. The path ended up being much shorter than I had expected and the street didn't have a sidewalk really.

I turned back along the same path and found a rock on the side of the road. I would just meditate here. If I had been crazy enough I would have required the whole night until dawn. But very quickly I felt myself calming down and going back to normal.
The truth is I used to do a Kung Fu ritual like this every night. I would go out into the park and do Kung Fu in darkness and go into that other state. When it was over I could come back home and resume normalcy. Except that I had to discontinue this because Grace could not handle both children. One would wake up and want me etc etc.

But tonight I had actually been thrown out. So in a way I had been given what I needed. That time to practice Kung Fu Meditation by myself in darkness without someone, either one of the kids or Grace, either yelling at me, or insisting that I speak to them at that very moment. When I did this every night, I would be able to put up with a lot more crap, because I could just release all of it there.
Why was I forced to stop when Grace had made it clear tonight that she could indeed take care of both children?

Well it became more and more clear that working nights is probably the answer to the problem. A much easier and practical solution than the feelings that had taken hold of my thoughts earlier.


I meditated there for a while. A crowd passed by singing songs. I wondered what I should do. Should I hide or just stay where I was? What would their reaction be when they saw me? Fear? Teasing? Would I have to fight?
My right foot had already fallen asleep. I broke meditation opening my eyes and dropping my hands, but remained sitting there.

The reaction of this crowd of good natured people out having a good time was just that when they got close enough to seem me they stopped singing, and whatever they seemed to be thinking they remained silent. There were a few other solitary walkers as well. For them I did not even break meditation but just listened to their footsteps get louder and then softer.

I suppose it was silly to think I would have a confrontation. But when I used to work out at night on the Boston Common, their were crowds that would choose to yell something stupid. And then when I challenged those in the group that had spoken they would back down. Not everyone in the group was like that.
But nobody in this group of people was like that at all.

Maybe it is a difference between someone doing Kung Fu and someone meditating too.


After a while, the mosquitoes found me. And I had already mostly returned to normal thinking. And so I just started walking home. I hadn't even been gone an unreasonable amount of time.

But I have been conditioned to feel nervous about leaving the house too long.

In fact, even before I had kids, when I would walk Gordo, Grace's bull dog, whom I disliked and whom Grace was too lazy to walk, I would often try and do some Mein lay jum in the park while the dog did it's thing.

I would often get phone calls with screaming tirades about why I was still gone.

The truth is, I was thinking normally, but I was still pretty angry. I had started walking home. But that didn't mean I was ready to be there.


I passed by some grass clippings in Yard Waste bags. I actually needed that as cover for the compost.

I decided to take a bag home.

I carried the thing.

It was heavy. I had to stop to rest it on a trash can often.
This was crazy. I was doing a crazy behavior. People who saw me would think I was crazy. I guess the fact that I recognized that this behavior was crazy, meant that I was not completely crazy. However, I found value in what I was doing. Not only did I need that stuff to layer the compost. The fact that it was heavy gave me something to exert strength  and anger on. And carrying a burden of waste was also symbolic.

I was having a Controlled Psychological Breakdown. I was doing crazy things, but I was doing them to prevent uncontrolled crazy things so that I was making a controlled symbolic ritual to save myself from myself.

Wandering

Today I thought I had a dentist appointment scheduled. So I didn't let Jonah do playground or play at home or do various other fun things because we were on a schedule, to be at the dentist, for me, and for him to be asleep. But it turned out that the appointment is tomorrow. And then Jonah was asleep. So where do i go? I figured I would head to the tot lot and get Grace to pick up Shao. But instead of the skies clearing up, they got cloudier, so I headed back into Chinatown and decided we should just seek shelter for the rest of his nap. It is so strange that after we finally found a comfortable seat at BCNC, warm, and quiet, what does Jonah do? He wakes up.
Well enough of my bitching, but I am more tired today than usual. Not physically. I am just mentally tired of my children today. Of their questions. I'm not sure. I don't feel guilty like other parents do for saying it. I'm just tired of it and I need a quick break. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it;s allergies. Maybe it is all the doctor type appointments and running around. Why am I tired now that the thing is out of Noah's ear?
Not sure.


Well maybe I should write about more positive stuff. Like how we made a rubber band ball mace today, that you can shoot. How we dyed more Easter eggs.

Oh yeah the house is messy as hell because Jonah is into everything. Much more than Noah is. Wait I just did it again.

Well positive note I got Noah do do a Kung Fu workout.... though threats were involved. But he did do it.

Papoose

Well Noah finally got that damn plastic googly eye out of his ear. It wasn't hard either, it just took a Papoose. What is that? It was a baby carrier/straight jacket with velcro with a logo of a baby Native American child wrapped up in a traditional baby carrier. ( I need one of these.) Anyway that restrained him and the doctor went in with a small plastic cone and a little pick. The cone first and, and then he stick the pick through the cone while a couple of nurses restrained his head. And then they got at the ear wax that was giving us so much trouble too. Why not?

So the answer for what a Pre-Columbian Native American mother would do if their child was dumb enough to stick a small hard thing in their ear (wouldn't be plastic but maybe a bine or a rock or something) is pretty easy. Everyone would have one of these baby carriers (apparently Papoose actually means the child according to Wikipedia.) So she would just do it herself.

Well that took 20 seconds, and so Noah ended up going to school today after all.

Chinatown adventure

Today we did a lion dance for the ground breaking for an affordable housing unit at Oxford square. Mayor Marty Walsh was a speaker and all the important people of Chinatown were there. My kids were dressed up in their little Lion Dance outfits. And I kind of felt like I was in a children's story book, where the protagonist goes to Chinatown, sees this sees that, does a lion dance, goes to dim sum, all in one day. Heck all in a couple of hours. I even touched base with somebody who knew my father and knew me and we sort of nodded to each other in the past, but the connection of whose son I was was never made. All this while the kids are jumping off the walls and then doing lion dance and then Jonah at one point was trying to fall asleep in my arms.

Mayor Walsh came up to receive the lettuce. I have to say again, that he is just a very like-able person. He makes you feel like you actually know him, even though he is the Mayor. I guess that's called Charisma.
But it's that sort of humble charisma that really gets you on his side. I guess you need that to be Mayor.

Yo-Yo Ma is actually like that too. And he's not even in politics. I guess some people have this quality and some people don't.

Well after all that, and Jonah trying to fall asleep while riding on my shoulders back to JP, he tried to rile himself up again at home. We watched some Peppa Pig and then we also watched Ben and Holly, which is a similar show I guess. The Nanny sounds like Ms. Rabbit. And finally, out he went.

His birthday is coming up. Plans are in the making. Not sure what direction we are going to take it yet. Jonah is sort of a private person I think, when it comes to parties.

And yes Noah's ear still has a googly eye in it. That will be tomorrow's adventure.

Showa students.

Yesterday I took Noah to see Frozen on the big screen at the Copley branch library. I had also paired my family up with students from Showa on Saturday, and our meeting ended quickly as Grace returned with groceries that were spoiling in the car.  So our planned meeting was Frozen at the Library. Since we arrived a little early we did get a little conversation in. I realized that one of the easier ways to converse in English, was for me to try and learn Japanese. Why? Because I knew I was speaking too fast in English and we had to turn the tables a little (just like in the Spanish conversation group) both to get me into the right mind set and to give them a little more power.
Obviously there are some cultural issues with not wanting to "mess up" or being "nervous" to speak English etc.
After trying to learn a little bit of Japanese, my mind was exhausted, so I wouldn't say that that session didn't have enough time for speaking. And Noah was jumping and climbing everywhere because he was sort of shy. I learned a few things. Library in Japanese sounds almost exactly like it does in Chinese. I think I forgot everything else but I got a little more feel for the language.
Mostly what I learned from this experience was the importance of not being afraid to speak Chinese to my son, and also that I should be treating Chinese as a Second, learned language (because for me it is and for Noah it is) instead of trying to do it immersion style.) On the way back from the Library I had a basic conversation with Noah in Cantonese. Although he doesn't have a lot of vocabulary he has a feel for the rhythm of the  language, from BCNC.
I tried the same thing with Jonah today, and he resisted more because he doesn't have a feel for the language yet. But it's good to start. I just realized that maybe I don't know everything in Cantonese, but we can try to start talking, start learning. So that they will have some sort of Base.

Well obviously me and Noah liked the movie, but more on that next post.

New work out routine

I've been getting up, doing meditation and some mein lay jum (in a way that is not difficult in a small space)
And then I've started doing this thing where I do 100 of a given basic move, and then get down and do 5 push-ups or push-up like moves. Actually the last time I did this full work out was a few days ago and I stopped when I felt that I had done a fair amount. I.e. I did not "push it" at all. But I was still tired for the next few days. I mean sore.
Does that mean I will be sore tomorrow?
I guess doing this is good for my purposes. One would think that I would want to go outside and work out in the nice spring weather. I used to do that. But the thing is, I have allergies. So when I do spend time outside it is usually to just sit there, or play in the sand box, or just enjoy the weather.
In this way I actually enjoy outdoor time more when during the winter. When everyone else was talking about frigid polar vortexes, I was outside (as long as it was sunny and not windy) I mean that's the only thing that matters. Wind and depressing gray skies. Temperature is not really as much as a factor.

However now that it is so nice I have to force myself to go inside. I know from past years that staying out, having my children nap outside with all the pollen is bad for their health and also mine.

The only thing I regretted about my indoor workout was after I did a few rounds of basic moves I substituted the 100 times set with a form, and the jumping moves would have been better to do outside. But then I remembered all the reasons listed above (mainly pollen) why that is not as good as an idea as I may think it is.

Well Noah's plastic googly eye thing is still in his ear. But I guess thinking about it isn't going to help. (But forgetting about it, which is just as easy, won't help either.) On Wednesday he will see a specialist and hopefully they can get it out without sedating him. I've been talking to Noah about staying very still.

Dyed Eggs

For the last two days me and Noah have been making small amounts of Easter eggs. I'm not sure if you still call them Easter eggs if it's not Easter. But we're making them. Why? because he wants to and he gets all pissed off if I say he can't and I can't really think of a good reason why not to make them. Other than that we are wasting food. So I made sure we are only making a couple at a time. Which would mean we are wasting dye, but I solved that problem by just putting the dye in containers to be saved for later. I guess I didn;t do that on Easter because I figured I wouldn't be dying eggs again for a whole year. But since it appears we are probably going to be doing this every day, might as well save the dye.

We got into this because the egg dyeing kits Grace bought were found and ripped open. And I know that even if it wasn't ripped open, there is no way that we will be keeping track of that box until next Easter. So in  a way it will be a waste not to put it to use now.

Jonah is actually the one who found the box and said he wanted to do "Euster" eggs. When asked why he liked "Euster" eggs he would reply, "Because they DIE."

I think he means dye. But eggs are dyed, they don't dye. Or die. I mean at some point they are alive and can develop into chicks right. But does an egg die, or does a fetus die? How's that work? I've explained homonyms several times on the way to school.

Well I also find it hard to argue with Noah now because I know that thing is still in his ear. I had a few dreams about it. We are going to make an attempt to get it out on Wednesday from a specialist Doctor. They are going to try to do this without sedation, which I am happy about because I started getting anxious about that, and I really hope that he can get it out without being sedated. I've never even been sedated.

Misunderstandings of Chinese Medicine.

I just to point out that I believe in Chinese Medicine. Not only have I received treatments, but I have also given treatments for Teet Da as a an assistant. I lived with a Kung Fu Sifu as an aprentice for about a decade.

First of all Traditional Chinese Medicine is different than Shamanism. I'm not saying Shamanism is fake. I'm just saying it's different. Especially for teet da there are Bio-Chemical reactions going on between the medicine and your body, that shouldn't be that hard to understand... it's just that no big studies are being done on it that I know of... in this country anyway. On top of that, every Sifu has his own mixture of medicine. The mass produced stuff is different than the homemade stuff. And I'm sure there are some quacks out there. But there's also Western Doctors who may not have your interest in mind when prescribing certain treatments. People are people.


Also old terms like Air, Sand, and wind (hei, sa fung) being used to describe a symptom or something in your body, doesn't mean you should just laugh at it as nonsense or a belief in spirits. That's just lazy.

Now we've studied human body and microscopic organisms and bio-chemical reactions to the point where we have words like oxygen/respiration and fermentation. We know that there are particles in your blood stream called cholesterol and can build up and block your arteries giving you a stroke, and that there are different types of cholesterol. (Throwing around the word Cholesterol doesn't make you smarter than someone throwing around the word sand necessarily. It's just a vague name of something in your blood.)Wind cannot necessarily hurt you by itself, but the germs and pollen carried in that wind can make you sick or cause an allergic reaction, as well as weaken your immune system so that you can become sick from something you already have.

Just in the same way that we know the Earth rotates, instead of the sun traveling around the earth. But that doesn't mean that every time someone says Sunset we start laughing and calling them an idiot. We still use the same terms but we have a better understanding of their causes.



All that being said.



Chinese Medicine isn't magic, in the ancient sense of the word. It cannot perform Miracles, in the ancient sense of the word. In most cases it is important to treat whatever you have from both perspectives and also look at the strengths and weaknesses of both systems. I wouldn't get surgery to put plates on my broken ankle, because I knew my Sifu's treatment could take care of that. I didn't have Faith or Belief. I just knew that the Doctors telling me I needed plates were either sketchy, or they were ignorant. And I was back walking around within a week and a half. It wasn't a miracle. I understood exactly how it worked and I felt it work.

But when a Doctor in high school said, "oh this thing on your ear looks funny maybe you should get it taken off. Or we could just take part of it off and test it."

I said, "take the whole thing off and then test it." that way I don't have to visit twice. It ended up being just a birthmark and not cancerous. But why take the risk?
Now of course that is a small part of my ear. If they wanted to cut my entire ear off, I would need more evidence. Maybe I would try some alternative treatment first. Maybe. But Cancer is a scary thing. It's better to do what the Western Doctor says and then go to the Chinese Medicine Doctor for help in recovery, or lifestyle changes for prevention. And most Doctor's from both systems should agree when it comes to cancer.

Any Chinese Medicine Doctor saying you don't have to listen to a Western Medicine Doctor when they say you need to have a tumor removed is full of shit. Any Western Medicine Doctor who says that lifestyle, diet, herbal supplements and chi gung exercises are not helpful is equally full of shit.

(of course there are Western Doctors now saying that your men's prostate shouldn't always be removed just because it is enlarged or has a tumor on it. Not all tumors are the same and the affect of the surgery might be more bad than good. But a Doctor of Chinese Medicine would not know more than the general public about something like that, and at most would ask the patient to get a second opinion from another Western Doctor.)


Even if someone believes they could heal something, maybe, without a surgery. If surgery is just easier, it is simply not worth the risk of not having a surgery.



Chinese Medicine is traditionally against surgery because look at what type of technology they had to perform it back then? Surgery is risky and it's getting riskier now that there is antibiotic resistant bacteria.

 But sometimes it is just necessary and shouldn't be avoided.

Device addiction

Last night I had a dream, and part of that dream was being on some sort of device and looking at social media. I used to dream about flying. Now I dream about Facebook.
This isn't the first time it's happened that I close my eyes and I see a screen. But it's the first time it invaded my dreams.
Technology has affected our dreams for a long time. People back in the day used to dream only in black and white in the U.S. and think that's how dreams were, not realizing that it was because their televisions were in Black and white. As a child I had dreams where we were cartoons and where I would switch characters and camera angles. Stuff that could only happen when you are watching television. But I never dreamed that I was watching television.

I did a lot more social media than usual yesterday. I think it's because I'm trying not to think about that damn googly eye thing in Noah's ear. It's not too much of a big deal right now, but eventually it has to come out and I just wish it weren't in there. The Doctor's were unable to pull it out because of Noah's moving, and I held him down pretty good. But we don't want to puncture his ear. We were going to go to a specialist on Monday and they were going to "try" but they couldn't even get that earwax out of his ear let alone this plastic thing, so Grace suggested skipping to the last option which is to sedate Noah.
Basically everyone always says, "Oh no, you'll see. We'll make him nap, we'll get him to pee in the potty, we'll get him to hold still, we'll get that thing out." And then later the professional of whatever profession will look at us (usually me) and say, "Oh wow he's difficult."
But a moment before everyone is thinking how "easy" Noah is.

Anyway, he did try at the Doctor's office. It's just that when it came to putting the thing in his ear he couldn't bring himself to hold still. So I've been drowning my sorrows (or annoyances rather) in Facebook, Twitter, and anything else. Only there's really nothing there. I guess I need to move on to harder stuff. Like novels or Religion.

Sticking things in your ear

Grace was looking in Noah's ear last night and suddenly I hear, "Ehhh! Did you stick something in you ear? It looks like one of those googly eyes!."
You know, the googly eyes that you use for arts and crafts at school.
"No! Stop talking about it!" Noah said. and when asked why he did such a thing just kept screaming, "I don't know!"
My heart sank because I knew right away that he must have stuck something in his ear at school.... because when I was around four years old, I also stuck something in my ear. With me it was a food pellet for a guinea pig. My mother couldn't get it out so I had to go to South Cove. They couldn't pull it out because it kept crumbling and so they eventually had to use a drill and then wash it out, At first int tickled, and then later it was quite painful. They had to hold me down because I though I really tried to stay still, it was difficult to do so.

But Grace has the tools already for taking things out of your ear so we did one attempt. But Unlike me, Noah will not help us in this matter at all. In fact I suspect he stuck that thing in his problem ear because it was itching or because he wanted to end Grace's nightly explorations by solving the problem himself, with a googly eye.
But he didn't understand at all that while ear wax can be treated over time, with oil and flushing with water, that he had really gotten himself into some trouble now with a plastic googly eye that has no business in one's ear.
"Can't we just do a little bit everyday?" he asked parroting my protests at Grace's previous over zealousness with the ear wax.
No.
After much attempting at reasoning, and Grace's belief that she could indeed get it, I held him down, legs clamping his arms like some strange MMA jujitsu hold, holding his head to my chest, gently but firmly in a loving embrace a la Fedor Emelianenko, and Grace went for it, but it was no good.

So today whenever the Health Center opens, I will have to call them and see if they can do something about this Father-son foreign object in ear curse.

Busted Lip

Today Jonah and I stayed at the Acorn playground, because it was easier, because it was cold (and that playground retains more heat. Jonah likes going down the slide head first. But that is against the rules at Acorn. So Noah was forcing him to obey those rules (or trying.) Basically Jonah went down the slide many times head first. Or what you may call head first. He actually went down hands first. Finally Noah decided to go head to head with him by coming up the slide and striking him. Now Jonah needed to block and some how in the process managed to get his hands underneath his body and went onto the floor face first.

Pau paus and teachers freaked out and scolded me, because he was now bleeding. I was not as concerned to tell the truth. Maybe teachers are inherently more afraid of such a thing because of legal reasons. And I got an earful about why I shouldn't let him go down the slide head first.
But the truth is there are slide you can do head first and slides you can't. And he has gone down that and many other slides head first since before he could walk, without incident. So to me it is not the fact that he was going down head first, but Noah's interference.

Now of course, if I was a teacher, I would tell all the children that they are not allowed to go down headfirst. In fact, as a teacher I had a lot of rules that kids hated. Walk in a straight line, stand still over here. I would even drill them at going up and down stairs safely until they could do it.

And my kid (Jonah) was in the mix with other kids that I was not watching. And I wouldn't allow Noah to do head first, nor would I allow him to do something else I would normally let him do that the school doesn't like. But Jonah is not really reasonable like this yet. And one way to learn or find out, why there is a rule for going down a slide feet first, is to get a busted lip. Though I'm sure he will continue to do the slide head first and I won't discourage him.


Similarly, going up the slide is always fun. And when he is by himself, I let him do it. But when there is a lot of kids around, or especially a school at the playground, I don't let him do it. Even if there are other kids doing it. Because it ruins the whole function of a slide. But when you have the playground to yourself, a slide can function in more than one way. And it's good to know there are different cultures to different playgrounds, and even different rules for different times at the playground.

Anuway, Jonah was embarrassed by his bleeding, so we went from that playground to the Tot lot, where he actually fell again on a children's bench. Usually such clumsiness means he is tired, or weak, or sick. And mommy did say that he didn't sleep well because of the heat (which has turned into cold). But we stayed there for a little bit and he is moping around saying he is tired now, but at the same time he won't go to sleep.

I think he is beginning to go to the phase where he doesn't necessarily have to nap. Or I should say, is able to stay awake even though he should nap. Yesterday even the stroller method did not put him out and he didn;t pass out until 3pm. (That could be another reason why he didn't sleep well. Well we'll see what the afternoon brings.

Mother's Day Outing

Luckily for us, Grace's idea of a special Mother's Day Breakfast is for her to make it for us and then watch us eat it. I'm not making it up. That's what she likes.
After that the plan was to go to Faneueil  Hall and walk around and eat lunch there. We did that. We also went to Body Worlds. I think it was worth it because even if we didn't spend that long in there and it was expensive, from my experience I believe it is possible for a short experience like that to make an imprint on Noah or Jonah's memory. I.e.  they may become Doctors because of that money. Maybe.

Plus it was Grace wanted to do and Mother's day was the name of the day.

I remembered one time walking around Faneueil Hall as a child and I was "being bad" or whatever and my mom actually took me into the middle of the crowd and started shouting, "Child for sale! Who wants to buy this Child." I pulled away and ran off into the crowd. It took her a couple minutes to get me. She said she couldn't believe I would do that. But when she said she was going to sell me, I believed her. Why wouldn't I?

I started telling this story to Grace because Noah and Jonah were starting to "be bad." This are is an incredibly easy neighborhood to misbehave, especially if you are following a woman around. I have been here with my kids before but we go around all the shopping. I'm not going to buy anything so I don't even look or give the kids the opportunity to want to buy something and not have the opportunity. However, women love to shop and then not buy anything.

There were a few toys that Noah and Jonah wanted and I realized that Jamaica Plain is almost a completely different society than these touristy places. Noah started playing with the display shouting, "Share! Share! Share!"

Basically anytime Noah usually sees a toy, it is at the tot lot or some other playground or station at the Wake Up the Earth Parade where he is allowed to play and possibly keep whatever is there.

Moving into this tourist commercial area was difficult and even foreign.

At some point way passed their lunch  they were melting down hard. Grace even tried to carry Jonah on her shoulders for a while so I could carry Noah. I told her she had to take off her earrings. And actually Grace did carry Jonah for a while.
"Look at me." She said. "Look what I can do."
Of course she should be able to do this given the fact that she used to carry adult women in Lion Dance lifts. But for some reason she had never attempted to do so with either child. But then after a while she had to stop and somehow we got home and took naps. It was nice but when it is not Mother's Day, there is a lot to be said for JP's local playgrounds.

Mommy

We love our mommy because she gives us hugs,
and cooks us yummy mommy food with love.
And night she holds us tight to dry from baths,
And in afternoons she snuggles us for naps.

We love our mommy and the shows we watch
together as we hide in blankets underneath.
We love when mommy comes home from working hard
to give us cheem cheem kisses on our cheeks.

We love our mommy for these things and more
Always we'll be your shao bao and dai for sure.


Happy Mother's day

From Shao Bao and Dai Dai

Lost Wallet

Well yesterday on my way to the parenting class, while sitting on the train, with Jonah kicking and playing "baby" I guess my wallet fell into the seat. This is not the first time this has happened. But other times Noah happened to see it and grabbed it, or a passenger saw it. But this time, it was lost to me.
Everything was in there. My cards, keys, I.D. and some money. For some reason I still believe that someone will try to return it to me. But the thing is if they mail it to the address on my ID. Well there are three addresses I think. My current address is just written on the back.
Or they might turn it in to lost and found. But Lost and Found is not open until Monday.
Here is why I don't believe it is gone. The only useful things to another person in that wallet are the cash, the bank card was perhaps useful except I've already cancelled it, someone could try to steal my I.D. or something like that but, the license in there is already expired.. and then there is the Charlie card in there.
But the thing is the majority of passengers on the Orange Line Train are not criminals.

My hope is that someone saw it and will say, "Ooo look there is quite a bit of cash in here. I will take that as a reward for the good deed of returning this guys Library card and Charlie Card, which I could potentially use, but I won't because the cash was already a big enough score."

I mean it would be great if they returned my money too, but really I just want the other stuff in there that is pretty much worthless to anyone else. I mean chances are if you are riding the T you already have a Charlie Card right? So why take another one.

Watching versus not watching

Today we visited the "orange playground" by Jackson square, because it is a good playground to visit when it s cloudy and might slightly. Not if lighting is a risk (because it's mostly metal but it does have a roofed section, and also you don't want to go here when it is sunny because you will be cooked.
Jonah has some trouble climbing the rigging inside a prison like cage. At first I helped him but then realized he could probably do a lot of it himself now. At one point he could not get down from a certain section, but I saw that he was close enough to the ground that, while I'm not saying he wouldn't be hurt at all, I'm just saying he wouldn't be injured. At worst I think he could hit his chin, lips or face by sliding down too quick. But that didn't happen. What happened was he kept almost getting down and pulling himself back up out of fear.
I realized that were I to try and make him do that as an exercise, he wouldn't. But fear was preventing him from just jumping down. At the same time, it was making him continue to strengthen the muscles needed to get down more smoothly. So I left him there doing that for quite a while.
"You have to help me," he said.
At first I only would help him by giving him advice. He could either climb all the way forward and just go down the slide. or shift his hands back and drop down. He could get hurt, but not injured doing that.
Eventually I went up there and helped him down.

Then after climbing down a little farther he reached a similar situation, only now he was so close to the ground that not only would he not get injured, there was really no way to get hurt.
This time I would not help him and at one point I actually turned around and started walking home to see if it would help the situation. I thought he would take some time and eventually get down. But he actually just got down right away after I took one step. So was he struggling only because I was watching?

I guess parental support can inhibit you, but I didn't expect that to be true at age two.

The Sword and the Poop

I started reading "The Humanure Handbook"  by Joseph Jenkins. We already compost vegetables scarp but to ge tour household to do something like this I would need everyone on board including our neighbors who we share a yard with. But let's just say my eyes have been opened by what I have read so far. I sort of thought when our pee and poo goes into the sewage system that it got processed to be used for something, like fertilizer. But it doesn't. And after reading about the process of composting "humanure" I'm feeling guilty and as if I am losing something every time I pee and poo in the toilet. Like I am flushing something very valuable away. Which apparently I am.
But I want to finish the book and see if a composting toilet is feasible for us before trying it. I'm not saying I would completely switch over to composting only all at once. But it would be nice to start small and see where we go from there.

Maybe we can compost some of the paper we are always throwing out too. And then maybe we can grow our own food.

I had just finished reading Eiji Yoshikawa's "Musashi", and hadn't gotten a chance to write about that. But there is a section in there where Yoshikawa's fictionalized Musashi uses his Way of the sword, to farm a seemingly unfarmable plot of land, and then he also organizes the villagers to protect themselves against bandits.

This struck me as interesting because most of the Kung Fu Lineages may trace back to Shaolin Temple, but there is a long time spent among farmers. I.E. a romantacized Musashi travelling to a romanticized Chinese Village, might find that the villagers were already training and had a vital Martial Arts system or indeed systems. In fact a lot of my Sifu's system is from the Village Kung Fu, and has a story of a traveler, who passing by, saw the villagers practicing Kung Fu so hard, and decided to stay and teach a stick form. And then later, another traveling Martial Artist passing by, would do the same thing further enriching the Kung Fu soil.


Anyway, a lot of people talk about the "modern Samurai" or Wuxia Hero, and what you can do to save the world now in these times. And reading Jenkins' book I get the feeling that the single most important thing you could do is to compost your own poop.
The first time a heard of a compost toilet I thought it was the same thing as an outhouse or that the "humus was the same thing as night soil. I wasn't against it, as I remember my 2nd grade Chinese School teacher talking about how in China, poo and pee was cherished for making particularly vibrant looking flowers. I just figured their must be a reason why we stopped doing that. And there is. Night soil spreads disease. But "Humanure" isn't Night soil. It's much more like dirt. Jenkins explains the process of how it is broken down.
I can't believe we went from night soil, to the system we have now, instead of night soil, to composting it. I guess we figured out how to flush things away before we figured out the microscopic process of how composting works.

But anyway, it looks like if I really aspire to take up the Zen Martial Way that is prevalent throughout a lot of Chinese and Japanese Martial Arts, then the way to do it is through poop and there are already people (like Jenkins) doing it. But I have to finish the book first. Wouldn't want to do this the wrong way and spread disease or attract rats.

Selling Mandarin

Noah stayed home yesterday because he had a bit of a cough. Despite my past experience I thought for some reason that if he stayed at home he and Jonah would be able to rest more and shake it off easier. But of course they didn't nap and they went to bed late because Grace was on a trip to New York.
In any case we went to the local playground aka Northern Moh Goon aka brown playground aka Kaft family athletic center.
There were a ton of Mandarin grandmas there watching their kids so I introduced myself and started trying to sell my Mandarin-English Conversation group. It was hard. I just don't have the vocabulary.

And then there was this elderly white couple, who were Jehova's witnesses going around speaking Mandarin to everyone as well. And the woman's Mandarin was good. Fluent. Like from China fluent.
After she was done with her talk I approached her to see if she would be willing to work together. But of course she didn't have time (or a need) for a community group outside of her Church. I was thinking that  maybe she had done some missionary work in China but actually she just picked up the language from taking one class and then being in the Church group with a ton of native speakers.
So I asked if they offered Mandarin classes at the Church. (This is the way many Chinese Immigrants converted to various flavors of Christianity in the past, or so I have read.) But the class is actually only for the people who are going to go door to door.

Now I have no qualms being a Catholic and a Buddhist and a Polytheist/pagan and an Atheist. But I don't want to be a Catholic and a Jehova's Witness. When I told Grace's parents first story of a African American Jehova's witness coming to my house to look for "Adam Cheung" expecting an elderly Chinese guy, Grace's mom just talked over to me saying, "No no no no, please do not go to Jehona's witness" I'm not mispelling that, for some reason she kept pronouncing it like that. "Please please please do not ever ever go to Jehona's witness. When they come to mommy's house I always say, 'No English' like that."
Well I guess they have stepped up their game and learned Chinese now.
I talked to Grace later and apparently she and Mrs. Cheng had gone to a Jehova's witness meeting and the description sounded crazy and just something I wouldn't want to get into. I've only ever talked to them on the street, so I was not expecting to hear Grace's description, which sounded like other sects of Christianity you see on TV. If I had been raised in that tradition, cool, but seeing as how I wasn't nor were my ancestors, I see no reason to start doing that sort of activity now.

The elderly couple gave off a very mellow and wholesome vibe by the way and were very nice. What I was thinking was maybe I should use my Catholic Church to try and get Noah and Jonah to learn Mandarin there either by starting to just go up and talk to Mandarin speakers, or by starting a discussion group if there isn't one already. They do seem to have some sort of school for Chilldren. But I have to see how long it is. Noah can't even really start it until he is 6. And I'm all about studying Mandarin informally. I really did not enjoy my time at Kwong Kow. Not because of the people, but just because of the structure. So I see no need to put my kids through that.

An Awkward Black Joke

I was taking Noah to the Library to watch Monsters University on their big screen for free. As we went to the front there was a crowd watching a group of street performers. They were sort of like break dancers or gymnasts. One was a fourteen year old black teenage guy, and his fellow performer was a twenty  or older teenage white guy. It was the part of the show where they were getting people from the audience and a white child of about 6 or 7 was out there. Most of the audience was white.

Part of most shows like this is black jokes. A part of that is to get the mostly non-black audience to laugh and relax. "Don't be afraid we won't rob you we're just dancers." There is a bit where one guy will hold a purse and pretend to run off, "Stop we don't do that... anymore" That sort of thing. The same jokes are circulated, who knows since when.

This black teen was particularly short, and young to be sort running the show himself. He had that awkward pumped up look of a teen that is usually shy but is performing. Something I have only been able to notice now that I am thirty. (when I was 15 I could not see it, perhaps because I was still in that stage.)

"Now kid, don't move. When I was a kid I was called up here as a volunteer from the audience and I moved... and now I'm black." hahahah I laughed. That joke was for me. The non-black member of the majority non-black audience. "Do you want to be black." At this point the kid is supposed to shake his head and obediently not move.


Only the kid nodded. He did want to be black. There was even more laughter and only then when the joke sort of backfired and the teen running the show was at a loss for words did I even notice how racist that joke is. This is not the 1990's. There are racial issues. But we do have a black president. And we are at a multi-racial point in America when I don't think any light skinned blacks would think of "passing" but instead choose to represent all of the races they are made of. I scanned around to the black people in the audience. I saw two men. One opposite me was laughing and clapping his hands. I shouldn't do this because I'm bad at it, but I will. If I had to guess his ethnicity. I would say he was Haitian and that he had been in the U.S. no more than ten years. I .e. he was raised in a majority black society. Has he gone through racist experiences? Of course. But he probably spent his childhood not even thinking about white people.

 The other man in a different part of the audience looked like he was born and raised in America. He looked like he wanted to say something to the teen running the show. Explain to him how that joke is harmful to his people. That sort of thing.

It's interesting to me that had this joke not backfired, I wouldn't have felt awkward about it, because I have heard it before, but usually the performer was in his forties and had a raspy voice. It seemed sad for a 14 year old to have to use that joke. Actually that's the point, he didn't have to. And didn't realize he didn't have to. It made me re-evaluate my racist-o-meter.

I actually left after that, I felt so awkward. If I wasn't with Noah I might have stayed, but I just realized what he was hearing was bad for him. But too late. He started asking me, "Why does that little boy want to be black?" and "why would he turn black?"

He didn't know anything about the concepts the joke was based on.

"Do you want to get the full answer to that question Noah or do you want  to watch Monsters University? The full answer is very long and you have to listen to the whole answer."


He didn't. He was just asking. I wasn't dodging the question. It's just that he started asking more questions when I began my answer.


I had forgotten about this incident until I saw a post about the Leslie Jones SNL skit on Facebook.
I was going to write something about that (and I still might) because I felt really awkward watching that the first time and had to actually turn it off, until I read through Leslie Jones' responses and forced myself to watch the skit again.

But W. Kamau Bell wrote a response that is just better because it's his job to do so.

www.wkamaubell.com

Children's museum

So I took Jonah to the Children's Museum today, because I had reserved a pass from the library. Unfortunately I didn't realize that pass was only for half price. But Once you get to the door, of course you are going to pay rather than not go in.
Jonah had a lot of fun, but I noticed the stuff he liked the most were things I could probably make at home with a little bit of effort. Like golf balls and ramps? Maybe I can't make it out of metal (I mean someone can, but I won't.) But cardboard tunnels will suffice. Plus then they could build it.

I mean I like the children's museum, but is this stuff better than the stuff at the playground? At the tot lot?
It was worth it to go this time. But Wake up the Earth was even better I think, and that was free. Something to think about.

Plus when you pay you feel like you have to stay longer. I like the relaxed feeling of being able to leave whenever you want. Plus when I don't pay for a ticket I tend to buy lunch somewhere. Luckily I packed a lunch this time, and I suppose if I took Jonah to a restaurant it would be around $14.00. But if we got Pizza or baos, it would be a lot cheaper than that.

I asked him on the way home if he liked the Children's Museum better or the Science museum and he said he liked the Science museum better.
"Good!" I said. Because the Science Museum pass of free, And I also feel like he is learning more at the Science Museum too. The experiments at the Children's museum are good too, but when you get a lot of kids, they aren't really experimenting. I guess what you learn about more is Chaos theory.

There was also this Japanese drumming ritual group happening. They performed and also showed a video of the ritual in Japan. Jonah wasn't impressed. But I thought it was cool and also remembered seeing a family in Japan dressed up in the outfits for a similar festival/ceremony. It took until today to feel sorry I had missed whatever event that family had been going to. (They were clearly coming back from it.) Because while I was in Japan, anything we saw was already like a festival to us. But now I was like, "shoot I wish I had seen the real thing when I was there."

I can see why Jonah wasn't impressed though. Japanese rituals have a very ancient and serious feel to them. Austere. Where as the Chinese Lion Dance drumming Jonah is used to, is louder, more colorful, and since he is part of the group he even gets to go into the head.

But for me it is interesting to see how another culture does their drumming. So even though I do some sort of drumming all the time, and the group at the museum today was doing something more tame, and slow, with flutes and sitting or kneeling down, I was still interested in watching it. But in the end, we are at the museum for Jonah so we went back to the golf ball room. Honestly that's all he cared about.

Well I guess me and Noah and Jonah will try to construct something tonight.

Percussion Work Out

Yesterday we went to the Wake Up the Earth Parade. We brought our cardboard flat faced Lion heads. Noah paraded for most of it. Jonah started off and took a break in the wagon later. Then we left the parade early to check out the other activities. I always like the home made drums made of barrels and buckets that they put out. This year they also had this giant steel cage looking thing with cans, bells and painted cupcake trays hanging from it. Noah dressed in an owl mask he made at another station and two drum sticks went around hitting everything. That's actually what you are supposed to do. But I noticed was Noah was hitting everything pretty hard and cuts and thrusts were part of his routine. He was doing Kung Fu Percussion. It was pretty awesome. But I was worried that eventually he would actually hit another child. He came close a couple of times but seemed to be able to stay in control of his movements despite the fact that he was wearing an owl's mask. In fact the first person to get him was Noah. This girl actually hit is owl mask on purpose. But Noah didn't pay any mind to that. He was too busy continuing to play. But I felt I shouldn't test our luck so I tried to get us to eventually move onto something else.
But he really could have stayed there hitting things all day.
I've seen training videos where they hang a bunch of stuff up for people to hit. But it's usually sacks or tires and some pieces of wood. But hanging stuff up that also make cool sounds has an added benefit to it.

Basically I really want to make one of those things somehow. It would make a great workout system. You could do pull ups, climb on it, and then hit all that stuff on it... I could work out on it. But I also just noticed that Noah didn't need any prompting to do his Kung fu moves on it. He just did it and probably could have kept going for hours.

Drumming Master

I was at the Stony Brook playground with Jonah and there was an older man playing with the plastic drums. I could tell by the smoothness of his slight and light hand movements that those were practiced hands that were masters of their art. The drumming sounded very African. And yes he was black
I tried to start a conversation.
"Where are you from?"
"Haiti."
We talked a little bit, but pretty quickly language became a barrier. We talked about the event tomorrow, the fact that a lot of people in this neighborhood like African drumming and that maybe he should teach. We talked about various Carnivals in Boston, and about kids and even about cars a little.

But it was hard to make myself understood and I found it hard to understand him. He doesn't perform drums anymore but just plays piano at church and it occurred to me that drumming in his culture might signify something more than just drumming. Or maybe I was just misunderstanding everything.

I thought it would be cool to hang out, exchange drumming cultures, or something like that. But I realized that there was no way we were going to hang out probably, unless we happened to see each other at the playground again.

When you are young you go out clubbing, traveling and hanging out and you want to meet young women and it occurs to you that you will probably not see this person again. At best you have a one night stand or some such event to remember. But then if you really do want to have a relationship with someone based on friendship and mutual interests alone, that seems to be even harder to create out of thin air. Except if you decide on a place and time where everyone goes at least once a week. I guess that's why people go to church.

But I suppose that's something I feel is lacking from the St. James Church. Music. And then even if you do play music, how do you do these cross cultural things? How would Haitian drumming mix with Chinese lion dance? Or if not the arts, then at least the people? Soon it was time to go home and make lunch so we said our goodbyes without even exchanging names.

Conversation, Kung Fu, Calligraphy

Yesterday I talked to someone from Hyde Square Task force about starting a Mandarin Conversation Group, and also a Lion Dance class to have a Chinese New Year celebration in JP. The more we talked I realized that it would be better if these classes were one class. But I've been racking my brain as to how to make a class like this in terms of schedule.
Hyde Square Task Force has so much set up already in terms of space, equipment and eager teens, that my mind almost starting going towards starting a real Kung Fu school there. But then I forgot the class has to be good for my kids, and I have to get what I want out of it (Me and my kids learning Mandarin) and focus on achieving the main visual goal, which is being able to do a Lion Dance Parade in JP.

One of the things about Hyde Square Task force is that the teen s actually earn a stipend to do the activity by going out and teaching others in the community. This is good because then I can teach a few people, and the classes where tons of people line up and do drills over and over, that can be run by the people I teach.

But my main point in writing this was to get my scheduling ideas onto paper. errr written down.


1. We should start with some brief meditation. Probably we only have time for a minute or so. Then do the breathing exercises. I should say, "let's meditate" and then a Mandarin speaker should then say, "Let's Meditate." and then everyone should then say, "Let's Meditate." I can imagine some people will think this is weird. So we might have to say it again and maybe each individual should say it by themselves. That way every one can be sure that we all know how to say that. I should say hands to the front, in English or Cantonese. And then a mandarin speaker has to say it in Mandarin. In any case, after a while, I hope to learn how to be able to run a class for adults in Mandarin by learning all this Kung Fu vocabulary.


2. Stretching and poses. Doing stretching and poses is a good way to learn body parts. Head to your Knee. Touch your fingers to your toes. etc. The thing about this class, is that the act of stretching or punching will be more about learning the words than about getting flexible or punching hard. 100 punches or palms should probably be done here so as to introduce the martial aspect of the class.

3. Welcome and conversation presentation.
Everyone will then go around and welcome each other (in Mandarin) to the group. If you don;t speak Mandarin, you will just have to repeat what someone else said, and learn how to say that. Hwan ying. etc.

4. Show and tell.
Every week we will present something to talk about. The first class we will present a lion head. Many classes we will present soem sort of Kung Fu move. But some classes we will also present something having nothing to do with Kung Fu. Restaurant Menu or something. But usually, we will do something having to do with Kung Fu. A technique of the day.


5. Splitting up into groups.
We will then split up into groups. Every group has to have one Native Mandarin Speaker. I suppose they will talk about anything they want. But I will most likely focus my conversations on something like Push hands, or Lion Dance, or a Kung Fu Technique. And it will be a physically animated demonstration. Whoever is in my group will get a lesson in Kung Fu (or will give me a lesson, if they happen to know Kung Fu.) But the conversation won;t remain on that subject alone. And again, the main purpose is to learn the words. I think Calligraphy and writing would be good for this section too. You can learn to write or talk about drawing or sketching with the brushes. Plus in a one on one type of environment, people are less likely to make a mess with the ink.


6. I guess at this point we will have to come back together and most likely a good amount of time will have past and class will have to end. The thing I'm worrying about here, is how will people learn how to perform the lion dance? Is there enough Kung Fu in this class? Maybe this ending section is a good time to do some free style forms (those that want to) and to play drums to accompany them.


I suppose that this same class, about two months before Chinese New Year will shift into being mostly about Lion Dance every class. And the Chinese beats will have to be learned. Of course all of these concepts will have been slowly introduced in the small group section of the class. That way the ideas will not necessarily be new to everyone. But will it work? Can you get a group of people to be able to do Kung Fu without drilling everyday? Why don't I have them drill every week for an hour? (Because my kids will not stand for that. And because drilling doesn't necessarily translate into being able to lion dance or to do forms.) Basically Everyone will have to practice on their own if they are going to get good. And hopefully the few that I teach, will be able to drill others.

Well, I'm pretty sure, the group will enable us to learn some Mandarin, for some Mandarin speakers who don't speak English, to learn some English, and for a cohesive group to be able to do Something with a lion head in JP on Chinese New Year. And I guess that's what the goals are.