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.