TV culture.
A long, long time ago it what seems to be a galaxy far, far away, I thought I would be the mother whose children saw little television, ate almost no refined sugar, and went to bed early, proper times after their nightly baths.
Stop laughing. I mean it.
As those all fell by the wayside, the one I failed at was the extremely limited television. I held out as long as I could. And then I needed to shower. Myles developed favorite channels, and favorite shows, much like any other American child.
Brigid was slow to show any interest in television. She didn't care to watch anything at all, not ideal when I still need to shower.
Suddenly, one day, she surprised us. We were in a local video stotre, looking for any interesting movies or American TV shows they might have in stock (which out here is really not that many). Never before had Brigid wanted even to look at the stacks of DVD, but this day she started rifling through the kids' videos. She found an set of In the Night Garden videos, and made it clear that was what she wanted. I played along, thinking that as soon as we got home and popped one in, she would be unitnerested.
She is, instead, obsessed.
At first we watched them only in English. Upsy Daisy, Makka Pakka, Iggle Piggle--all these characters' names entered her vocabulary as well as so many others'. When she pretended to talk on her toy phone, she was either talking to or about one of the characters. Certain episodes upset her so much I had to skip them, particularly those where Iggle Piggle loses his blanket. She screamed at the TV, "Piggle, Piggle's blanket! Piggle, Piggle's blanket!" as though each time she would help him change the course of time.
Then at some point, perhaps initially on accident, we started watching them in Chinese. She started to request it specifically in Chinese, saying "wu hao" and more recently "Chi-ese" to indicate her preference. Most nights, now, we watch one or two episodes, now talking about Wuxi Dixi, Make Pake, and Yigu Bigu. In Chinese the show is called Hua Yuan Bao Bao, and Brigid calls it that now. It's gotten to the point, too, that if it is in English, she pitches a royal fit. My defense of this, now, is that she is learning Chinese from watching this show, much as immigrant kids in the 70s and 80s in America learned from Sesame Street.
In so many ways, we lucked out that this is her first foray into watching a Chinese children's show. So many kids love Xi Yang Yang that I was afraid she would develop a devotion to that program. We have not watched many episodes of this cartoon, and none in their entirety. I've heard many foreign parents do not love this show. Regardless, we have not completely dodged the commercial aspect of Xi Yang Yang. The characters appear on all manner of merchandising from clothing to hair accessories to school supplies that even not watching the show Brigid has seemed to pick up an awareness of the characters. Her backpack, purchased at Jusco, she picked from among an assortment of Disney and Disney-esque character.
She has asked for Xi Yang Yang stickers and coloring books when we've seen them. Her soccer ball also bears likenesses from this show.
I wonder if she has picked up on a few things about our world here. She knows that there are two distinct languages spoken around her. She never speaks English anymore to our friend that drives us around, and seldom when we are out at the park or playing with Chinese friends. She speaks little Chinese in the home, save a few words she doesn't know in English. Could it be that somehow she sees the TV as an extension of the outside world? She doesn't prefer that we communicate with one another in Chinese, but does she ever want this show to be in Chinese. Myles' theory, by the way, is that the Tombliboos are less annoying in Chinese, but I think that is just how he feels about it.
The other thing that I find curious is that even though we have not seem more than a few minutes here and there of Xi Yang Yang she is somehow affected by the ubiquity of the characters and has identified this as something desirable to have. It would be a Mad Men success if that were true.
Stop laughing. I mean it.
As those all fell by the wayside, the one I failed at was the extremely limited television. I held out as long as I could. And then I needed to shower. Myles developed favorite channels, and favorite shows, much like any other American child.
Brigid was slow to show any interest in television. She didn't care to watch anything at all, not ideal when I still need to shower.
Suddenly, one day, she surprised us. We were in a local video stotre, looking for any interesting movies or American TV shows they might have in stock (which out here is really not that many). Never before had Brigid wanted even to look at the stacks of DVD, but this day she started rifling through the kids' videos. She found an set of In the Night Garden videos, and made it clear that was what she wanted. I played along, thinking that as soon as we got home and popped one in, she would be unitnerested.
She is, instead, obsessed.
At first we watched them only in English. Upsy Daisy, Makka Pakka, Iggle Piggle--all these characters' names entered her vocabulary as well as so many others'. When she pretended to talk on her toy phone, she was either talking to or about one of the characters. Certain episodes upset her so much I had to skip them, particularly those where Iggle Piggle loses his blanket. She screamed at the TV, "Piggle, Piggle's blanket! Piggle, Piggle's blanket!" as though each time she would help him change the course of time.
Then at some point, perhaps initially on accident, we started watching them in Chinese. She started to request it specifically in Chinese, saying "wu hao" and more recently "Chi-ese" to indicate her preference. Most nights, now, we watch one or two episodes, now talking about Wuxi Dixi, Make Pake, and Yigu Bigu. In Chinese the show is called Hua Yuan Bao Bao, and Brigid calls it that now. It's gotten to the point, too, that if it is in English, she pitches a royal fit. My defense of this, now, is that she is learning Chinese from watching this show, much as immigrant kids in the 70s and 80s in America learned from Sesame Street.
In so many ways, we lucked out that this is her first foray into watching a Chinese children's show. So many kids love Xi Yang Yang that I was afraid she would develop a devotion to that program. We have not watched many episodes of this cartoon, and none in their entirety. I've heard many foreign parents do not love this show. Regardless, we have not completely dodged the commercial aspect of Xi Yang Yang. The characters appear on all manner of merchandising from clothing to hair accessories to school supplies that even not watching the show Brigid has seemed to pick up an awareness of the characters. Her backpack, purchased at Jusco, she picked from among an assortment of Disney and Disney-esque character.
She has asked for Xi Yang Yang stickers and coloring books when we've seen them. Her soccer ball also bears likenesses from this show.
I wonder if she has picked up on a few things about our world here. She knows that there are two distinct languages spoken around her. She never speaks English anymore to our friend that drives us around, and seldom when we are out at the park or playing with Chinese friends. She speaks little Chinese in the home, save a few words she doesn't know in English. Could it be that somehow she sees the TV as an extension of the outside world? She doesn't prefer that we communicate with one another in Chinese, but does she ever want this show to be in Chinese. Myles' theory, by the way, is that the Tombliboos are less annoying in Chinese, but I think that is just how he feels about it.
The other thing that I find curious is that even though we have not seem more than a few minutes here and there of Xi Yang Yang she is somehow affected by the ubiquity of the characters and has identified this as something desirable to have. It would be a Mad Men success if that were true.
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