爷爷/Ye ye
At the local public playground in Changping, we are often surrounded by children tended by one or more of their grandparents. One yeye in particular is fascinated by my kids. I see him chuckle at Brigid shaking off all well-meaning assistance as she deftly scales the playground equipment. He also finds Myles a curious creature, a little foreigner, waiguoren, that talks with his friends in (broken) Chinese. Most importantly to me, he never tells me my kids are under-dressed for the weather.
He has tried to talk to me a few times. Though he seems to understand me when I speak, he doesn't speak Standard Mandarin. That is very common for people of the older generation. His dialect is difficult for me to understand, and I try to translate in my head into Mandarin and then into English. Standard Mandarin is based on the Beijing dialect, and yet, here we are not that far outside of Beijing and the dialect sounds to my ears completely unrelated to Beijinghua. Yeye often resorts to pantomimes, as he did when he asked me for pictures of Myles and Brigid last fall.
I had forgotten about this over the winter, most days too cold or too polluted to head out to the playground anyway. Spring weather has allowed us more regular visits to the parks, so we've run into him again. He asked about his pictures again earlier this week, so I snapped a few new ones with my phone. I told him in Chinese "Thursday" and hoped he knew what I meant.
Thursday afternoon I stopped on the way to the park to get the pictures printed. On the playground I kept watch for him, and saw him sitting on a bench, waiting for us. I handed the pictures to Brigid and prepped her " 爷爷,送给你," meaning roughly, "Grandpa, give present to you." He was delighted, then Brigid gave him an unprompted peck on the cheek. She waved, and then ran off to the slide.
It is very tempting, especially when we are so close to leaving for our summer US trip, to be driven crazy by every. little. thing. and allow my response to every. little. thing. to fill up my blog. To fight that urge, I need to record the good moments, too.
He has tried to talk to me a few times. Though he seems to understand me when I speak, he doesn't speak Standard Mandarin. That is very common for people of the older generation. His dialect is difficult for me to understand, and I try to translate in my head into Mandarin and then into English. Standard Mandarin is based on the Beijing dialect, and yet, here we are not that far outside of Beijing and the dialect sounds to my ears completely unrelated to Beijinghua. Yeye often resorts to pantomimes, as he did when he asked me for pictures of Myles and Brigid last fall.
I had forgotten about this over the winter, most days too cold or too polluted to head out to the playground anyway. Spring weather has allowed us more regular visits to the parks, so we've run into him again. He asked about his pictures again earlier this week, so I snapped a few new ones with my phone. I told him in Chinese "Thursday" and hoped he knew what I meant.
Thursday afternoon I stopped on the way to the park to get the pictures printed. On the playground I kept watch for him, and saw him sitting on a bench, waiting for us. I handed the pictures to Brigid and prepped her " 爷爷,送给你," meaning roughly, "Grandpa, give present to you." He was delighted, then Brigid gave him an unprompted peck on the cheek. She waved, and then ran off to the slide.
It is very tempting, especially when we are so close to leaving for our summer US trip, to be driven crazy by every. little. thing. and allow my response to every. little. thing. to fill up my blog. To fight that urge, I need to record the good moments, too.
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