Happy International Day of Peace

Last Friday was one of Rockstar’s school dress-up days in honour of the UN’s International Day of Peace, happening across the world in another hour thereabouts. The batik shirt I sourced (because he turned in homework about traditional batik printing for the learning unit) however ended up not having any the colours of our country flag that I thought we were supposed to dress the kids in, so Rockstar went to school like this:

(sheepish) He knows the Malaysian flag is red, white, blue and yellow, but we realised on the day that his hipster Space Panda shirt was more lime than the right shade of yellow. And then… of all things waiting for the school bus, one of the plastic poles at the bus stop came off in his hands… Right after this pic was taken a bunch of boys started running about with it

Lots more boys were similarly casually dressed, but wow the girls went to town – beautiful Korean Hanbok, Chinese Cheongsams or Japanese Kimono, and all with their hair nicely done. Still, kind of outfit FAIL to me (but not him – agreeing to wear anything bright red is already quite a feat because if he could he would live in school uniform, navy blue-anything, and hipster phrases and pics – ergo he insisted on that baseball cap) so at least lemme make good with Rockstar’s first actual drawing of a Malaysian flag for school:

Think this was his first flag, back in Kindergarten… He was about 4, here…

He’d said (and school staff had written down) “Malaysia is very hot because it’s near the equator and the equator is near the sun…”

Now, international celebrations and cultural holidays tend to be extremely good learning opportunities in schools in Hong Kong like the rockstars’. Each year at a glance I would say Rockstar’s class has been made up of roughly a third Caucasian kids, a third Caucasian-Asian mixed kids and a third Asian kids. And that doesn’t include the Caucasian or Asian (say, Dutch + Australian, English + Kiwi, Chinese + Korean, Korean + Japanese) mixes that aren’t immediately evident until they tell you.

When they break out the Who We Are learning unit each year, it’s amazing what nuggets of information Rockstar comes home with, about his friends. (Last year some of the activities on their cultural day included chinese dumpling-making, and German story telling (think Brothers Grimm)). One of his current bus buddies is from Romania. Last year his bus buddy was from Colorado. He says he’s sitting at the same table with a new kid from Mongolia. His current daily bunch of buddies on the playground consists of Japanese/Korean, Aussie/British, Japanese/British and of course Indian, local Hongkie and Malaysian. The girl next door he sees most frequently is Korean/Chinese.

I trust it’s ok to say that in previous years some of us volunteers would get confused – one year a Caucasian mum matter-of-factly told me how her daughter always got mixed up with another blond-and-blue-eyed girl in class. “I don’t think it’s too hard (to tell them apart), mine is the chunkier one” (not sure about that part, but certainly some Asian mums admitted to having problems telling the girls apart)… Then, for a time there were these Indian and Asian kids who had this brainwave – when one of them got in trouble they would straigiht-facedly give the volunteering mum, particularly if she was blonde-and-blue-eyed, one of their friends’ Indian/ Asian names. Kind of like what twins probably do on a daily basis, but on a more erm, “international” level 😀 In that Ah, Parent Volunteer, Fresh Meat For The Lions kind of way :D. Not to mention, they kinda know who is less likely to be able to tell them apart haha. (Please don’t anyone take offence ok, none of the mums I’ve spoken to have ever found this less than amusing, maybe even a little endearing..)

Anyway I really liked the message in the school newsletter: