Rockstar and I enter the lift after taekwondo one day…
Local mum: (In Cantonese, eyeing Rockstars taekwondo tunic sans belt) What belt is he?
Me: (In English and Cantonese) Yellow.
Local mum’s son: (In English) Huh! I’m green-blue already!
Local mum laughs sheepishly and exits lift with kid, without saying anything further. Subsequently I bump into her several times while chasing after Little Miss and she is equally sheepish and politely so, and so I figure Ok, They Really Don’t Mean To Be Rude, Kids’ll Say Anything Right?
One day we’re in the lift again… Rockstar’s not with me, thank God, especially since her boy is.
Me: (thinking: Donotrespondinkind,AileenDonotrespondinkind,Aileen) Hi.
We exchange niceties, and then…
Other Mum: Oh you’re Malaysian. I thought you were Japanese. What nationality is your husband?
Me: Malaysian too, but he can pass for native, his Cantonese is that much better than mine. Neither of us can read any chinese though.
Other Mum: I see, I see…. Your son doesn’t look like you…. But I’ve seen your daughter, your daughter does….
pause
Me: So… how old’s your boy? (Figuring ok, I can ask direct questions too… I’m curious because he’s almost the same height as Rockstar, maybe just an inch taller, and Rockstar is in the lowest 1-2 percentile for height, of boys his age, which makes me automatically assume her boy is at least a year younger. Yet he is apparently a green-blue belt. To get to Green-blue he would’ve been tested on at least 3 Taegeuk patterns of 16 steps or more each, which is of course unusual for a not quite-5 year old. Rockstar’s good friend who is 6+ is a green belt (one step below green-blue) and she’s already the most senior of their friends….. which Rockstar tells me the boys find pretty cool, I might add… In other words, Green-blue for a not-quite-5 yr old is pretty high…)
Other Mum: 5 and a half.
(Which is still high btw, is that why she asked us what belt Rockstar was the moment we got on??!)
Other Mum: Yours?
Me: Not yet 6… His birthday’s around Christmas.
Other Mum: OMG he’s not 3???
When I blink she adds “Well ok, at the most 4, but really I would have thought 3+…..”
Sigh. Mental note: Do NOT get on the lift with them especially if Rockstar’s with me. I might not be able to keep from having a Solar System or Evolution/ Extinction discussion with my 3 year old.
“Oh, you mean your 3 year old doesn’t discuss Evolution vs Creationism with you?”
Some conversations (and the motives behind them) are really best avoided….
Going up?
If her son is just an inch taller than Rockstar, why would the mother think Rockstar is 3 years old unless her son is much fatter, oops, I mean bigger in body size but not much in height.
And you look Japanese?
I think the photo of Miss Rockstar is very artistically captured with the right amount of light on her face. She has such expressive, smiling eyes! Can frame this photo up. So nice!
That’s the thing, he’s really not!!! They initially stood side by side in the lift, and they really were close to the same size. And she really said “three” yrs old ok… It just goes to show that sometimes we see what we want/ expect to see..
Also, her mannerisms and the way she speaks to me are really quite warm and friendly, just the actual words coming out are………………!!
Yeah no idea why she thought I was Japanese, that’s happened once or twice previously too but not often considering we’ve lived here almost 8yrs…