Like many Chinese parents in Canada, we are trying to teach our kids Chinese. Like many parents, it is a difficult battle that is more often than not, a losing battle. There isn't a single kid I know who likes Chinese school. Most kids whose first language is Chinese decide to abandon it after discovering no one speaks it amongst their friends.
Chloe is no different. For the first 3 years of Chloe's life, we taught her only Chinese because we really wanted her to know her roots and speak multiple languages. All that hard work headed to the toilet after a few months of preschool. One day, she came home telling me "Mommy, stop speaking Chinese! I want English!" For the first few months of my maternity leave of my second child, she only wanted to speak English. I was thinking, "After 3 years of hard work and this is how it ends? I'm shipping you to China! That'll show you!" Now that I am less sleep deprived with the new baby, I am able to put the clamp down more and she is regaining some lost grounds in her Chinese. I have been telling her the value of learning Chinese because there are many countries out there where we don't know the language, but odds are that there will be a Chinese person she can ask where the bathroom is if she has to pee really badly. Also there will be a Chinese restaurant everywhere in the world so she'll be able to read the menu and order decent food.
I am hoping we can test this out by visiting all the Chinatowns in all the cities we go to in Europe. The kids are too young for travelling to China but one day we will make it there!
