Another school year has flown by! EB’s school holds an annual year-end program, and this year’s theme was “countries of the world.” It was quite cute, if a bit corny in a “let’s-all-hold-hands-because-we-are-unique-but-all-the-same” sort of way. Each student whose parent(s) were born in a foreign country dressed up in the country’s traditional garb and counted to ten in their respective languages. Here’s a picture of EB, dressed up in her Chinese chipao. She looks like she's about to go crouching tiger/hidden dragon on you, no? Next to her is her classmate, looking absolutely adorable in her kimono.
To add to the international flair, EB’s teacher wanted each student to hold the flag of the country that they were representing. Little did she know that this would invite a lesson in Chinese history from K. A few weeks back, she sent us a note letting us know that she was going to order a Chinese flag for EB. This prompted K to tell her that he would really rather not have her daughter wave around a flag that symbolized the Communist Party. When he saw a blank look on her face, he proceeded to explain to her how the flag came to be—the history of Communist vs the Nationalist Party, the fact that it was adopted in 1949 when the Communist Party took over, so on and so forth.
In the end, she ordered EB a Taiwanese flag, which was probably fitting anyway since that’s where I was born. We wondered if it would raise ruckus from other Chinese parents who may be "One China" proponents, what with all of the ongoing political storm going on. But thankfully all was calm, and we were able to avert an ugly international incident right here in Little Rock.
In other news: we are moving to Bentonville! I got a promotion at work and will be working on a large retail account whose icon used to be very smiley and whose name rhymes with “Bart.” It’s bittersweet for me-- Little Rock has been great to us, but work-wise it’s a great opportunity. Since I anticipate lots of craziness in preparation for the move, this will probably be my last blog entry for the next couple of months. I know that there will be many disappointed readers out there (*snort*) but fret not. I will be back after all the dust settles. Ta-ta for now.
