Andrea's Rambling Notes - once from Japan, now from Canada

::Andrea's Rambling Notes - once from Japan, now from Canada::

My notes and my memories: sometimes about a mom - sometimes about a wife - sometimes about a woman - sometimes about our life

::Author::

Name::Andrea
From::Small city/town, B.C., Canada
I am a short girl from the west cost of BC, Canada and I am a proud Canadian. I went to Japan in 2000 because my Dad told me I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't. He was right. I lived a good life found my husband from the other side of the world and have a beautiful daughter. Basically we lead a pretty normal life filled with normal ups and downs. We both come from different cultures: me Canadian, him Chinese. Living in Japan was a real eye opener about who I am and about the people I associate myself with. I lived and loved in Japan but the time to move on came upon us and in May of 2006 we left and moved to Canada: a huge move for us all. We are now trying to start up again, remodel our lives and create our future for our family. I now feel like a tourist in the country of my birth, my eyes see different and my life will be forever changed. This blog is my notes and observations of our life, our changes, our adventures and new beginnings. Welcome.
View my complete

::Recent Entries::

::Personal Links::

My Japanese Culture Teaching Notes

::My Family's Sites::

Alisha - a site set up by friends and family of my little sis

Phrax - my step-brother

Blue Mountain Stable

::Index::

An Index of past posts - the Japan Years

::Archives::

::Image Event Album::

My Image Event Photo Album

::My FlickR Photos::

www.flickr.com

::Tech Sites::

Tech2all

Blog Flak

::Extra Internet Info::

Canadian Atlas

National Geographic

Wikipedia

World TimesZones - please check this BEFORE calling me!

Currency Converter

eigoNavi - a pretty good language converter

The Samurai Appliance Repair Man - a funny repair site for N

::World News::

Generation Woman

Japan Times

Counter Punch

Japanese General Union - a must! read before working in Japan

::RSS Feed::

Blogarama

Buttons created with the Chicklet Creator

Sunday, November 06, 2005

An understanding glow

JiXiang has reached some sort of milestone in baby development: she no longer considers books a form of food.

It has been quite interesting watching her play by herself lately. She has been grabbing her baby books and has finally figured out how to turn the pages. I was beaming happy when I saw her do this for the first time. Recently she has been talking to the books and pointing at the pictures. She actually looks like she is telling her own story.

The other day I saw her holding one of her Japanese baby books and running her finger over the Hiragana (alphabet): she had this look of deep thought on her face. I pointed at the letters and read them out for her. She never looked at me, just kept running her fingers over the letters and talking to herself.

Lately she has been quite fascinated with one of her Japanese books. She has actually been fascinated with two specific pages: the title page and the first page.
It is a fairy tale book telling the story of the Bamboo Princess. I actually do not understand it all: it basically has to do with this poor old man finding a little baby inside a bamboo. He and his wife, both childless, raise the baby as their own and are very happy. When the girl grows into a beautiful young woman the local prince asks, demands, her hand in marriage. The girl refuses and turns into a beautiful white crane and flies away leaving a pile of gold for the old man and woman.
On the title page there is a picture of a bamboo shoot with a baby girl inside and a golden glow around her. On the first page there is a picture of only the bamboo with a much larger golden glow. JiXiang keeps running her finger over the golden glow and talking to herself. I have actually seen her flip back and forth between the title and the first page. I am actually getting the impression that she is wondering what happened to the baby from the title.

She has also been letting us read a book to her past the second page. Before she would try to eat the book before you turned the cover, now she waits a bit before taking over and doing her own turning. That or she gets bored and heads off to a different toy.

Yesterday I bought her another Baby Einstein DVD. It is the Numbers 1-5 DVD. It is designed for kids one year and over but I decided to buy it anyway.
She thought it was great. She was dancing along to the music and slapping the coffee table. Sometimes she would clap. At other times she would look back at you with this little smile and check that you were watching too. I am especially happy about this DVD because I can choose between Japanese or English language.
Li is now checking the Internet to see if he can find Chinese based ones. He was complaining that her baby babbles sound very Japanesey.

Return Home

Posted by (Top)Andrea::11/06/2005 :: 4 Comments:

Post/Read Comments

---------------------------------------