boooooks (for children)

Following some extended research on the Internet, I jotted down a few places around the city that I can take Declan (and Petra) to on the weekdays that will hopefully put more distance between him and the ever-entertaining TV. Today, it was to a small independent bookstore that's really a residential two-storied apartment converted into the first floor being the shop part that supports local artists/illustrators/children's book authors and the second floor being an open space to read and hold storytelling hours.

One of the best parts of having very young children is the renewed (and very relevant) interest I get to foster in children's books, especially the ones with fantastic illustrations. This little store that we went to today had so many great children's books. This is not always the case, as some people seem to think--judging from books I've stumbled across--that any bounded papers with scribbles or simply dumbed-down letters put together equals children's lit. Declan's childhood is too short and I am too elitist to linger over these, even though the international moves up to now have made quality English (and Chinese) books difficult to acquire without spending a fortune.

So today was a real treat, when after the crowded (the storekeeper said today was the most well-attended reading she's ever witnessed in her three years of working there) storytelling hour, the reader left her box of books there for parents and their respective kids to partake. Declan sat on my lap and listened attentively as I read out loud by his ear (it was really loud with all the kids). He only suspended his focus at the end of each storybook to run to the book box, returning the already-read book, and flipping through several more before picking out another book and running back to sit on my lap. Every single book he picked out was a winner--enjoyed by him, fun for me. I was so thankful that Petra could be held by my mom for a time to make that possible. With enough good books (and someone else to hold Petra), I could be content with reading books to Declan all day long.

There was one child who kept coming over to try to sit down by us and listen in on the story. I would have been fine with that; sadly, Declan wasn't. He grabbed the book away from the child and yelled, "No, mine! My book!" the two or three times the boy attempted to join us, shortly before the poor boy's mother yanked him away and hissed for him to stop misbehaving. (I felt so bad about that. I wanted to say something to the mom, but she seemed angry enough as it was. A part of me hoped she wasn't so harsh with her son due to embarrassment at having "troubled" us. Another part of me hoped that's the case so that it wasn't the usual way she treats her son. But then that would mean Declan and I were responsible for the boy being manhandled. Oy.)

I think I'm finally getting the hang of how to expose Declan to more Chinese while keeping his interest with his inherent love of reading. The key is to choose not-so-wordy Chinese children's books--read the words and quickly repeat the story behind the words in English, switching back and forth between the two languages depending on Declan's receptiveness. When he's more rested and willing to stay still, I would push my luck with going all Chinese. As his fidgeting increases, I increase my on-the-spot English translations so that sometimes we end up reading together for 20 minutes with pure English. Oh well, any kind of reading is good anyways. Detailed and beautiful illustrations help to prolong his patience, as I suspect he keeps himself occupied in examining the drawings while humoring his mother's at-times incoherent recitations.

There was this one book called "I really want to eat durian" (my translation) by a local author. I was doing a lot of on-the-spot Chinese-to-English translation while reading through it, and then at the end of the story, I discovered an English version in more compact layout at the back of the book. This version was almost word-for-word how I translated the story as Declan and I read along! It made me feel an affinity with the book...and I'm probably going to buy it the next time we visit the bookstore.

and what about now?

When the weather is this hot and muggy all day and night long, it really slows everything down. The few times when I decided to mind-over-matter, one or the other of the children would spike a temperature and vomit from the heat. Their less mature internal temperature monitors are just no match for this climate. I looked up the forecast for Haifa this past week; The highs are actually about five degrees lower than in Kaohsiung right now. Joke's on us for thinking we'd be escaping the Israeli summer by visiting Taiwan right about now. I went running in the best conditions the other day: It was low 90s, about 80% humidity, at 5:30pm. Best conditions for real compared with every other day so far.

Is it good to be back for a visit? I love the food. It's just ridiculously perfect to my taste. Little soy sauce-marinated raw clams, meat sauce over the chewiest white rice, perfectly firm noodles in rich beef stock, real spinach. Etc, etc, etc....

But it's not real life, where I have friends to call up and hang out with (hence why living in Israel doesn't really feel like real life either), where I know the public amenities of the city and the bus routes to get there... This is my home but it's still pretty lonely, which makes it more lonely in a way.

I don't mean to be complaining again. I do love that there are these new bike paths and parks along the paths that are perfect for running as well, that go all the way to the harbor or Lotus Lake or Cheng Ching Lake or the Love River Promenade... If I didn't have children who need me to hold them (literally) within 30 minutes to an hour's break, I think I would just run all night, every night, enjoying seeing the many little shops, neighborhoods, and street names that make me feel a part of this land. I love that there're large shopping centers like Costco, Carrefour, Dollars, Geant, which have everything one could desire. Such a nice change from the many places I must trek to for each individual item in Israel.

After much searching, I discovered a children's library in a park yesterday. My heart almost melted into a happy goo in my thoracic cavity when I spotted Declan--shortly after I'd made the executive decision for us to leave due to his rowdiness in the reading room--sitting on a library bench with some books he'd selected from a nearby bookshelf, quietly flipping through the pages. When I told him we'll take some of the books to read at home, he got up and methodically put the rest of the books back onto the bookshelf without my prompting. All this was after our lunch a few blocks away at 牛乳大王, a restaurant I'd eaten at a few times myself as a child (read: very old establishment). There're cow statues in the restaurant. During the wait for our food, Declan ran to each of the statues and loudly counted the number of nipples after pointing at their giant sculpted udders and saying "Num num!" (Our term for breastfeeding.)

I love being able to read and understand everything everywhere I go, and comprehend everyone (as I eavesdrop blissfully and without any shame on random conversations). I love being able to strike up a conversation with strangers and discuss the many options with cashiers without feeling like a nonlocal-language-speaking jerk.  I love that Declan's starting to say Chinese phrases every now and then, and is finally becoming open/patient enough to continue sitting with me as I read books with him in Chinese.

And there's still a few places I want to show Declan, like the Science Museum, the Eslite headquarter in Kaohsiung, and the indoor gym at Central Park. There's always a bit of a lethargic "Now what?" when we arrive at a new place, even if the place is technically home. It is a sad potential fact that the same wish I've felt several times when we'd just came back--that I wish we could have stayed in Israel to continue the routine we'd set there--would resurface about Taiwan when we're due to leave again.

these are some of the usual things

This past Monday, Daniel and I spent the whole day tying up loose ends, packing up the apartment we are vacating forever, and sweeping/cleaning before the original tenants return. I was looking at pictures just two days later (yesterday) of our time this past year in Israel, and already feeling nostalgia for that ugly orangish-yellow couch that was the dominant furniture in our living room. I slept on that couch with Petra on my chest for the night through the newborn days. That kind of time logged with postnatal hormone inevitably creates a nostalgic bond.

Now we're back in the land of warm sauna-like humidity and delicious dumplings. Jet lag means that the kids and the parents all go to bed around 1am and wake around noon. Except I went to bed "last night" around 3am because of a running book by Scott Jurek. Petra's fever, which developed on the flight between Israel and Hong Kong, finally seems to have broken last night... She was required by quarantine guidelines to visit a doctor before 24 hours upon arrival to make sure that we didn't carry the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome into the country. They gave her a suppository to bring down her fever. Now she's at the apartment complex swimming pool.

It's been kind of a crazy two or three days. I should go join them at the pool now. I hear Petra crying.