Little Leo

It's been awhile since I wrote something meaningful in my blog. Lately I've been caught up with settling down in Beijing and getting to know the city. I feel like I don't have anything meaningful or insightful to blog about, except for the fact that I've been going out a lot, trying new restaurants and of course, sampling different massage places (not a bad life!). Trust me, I'm not complaining about this - in fact, after all of the traveling I did in October, November feels like a nice break to me.



Anyway, today I finally remembered I had set-up a hotmail account last year for my students/parents to contact me. I just logged in tonight to see if anyone had emailed me recently, and found an email from one of my former student's parents last year. The mother wrote a book about her son, Leo, and she sent it to me, Jamie and Kevin Lester to read. Unfortunately, most of it was written in Chinese, but the prologue was translated into English. It made me smile and think of little Leo. I wonder what is he up to now?



Here's an excerpt from her prologue:



Chan’s family moved to Shanghai from Singapore autumn 2006, Leo is in a good environment for his Chinese study, Leo’s English writing is better than his mom as he went to British school since year 3. However, it’s quite a challenge for him to be interested in Chinese still. As a mother I always try things first before I asked Leo to try. I tried to write some enjoyable moments in our daily life in Chinese and Leo is my first reader, the purpose is to let him felt Chinese Writing is a fun and not that difficult. Subsequently other member of the family and friends allover the world showed great interest in my short paragraphs and become my fans and I never expect I can write Chinese words after 15 years without using the Language. I really feel good to have so many fans all over the world.

Every mother has a book of his child’s upbringing, 10 year old Leo brought endless happiness to our family, we treasure every minute to be with him, I talked to Leo in the morning and evening everyday and I felt that I have to pay more attention to this little boy who have traveled 15 countries with us. Raising a child is an enjoyable thing and observing and learning from your child can be super enjoyable.

Thanks my husband who gives me the time and space as a ‘free house wife’ and thanks for him to be such a loving father of Leo. The following writing is a special reward for him at the end of year 2007.

Liying Xu, December 2007, Shanghai



Picture of Leo, courtesy of Ms. Xu. I will never forget little Leo, who gave me a card addressed to the wrong teacher, completed his homework using yellow highlighter, was only in 5th grade but had the IQ of an 8th grader (this is true), and always answered my questions without having to memorize the textbook. Oh yes, and he named a pet frog Jacky CHONG, after my last name.