A time once travelled

Our next target project is to participate in the coming Barrio Fiesta in
Paris which will be held on the first Sunday of July. Email me for more information.

* this is a nonprofit organization initially created for building friendship.

Despite the gloomy days and crying skies, how can you not be happy on Easter?
- you had chips for aperitif with clink-clank of fruit juice and red martinis
- you ate foie gras for entrée
- you had oven-baked Easter lamb for main dish
- you devoured Charlotte aux fraises, you sung “happy birthday” and asked for a candle to blow because the cake looks exactly the same as you had on your birthday.
- we pretended to hide a “hen-with-pink&orange-ribbons” under a duvet on the sofa and asked you to find the “hairless-shiny-brown-chicken”
- you found it. you laughed. we didn’t get it why you cuddled the chicken like the way you cuddle your teddy bears. we told you it’s chocolate and you gave it a kiss. on its beak!
- I helped you out to untie the ribbons, you refused. And was surprised to see the chicken breaking into halves with white and brown chocolate eggs, fishes, turtles, more tiny chickens coming out of the tummy. You screamed with delight.
- but you put back the ribbons to hold back the halves of the mother hen. And gave it another hug.
- and then you received your first pair of winnie-the-pooh roller skates. And walk like an astronaut with them.

- three days later … we are still looking at the poor chocolate chicken, wondering who will eat it?

Click here for the bigger view of the picture.

Two languages exist at home. David has demonstrated an understanding of this judging from the way he switches his tongue from French to English and vice-versa depending on who he is talking to. But given that we live in France, I’m outrun by the forces of the social environment. I have no doubt that the French culture, social mannerism and intellectual disposition would dominate in shaping his personality.
And I am anxious. VERY.
No. I have nothing against the French culture or mentality. But I would like to balance the influences. I would like him to be a Filipino and a French all at the same time. Without splitting his personality, without crowding his values and beliefs. Without creating a confusion. Not categorizing him to a coconut character. Brown outside, white inside.
HOW?
NO IDEA!!
I want him to be raised like the way I was raised. At least on the matter of Filipino traditions, beliefs and values. Saying that, I feel like I’m starting on the wrong foot already. Because I speak to him in English and none of the Filipino languages. Is it possible to teach your child about Juan, Pedro, Maria Makiling and Sarimanok, when the medium you use is John, Peter, Mary and Chicken?
Language and culture are two things greatly interconnected, interlocked. You simply can’t separate the two, can you? All his English books, music and rhymes are British and American. He sings about Baa, baa black sheep, Old McDonald, Mary had a little lamb…. Characters that for obvious reason don’t exist in Filipino Children Literature.
At this early (young) stage, I remain that David’s maternal languages will be English and French. And I’m totally at loss as to how to teach him my culture. Learn to him leron, leron sinta… or bahay kubo or … pinpin disarapin… or mano po, or simbang gabi, or harana. Not just the idea of them, but the whole practice, the wholistic ways of the filipinos.
How do you do it? How do bicultural families do it?

Pahabol: The egg-hunting-picnic on Sunday (16 April) is cancelled due to rainy forecasts.

I’ve been busy trying my hands on digital scrapbooking. For David’s second birthday, I made some pages to keep memories digitalized.

Update (07-04): More photos here

Thank you Melvyn, Cathy, Louis, Alyzée, Mathias, Roxane and baby Alexandre for coming to my birthday party, sharing the cake with me and helping me opening the gifts. I had fun, I hope you had too! Merci beaucoup titos et titas pour tous!

- david -