Aug 31 2008
I am not Chinese!
I thought I wrote about this, but apparently I’ve forgotten. Few months ago, when I explained to Ian what is ‘Indian’ (he asked), I tried to explain to him the concept of race, which I have been trying to delay (why teach them to differentiate people when we are all the same - Malaysian?).
Then, I gave him examples like the neighbour Sasa is an Indian, her brother Justine is an Indian, etc. And I told him that he is a Chinese, there he suddenly cried in protest. He said, “NO! I AM ENGLISH, NOT CHINESE!”
Hahaha! He thought of it as in the language spoken. 
There you go, I have to explain to him what is an English. To make it simple, I say they have blond hair with green or blue eyes (seriously I don’t know the difference!). :p
Then yesterday, when I mentioned again that we are Chinese, he then corrected us, “No, you are wrong! My teacher said we are Malaysian!”
Whew! That is what I like. Yes, we are Malaysians!
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Kids are funny
Actually I think its very important to teach kids things at a young age
Teaching him that we are Malaysian first and Individual races next is commendable.
Children are basically ‘colour blind’ when it comes to people so they don’t know the difference at all until adults start forming their perceptions.
and not related to your post…I see you are reading Inkheart. I simply love that book! There’s a sequel too, Inkspell. I love most of the works by the author.
I was color blind too, until I finished SPM. I began to distinguish color when some of my friends got into the Uni and I did not.
nicktay/foong/bernsy: Agree! That’s also the reason I have been delaying my explaination on races. I always feel stuck, whenever he asks me what is ‘Indian’ (I scolded him for saying ‘ah-neh-neh’ and unintentionally mentioned ‘Indian’. Seriously I really hate people us that term ah-neh-neh, sounds insulting!!!) Anyhow, I still try to delay it, by giving him vague and general answer - quite hard though, coz he keeps asking more. :p
Hi there. I saw your post. It’s indeed very interesting. We share similar situation. At one stage, my kids refused to see themselves as Chinese and instead told me that they’re English since they speak English more than Mandarin. I came up with the solution: We are Malaysians. That solved the whole problem. As for now, my kids are still “colour blind”. I bet this would change once they go to school.
Anyway, I’ll come back to check out your new postings. I love reading them:)
haha, children just speak their minds. They don’t have any discrimination in their thoughts, they would only like or dislike.
yes. We are Malaysian. ps:like ur kid
its like on that one south park episode when chef got mad cause the children didnt want to change the flag
Heheh!! kids are just too cute..
and innocent.
AiLing: ya! You are right! Telling him we are Malaysians is much easier than explaining the races! And I think we don’t have to, until probably he needs to fill up stupid forms that specifies ‘race’.
Xjion89/Alex/MamaBok: Ya, they are so innocent that we just don’t want to pollute their little mind, right?
Tree R Cool: hehehe! I don’t watch south park, dunno about it, but glad u can relate with this.