Monday, officially, the first day of the summer holidays has begun. It is also going to be the first day of the five days that mommy is not around and daddy has to deal with a stay in mother in law and two active kids, seemingly with boundless energy and who are constantly arguing or fighting over some trivial issues or toys.
But thank God, there is something called SUMMER CAMP! We managed to register Ryan for a five days session with his school instead of going the full 10 days session for two weeks. The schools here in Beijing certainly know how to increase their revenue and having summer camps are definitely one profitable business. Parents are just too glad to sent their little ones off again to school, even for half a day so that some could still keep their sanity for a bit longer, besides getting the kids to learn a new skill or something out from the normal school curriculum.
Ryan is attending the IVY's Summer Chinese Immersion Program, where children will learn Chinese and be introduced to the Chinese culture in Beijing. We really want Ryan to learn as much Mandarin (Chinese) as he can while we are still here in Beijing. This little guy simply refuse to talk to us in Mandarin at home because he knows that we can speak English with him. However, he speaks a fair bit of Mandarin outside with the locals to get what he wants. In another words, situation can `force' him to speak and use his limited Chinese to `survive'. Therefore, we believe this one week will do him lots of good because they will ONLY use one language throughout the program and that is Mandarin. In fact, I think soon, he will probably speak Mandarin better than me.
The program does not come cheap though. The fee is RMB2800 (RM1400) for five days from 9am to 3:30pm daily, excluding transportation to and from school daily. But as long as he learns one more skill and one more language, we believe that the money has been well spent.
Ryan, 加 油!!
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