Mao And Me is a children’s book by Chen Jiang Hong
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have the honor of taking my friend to English class. She’s moved here from China and is trying her best to learn English.
I’ve always heard how hard it is to learn English as a second language because of how loose English plays with its own rules. And then, frequently, we do not pronounce words as they are spelled.
Consider the word, “should.” I personally believe I pronounce the ‘l,’ but in class the teacher warned the students that frequently we say, “shud.” But she was over simplifying. It’s doesn’t sound like that, but I guess in 4 hours per week, you have to choose your battles.
There’s another reason it’s hard for someone to learn English: If they don’t make the same sounds or combinations of sounds in their own language. Chinese is harder to speak than any sounds I’ve ever put together. The combinations of emphases and order of sounds are just alien to English speakers. Imagine how English sounds to a Chinese person!
Interested in hearing some of it? This site has some Chinese audio to learn (free). ChineseTools.com
This Thursday, a librarian who helps teach the class brought in some books for the students to take home. She had a couple of these Mao And Me books. My friend and I each took one.
This book is excellent. It tells the author’s life story — born in China in 1963, Hong documents how things were when he was little and how they changed when Mao changed them. It’s very educational for kids and adults because it tells us a little about some of the most important people on the planet. (We’re all the most important people on the planet… really.)
Communism is on its way out now, but it helps to know a little about where our friends are coming from and how they grew up.
It also helped me to compare what was going on in my life at those ages in the United States with what was going on in his life. I was born in 1968.
When you were very little, did you have a favorite neighbor who gave you candy and played Mozart for you? Did some Red Guard guys come by and force her to the ground on the street and rip her clothes and cut her hair and force her to confess and then drive her away?
Did you ever see her again?
How did that make you feel?
Did you feel better when you started school and learned to think, “Mao is our salvation?”
Did your heart swell with pride when you became part of the Little Red Guard?
Do you listen to Mozart now?
This book will get the wheels turning in your little one’s head about freedom and about the Chinese people. I can tell you from personal experience that the Chinese living here in Shawnee are fantastic and they’re not communists. 🙂
Leave a Reply