9:26 a.m. - 2007-08-30
Chinese parents
Yesterday one of my staff members and I had a table set up at an open house for the public school we get most of our kids for the program from. We saw a lot of parents we know and some of the kids we hadn't seen for a while. It was pretty fun except that there was no air conditioning and we were wearing our long sleeve button down agency shirts.
We have about 8 Asian kids in our program, all Chinese actually. Fairly consistently across ths group, the kids are well behaved, nice and smart. One of them does this thing where he pretends he can't understand you when he doesn't like what you're saying even though he is getting straight A's and speaks English perfectly well. And one of them tells a lot of really hilarious stories in that way that old men tell stories about how it was back in the olden days. The parents are all extremely polite and friendly. Unfortunately I usually have absolutely no idea what they are saying. I feel like such a jackass trying to understand them and answer their questions. The questions are usually complicated, having to do with paperwork like HIPAA forms or income information. One woman seemed to be asking me if I could obtain proof of her income by knowing her social security number. Try explaining what a pay stub is to someone who has very limited English through sign language and very simple words. "The paper (hand motion signing "paper") that you get from your job...when they pay you (signing handing out money)...pay day...Friday?...paper...check...deposit...."
The kids are no help whatsoever, being that, in this case, they were 7 and 5 years old. You might think they could help translate but no matter how great your english is, you don't have a clue what a pay stub is when you are 5. Another family, also Chinese, came up to us and in the course of the awkward, half-conversation, I said something about the kid having been in the summer program but not the after-school program...basically i was encouraging them to sign up for the after school program if they were interested. Somehow the mom misunderstood me and thought I was saying I didn't know her daughter. She kept saying things like "No! She was! Summer!" with a lot of smiling and nodding vigorously, but with an annoyed undertone, and I would say "No, I know. I mean she should come to our after school program." and she would say "No! She was!" I finally just said "Ok...well nice seeing you." and handed her a flyer.
Tomorrow we head to Athens to meet the famed Iris Cooke. I am very excited about this. She will probably be sleeping when we arrive, but that will give us a chance to visit with her parents which is equally exciting.
