David's grandmother used to make a special Chinese soup whenever he had a canker sore. It was known as the "yeat hay" (Chinese for canker sore) soup. Caroline got a canker sore and asked David to make her some so he made her a pot the other night. As she was drinking it tonight from the Chinese rice bowl and Chinese soup spoon, she said "Hey Mom, do you know that this spoon says Hao?" which means good in Mandarin. I told her, "Your Chinese is paying off!"
I find this funny in a two ways.
1). We have had that Chinese spoon for as long as David and I have been together. That's almost 15 years. I never noticed that there was a Chinese character on the spoon.
2). Katherine and Caroline have been taking Mandarin on Sunday mornings for three years now. They complain every Sunday about getting up to go to Chinese school but they enjoy it once they are there. They can understand some Mandarin (about 2nd grade level) and about 200 characters. They get frustrated when they feel like they will never be proficient at it but tonight's discovery reinforced that she is picking things the language.
Grandma's soup did double duty tonight- not only as a remedy to quickly heal Caroline's canker sore; it was also an indirect Chinese lesson! 很 好 which means very good!
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