For those who are not familiar with the Chinese zodiac signs, I wrote about it in this post. This year being the Year of the Monkey, I decided to introduce Tiger to one of the Chinese classics, Journey to the West ( 《西游记》）
As with many Chinese children, Tiger's first introduction to this Chinese classic is through animation:
After seeing him become enamoured with the cartoon above, I told Tiger that the cartoon shows only a very selection of the monkey's journey, and that it is part of a very long Chinese novel. He immedidately asked me get him the story. I got him the abridged, single-book version of the classic to see how he got on with the story. At 528 pages, the abridged version gives a good overview of the actual novel but when I asked Tiger whether he read about the characters' encounters with certain demons, Tiger realised that there are many juicy and interesting adventures that are being left out, so he asked me to get him the unabridged, four-volume version:
Seeing Tiger read this Chinese classic novel in English translation (I read the original Chinese version) brings back memory of my own experience of reading Pride and Prejudice in Chinese translation at about 12 years old. Obviously it is always preferable to read a story in its original language as certain linguist nuances and subtleties are often lost in in the translation process, but where one's language skills are not up to the required standard to allow one to read the original text, then finding a good translated version is the next best thing to do.
When Tiger has read the four books through twice (it took him about a week), I showed him a TV series based on the book. While this classic has been adapted into movies and other performances many times over the years (the latest one being a new movie based on one of the major adventures from the book):
the 1986 TV version is the one that I think stays closest to the original novel, and the actor who played the monkey is acknowledged as unsurpassed in his interpretation of the character:
Journey to the Westis the most popular, accessible of the four major Chinese classics. Even those who have not read the book would know about a number of the fantastical adventures of the main characters in the story. However, although the story is written in the form of a historical fantasy/myth, the story has a much deeper, spiritual meaning to it, in a very similar way that The Lord of the Rings is so much more than a fantasy story.
The following video is rather appropriate as a new year wish from me to you: may your year be full of wonderful adventures! I know mine will be!
(I know those are apes in the video but they belong to the same
primate family as monkeys. Besides, they make me laugh, so that'll do
for Chinese New Year. I'm sure Sun Wukong would approve!)
*Disclosure: some links are affiliate links, which means I earn a commission if you click
through and buy something.
However, even though we are not reading A Christmas Carol this year, we find ourselves not being able to get away from it totally. As a result of Tiger being ill with fever most of last week, we found ourselves having a lot of time on our hands that we could spend on video watching. To my surprise, Tiger watched the 1999 movie version without his usual complaint that most movie versions are poor substitutes for the original storybooks. There have been numerous movie adaptations of the story, but the 1999 version is the one that stayed most true to the original, and it helps that Patrick Stewart (who played Scrooge) is a most excellent actor.
After we watched the movie, we thought we might as well review our knowledge about the origins of the story:
What I find interesting about reading/reviewing the same story each year is that not only does the story become part of our family's tradition at Christmas time, but my own understanding of the story grows with each reading. This sense of getting to know a story at a deeper level with each passing year comes with no surprise. What is perhaps surprising is how easily recognisable many universal human values, such as compassion and redemption, are in this very traditional, English story. Then again, isn't that what every good classic story is supposed to do?
Another reason for us not being able to completely ignore A Christmas Carol this year is that it is currently being discussed in the BerkerleyX Book Club, which is another free MOOC offered by edX. Tiger and I looked at the first week's coursework, which we felt has helped us consider a few points that we had not discussed in our previous readings.
After all these years of dressing up, Tiger is still fond of doing so (although I suspect not for much longer). At Halloween, he often dresses up as a wizard, this year being no exception.
He has been fascinated by magic and wizardry so has been practising magic tricks using a few books and a "Magic Tricks Box" that I picked up from the charity shop.
While this is all just fun to a very imaginative boy, I have a strong aversion to conjurors and magicians as I find the idea of deception, a principle on which most 'magic' we are shown is based on, rather objectional. Therefore, I tried to redirect Tiger's fascination with wizardry to more 'useful' outlets, such as studying the entire Harry Potter series using the related issue of The Arrow for discussion and other English-related work.
We were at King's Cross station the other day, so we went to look for platform9¾ where Harry Potter boarded the Hogwarts Express for the first time in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
The station was refurbished a few years ago so it is now very bright and spacious, nothing like the dark and slightly dingy King's Cross station that I knew and missed from more than a decade ago. The station is now almost too modern, cheerful and well-managed for the setting of the story. While back in the dark and dingy days anyone could walk up and down the platforms freely and tried one's luck at running into a wall without bothering anyone else, there is absolutely no chance of doing that now without looking like a total fool to everyone in the station since there are now no dark corners in the station where one can hide in shame or embarrassment. Moreoever, new and shiny electronic barriers are now up in front of all the barriers so there is no way to even walk between the actual platorms 9 and 10 to look for platform9¾unless you buy a train ticket beforehand. In short, more progress but less spontaneous fun.
The station authorities have no doubt thought about the station's significance in the Harry Potter story, so a few feet away from platforms 9 to 11 is a wall dedicated to being the famous platform9¾, where tourists and fans can pose for photos and visit the shop.
As a result of our dislike for the commercialised aspect of the story, Tiger is adamant that he would not watch any of the Harry Potter movies despite my repeated encouragement. I thought he might enjoy the movie's special effects so I started watching the first movie.
Tiger watched for 10 minutes and decided that, "The movie has left out too many details. The book is better." So that put an end to movie-watching. Consequently, we need not go to the Warner Brothers Studio Tour too, which saves me a small fortune.
We used the time and money saved from not watching the Harry Potter movies and not going to the studio tour on some real magic, where Tiger made an electronic wand by soldering bits and pieces of resistors and other electronics bits to create a programmable wand using binary codes.
I have not captured the video very well, but the wand was programmed to display the word "bye". Apparently the wand is able to be programmed to display different six-character words by changing the codes, but I don't really know how the wand works or how to programme the codes to change the word display. Luckily Tiger paid attention in class and knows how to work it.
It took us more than the scheduled four weeks to complete the study. The reason for the delay is partly due to our going out a lot, and partly due to the dictation passages being very long and rather difficult. And since I think the dictation passages are difficult, I decided to do it in a buddy system with Tiger, in that we will take turns to do the dictation passage so that he would not feel as though he had to suffer through a difficult task alone.
The way we did it for the first three weeks' dictation was to have Tiger read the passage out loud to me twice before I recite it back to him. The rule is that I could not start writing until I could recite the entire passage without any error. This proved to be much harder than I had originally anticipated it to be. It took me several attempts before I could start writing the passage down. Even so, I still managed to get a few errors in my dictation, which Tiger was only too glad to point out.
By arrangement, I always did the dictation first. This was to give Tiger the time to listen to and memorise the dictation passages while I struggled through mine, so that by the time it was his turn to write the passages down, he was able to memorise entire paragraphs with very little problem. Given the length and difficulty of the passages, I think this is a fair way to encourage a child to complete a task that would otherwise seem insurmountable.
When we came to Week Four's passage, I decided that it was just too long to even try to do a successful dictation of it at this stage, so we used the passage for copywork instead. Tiger does all his dictation and copywork in the handwriting exercise books where he can practise his penmanship at the same time.
While the passage in Week Four concentrates on the description of the hound in the story, we did a little research to establish what kind of hound it was and came to the conclusion that it would have a cross between a bloodhound and a mastiff, which can be a rather frightfully vicious dog, especially when it was painted with luminous paint, as in the story.
To spare us from having nightmares about being chased by luminous-coated mastiff-crossed hounds, Tiger decided to end the study by making his own stop motion animation version of the scene that we had just studied, using paper cutouts as his back drop for the moors, plasticine for the hound, and an unfortunate LEGO man for the victim.
I won't mind running into Tiger's colourful version of the hound. It seems harmless enough and does not even have teeth, and it reminds me of a soppy St. Bernard which, incidentally, is from the mastiff family!
Having spent a fair bit of time immersing in the world of the Victorian poor through Charles Dickens' novels, it was time to visit Dickens' adult home in London, which is now the Charles Dickens Museum.
The inside of the house is very much preserved in the same condition as when Charles Dickens was living there.
Of all the rooms in the house, I found the kitchen to be the most interesting place, which probably has muchg to do with my having to spend most of my time at home in the kitchen! Another eye-opening experience for us was seeing the wash basin in the laundry room that was used to keep the Christmas pudding (as was the practice in the Victorian times).
Two other items in the house also caught our eyes. The first was part of the Marshalsea prison grille, which represented a very traumatic time in Dickens' childhood. The actual prison is long gone (as we saw on the Dickens tour a few weeks ago) but bits and pieces of it still remains in various locations, and the prison is vividly described in a number of novels, most notably in David Copperfield and Little Dorrit.
The second is a simple-looking window that was mentioned in Oliver Twist as being the window out of which Oliver Twist was pushed by Bill Sikes during the burglary.
The window is very small, so one can imagine how scrawny and malnourished the poor boy must have been to be able to squeeze through it!
One of the most famous Charles Dickens character is Oliver Twist. The novel has been adapted so many times that everyone would have heard of it even if they had not actually read the book.
I find the novel difficult to read, less so due to Dickens' language but more because of his depiction of the cruelty operating within the Victorian workhouse system and the predatory nature of human beings upon those who are weak and vulnerable.
Using the same approach as we have done for our Dickens' study so far, we went out in search of the actual workshop that inspired the story of Oliver Twist. We found it in the abandoned annex (previously the outpatient unit) of the old Middlesex Hospital.
According to a book that has researched into the same topic, this part of the hospital was originally the Cleveland Street Workhouse in the Victorian times and was very nearly demolished had it not been for the campaigning efforts of people to preserve it for its link to the world famous novel. The building has been boarded up for years without any signs of conservation or redevelopment, so we could only peer through the narrow slits between the boards to look at the outside of the buildings.
The evidence of the close link to this particular workhouse -- for there were a number of workhouses littered in various parts of London -- is that Charles Dickens lived nine doors away and would surely have seen and heard of whatever went on inside and outside of it.
Not satisfied with being shut out of the workhouse, we went to The Geffrye Museum, which used to an infirmary for the elderly poor in east London.
We were there to find out more about the homeless in Victorian times (which inevitably meant admittance to a workhouse at some point under those circumstances).
As expected, it is not a particularly cheerful exhibition but it certainly gave us a very good idea of the plight of homeless people in the Victorian times, the various circumstances that gave rise to their dire fate, and of course, details and artefacts of the inevitable workhouse system.
We have read about and heard of inmates picking oakum in Victorian workhouses and prisons, so Tiger had a go at doing that inside the exhibition. He only did it for two minutes, yet that was enough to set him off, "This is stupid and pointless!" Having never set foot in an institutionalised classroom before, Tiger has no concept of people being given meaningless tasks to numb their minds or to punish them for falling on hard times.
The heartbreaking realisation that we have made is that there are currently 3.5 million children living in poverty in the UK. It is quite inconceivable in a modern day and when one walks about on London's main streets, but it is true. The difference between poverty in the Victorian times and today is that poverty seems to be 'invisible' today, as in, we don't see beggars and homeless people on the streets but they do exist.
Tiger and I went on a Dickens tour in London to help us trace the steps of some of the significant sights mentioned in his various novels. As Dickens' novels are mostly about lives of disadvantaged (and often poor) class in the Victorian times, the tour started, unsurprisingly, at Borough tube station.
Naturally, the tube station did not exist in the Victorian times, so what we are interested in is the layout of the road junction directly opposite the station. According to our tour guide, that layout has not changed since Dickens' time, except that it was used by horses and carts back then.
A few mintues' walk away is the St. George the Martyr church which features quite strongly in the novel, Little Dorrit, for it is the church where the named character was baptised.
At the north side of the church, less than 100 yards away, is the remains of the Marshalsea Prison where Charles Dickens' father was imprisoned for debts and where the fictional character of Little Dorrit was born.
The Victorian insolvency law, prior to the Debtors Act in 1869, is rather peculiar in that the people who could not repay their debts could be thrown into the debtors' prison for a very long time, and without any means of 'bailing' themselves out as they were not allowed to earn an income to repay their debts. Charles Dickens' family lived in the prison with his father for the duration of his imprisonment because they could not afford to live outside on their own, Charles being only 12 years old at the time of his father's imprisonment. The experience of having to live in a prison (albeit for a short period of time) and the consequential work experience at the blacking factory must have traumatised him greatly because the debtors' prison feature quite prominently in many of his novels.
Further along we came to a garden established by the Victorian social reformer, Octavia Hill. She was one of the pioneers who campaigned for better living conditions -- specifically open spaces in London -- for the poor.
A few streets along, we came upon an informal shrine for what is left of the Cross Bones graveyard. The site was basically a mass grave for the outcasts of society (most medieval to the Victorian time), i.e. the paupers, but mostly prostitutes.
After learning about all the sorrow and sadness (it appears that one needs to have quite a strong heart to be able to get through the real stories that inspire Dickens' novels), it was time to head to the inn. Not just any inn, but The George Inn, which has existed since the 16th century abd where both Shakespeare and Dickens had visited. It is also mentioned in Little Dorrit.
The fascinating thing about London is that it is such an old, historic city that there are significant sights of historical and literary interests to be found at nearly even turn. For example, what appears to be an ordinary, insignificant-looking alleyway turns out to be the site of the "White Hart Inn" mentioned in Shakespeare's play, Henry VI, and in Dickens' The Pickwick Papers.
On another day, we were walking in another part of London when we chanced upon The Old Curiosity Shop!
It is entirely possible that, as we are currently focused on Charles Dickens and his work, that we seek out opportunities to learn more about him, which in turn results in various serendipitous occurrences such as the above. One can certainly learn a lot by walking around in the ordinary parts of London -- in the same way that Charles Dickens did to gather ideas for his stories -- if the walks are taken with keen interest and a sense of curiosity about one's surrounding.
If there is one place on earth that any self-respecting Sherlock fan wants to be seen hanging out at, it is here:
Getting to Baker Street tube station is only the first step. What we are really after is house number 221b on Baker Street, which houses The Sherlock Holmes Museum.
Anyone who has read the entire canon of Sherlock Holmes, as Tiger has, will instantly recognise all the small details and different scenes/characters dotted inside different rooms of the Victorian house.
According to Tiger, looking at the various instruments that Holmes and Watson would have used in the various stories have certainly brought the stories more to life.
I must confess that I have not read every Sherlock Holmes story, but even I can recognise a few of the most famous characters, just by listening to Tiger's informal narrations of what he has read.
It would be very commendable to be able to read every book that Tiger reads, but I can't keep up with my son's reading speed. However, I find that it helps to take an active interest in familiarising myself with the main plot of the story and a few of the main characters, in this case that means being able to recognise the hound from The Hound of the Baskervilles and Professor Moriaty, Holmes' arch enemy.
A Sherlock Holmes pantomine kicked off our interest in the most famous detective who was invented in Victorian England.
We had never watched a pantomine before (because they can be too silly for our taste) so I took a risk by taking Tiger to see this outdoor show since it could potentially turn him off the whole idea of Sherlock Holmes before we even got started. Luckily Tiger found this production to be quite funny (his own humour is quite quirky so it is often hard to tell which way things would go) so that was a good start.
Tiger then worked his way through the numerous related books (fiction and non-fiction)
The exhibition is a must for fans of the great detective, of which Tiger is one. It contains many of the memorabilia of the characters in the story, the background of the story (i.e. Victorian England), and some facts about Arthur Conan Doyle.
While we were there, Tiger also attended a creative writing workshop, which started with the workshop leader sharing his method of writing fiction with the children, highlighting techniques such as characterisation and plot development. The children then spent some time in the People's City gallery, specifically the Victorian Walk, where they would experience the sights and sounds of a replica Victorian quarter, in order to get some inspiration for their writing exercise when they returned to the workshop room.
Tiger learnt a few tricks for writing fiction, and told me that he enjoyed the session but what he has been enjoying the most is reading all the adventures of Sherlock's younger years.
"Mum, may I use your computer to do some research on an aircraft? I'm writing a mini essay and I need to know a specific detail about this aircraft," Tiger asked me a few days ago.
Wow, the boy wants to write an essay?! Under such unbelievable circumstance, of course I let him use the computer for as long as he liked. It turned out that he only needed five minutes.
I saw Tiger scribbling down some notes as he said to me, "Writing notes in the margins is a really good idea!"
We have not done as much formal writing as I would like to have so I was curious about where Tiger has learnt that idea from.
"I learnt it from Mr. Tolkien," was his reply.
"Which Mr. Tolkien?" I pursued.
Tiger said very matter-of-factly, "J.R.R. Tolkien who wrote The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and all the rest of the books I've been reading."
Seeing that I still had a puzzled look on my face, Tiger pointed to a book on the bookshelf and explained, "I finished reading this book last week, and it explains Tolkien's writing process. He wrote a lot of notes in margins."
I see.
Later that evening, Tiger showed me what he has written on the A4 page. I am not at liberty to show that piece of writing here so I can only describe it: it is a short paragraph explaining the history of the Hawker Hunter, complete with hand-drawn illustrations showing the plane at various angles, both front view and side view.
I am not surprised at the illustrations since Tiger has been practising his drawing.
I am somewhat surprised at the coherence of his writing, as well as the motivation and tips that he has picked up from his reading of Tolkien's work. For a boy who strongly prefers to direct his own learning, it is absolutely within expectation for Tiger to pick his own teacher. I am very glad to see that his years of reading good books have helped to form his ability to identify excellence and beauty in writing. I can't think of anyone who is more qualified for the job of a writing mentor than Mr. Tolkien is, can you?
For us, the Christmas season starts when the following items appears in our house: mulled wine and mince pies.
Tortoise and I plan to train ourselves to become mince pies connoisseurs this year by tasting all the commerically available mince pies and then making a comparsion chart to show our results by Christmas. If this isn't an excuse for gluttony, I don't know what is... but at least our intention is to come up with a really useful chart at the end of our exericse to enable us to make a more informed decision about which brand of mince pies to buy next year. There is some good to this over-indulgence, really.
As for the mulled wine, it is my private acknowledgement of the arrival of the Christmas season. Tortoise can't stand mulled wine. He says it's because he doesn't like spiced drinks, but I suspect the real reason is because he doesn't drink cheap wine (that means anything less than £25 per bottle). To be honest, the quality of red wine used to make mulled wine is indeed sub-standard, but the mulled wine was introduced to me the first time I spent Christmas in England many years ago so for me, the drink has a very strong association with Christmas in this country, even though the first glass of mulled wine I had was ghastly due to it being over-heated. Every December since, I have drunk it purely for sentimental reasons and this has become my little private festive ritual.
Before anyone leaves this post in digust at our over-indulgence, let me just clarify that:
the one bottle of mulled wine (750ml) is to last me for 24 days, so a quick division reveals that, at an average of 31.25ml per day, I am grossly under-qualified to apply for membership to the AA.
I only do this from December 1st to 24th, not any other time of the year.
Luckily, it's not all gluttony and drunkeness here. We only indulge in the above in the "after hours", i.e. after Tiger has gone to bed. In the day, I continue my role as a hardworking, responsible parent by participating in wholesome activities such as: 1) baking
Our gingerbread family turned out whiter than normal because we used a traditional Victorian Christmas recipe for the "White Gingerbread" and we had used a combination of coconut flour and almond flour for our base instead of the usual wheat flour. The substitution did not go smoothly as the mixture was too crumbly at first so we had to tweak the recipe even more to make the dough hard enough to cut. In the end, the activity that should have taken us at most 30 minutes took two hours to complete!
All this time, I wasn't just standing around taking photographs. I actually helped to turn what was destined to become a crumbly mess into something edible. I bought two Christmassy aprons to put us in the mood of Christmas cooking -- one for Tiger, one for me.
2) making cards
I was originally very excited about the prospect of us showcasing different card designs this December. However, when we made a list of everyone that Tiger is to make cards for and the count totalled to 15 (aren't we popular?), we decided to be more realistic about our capability and stamina, and settled for learning to do one design very well.
We followed the instructions found here, with some modifications. Next year, we might attempt more design varieties but I am happy that, after mass-producing 15 cards of the same design, we have now added this design to our crafts repertoire and can produce it with our eyes shut, almost spontaneously.
3) music
This week we started to immerse ourselves in Bach's Christmas Oratorio.
Tiger was curious about this piece of music and its form, so we talked a little about the background of the music as well as its structure. Tis piece of music has been our background music this week and will continue to be so for the next two week. I am slightly surprised that Tiger does not object to having this piece of music playing in the background as he works, since we usually have no background noise when we are working.
We have also been very good about learning our first Christmas carol, Joy to the World:
Another surpise here is how enthusiastic Tiger has been about learning to sing it and the fact that he asked to sing it several times throughout the day!
4) Christmas stories
I found a gorgeously illustrated book to go with learning the carol, a good summary of which can be found here.
Tiger and I read the book together and had a little discussion about the basic elements of literary analysis (such as: setting, characters, conflict, rising action, climax, resolution, conclusion). Then our discussion took on a broader, somewhat philosophical scope to include: 1. homelessness
where we have seen homeless people
the fundamental causes of homelessness
where do homeless people go
how homeless people are treated or perceived
what, if anything, can people do if they become homeless
2. charity
whether it is universally applicable
different circumstances under which people choose to apply or not to apply charity
how charity can be manipulated or exploited
3. idealism versus pragmatism
given the current social climate, whether it is advisable to invite strangers into our homes, and if not, how else can they be helped
under what circumstances, if any, is the idea that "They brought it upon themselves." ever justifiable.
We are just beginning to discuss books in this way, as Tiger starts getting to an age when he is able to consider such questions in a meaningful way. Like the baking this week, our discussion took way longer than it would have been had we just read the book, but I feel the time was well spent and Tiger relishes at the new challenge of having to think a little deeper and harder about what he reads.
However, not all books are to be discussed as such otherwise the process becomes tedious so Tiger also read the following for his own enjoyment.
5) Christmas STEM
We looked at a few maths problems from the Chrismaths book that I mentioned in the Christmas curriculum post. The book's problems cover a wide range of ages (KS1 to KS3) so we started in the middle where the problems look more suited to Tiger's current ability but found them not overly exciting so we switched to working out the problems from this year's primary maths advent calendar.
One advent calendar led to another. We also looked at the 2014 Chemistry Advent Calendar to get our daily dose of chemistry snippets.
