I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream . . .

for Hale's Blue Boy Syrup!

Yep, on Saturday, Mama made us a dessert from her childhood, using her pink panda bear ice shaver. Let's call it a Thai snow cone or a Thai "ice cream" sundae (see Mama's favorite Thai food blog for a picture). You start with shaved ice, over which you pour a bit of Hale's Blue Boy syrup mali flavor (which we think is jasmine). Then drizzle some sweetened condensed milk. And you top it off with . . . . cooked corn. Or sweetened red beans (adzuki, which we have, but not yet cooked or sweetened).

That's where Mama lost the kids. Sis loves sweetened condensed milk but was even leery of the syrup, which Bud liked. But they couldn't wrap their heads around corn in a dessert. Only Mama and I went the whole way. Though, I like the red beans better, which I know from past experience (went for Vietnamese ice cream with my high school buddy once; they eat the ice with the equivalent of almond dofu and lots of sweetened beans). So maybe I'll have to cook and sweeten those beans.

Which will just evoke the screams in this post's title.

Sawasdee

I'm learning a new language. No, not brushing up on my ancient Greek, Latin, French, or German, all of which I've taken in various forms over the years. Not ASL, at which I consider myself a beginning conversant--I can sign with people who are deaf if they are patient and I don't get too nervous and "stutter." The kids think I'm a pro at sign language when I sign along with Rachel on those wonderful "Signing Times" videos.

Not even the Italian that I've always wanted to learn beyond the ordering of gelato and the asking after directions to the bathroom or Forum.

And not the predictable Chinese of the kiddos' racial origins.

Nope, I'm learning Thai, the language of DP's family.

(For those of you keeping track, the family is racially Chinese. All four grandparents left China before the Cultural Revolution. Both Ma and Gong were raised in the immigrant Chinese community in Thailand, which at the time was fairly anti-Chinese. Hence the Thai names--DP's last name is an anglicazation of their Thai last name. DS's middle name is the family's Chinese name. Gong speaks and writes Mandarin, as well as the local dialect that Ma also knows).

And I'm terrible. You might have thought from that list of languages I've studied that I'm great at languages, but truth is I'm awful--I can't communicate verbally in anything but English. And let us not now bemoan the state of Americans' linguistic abilities--we're, in general, atrocious, which is just one reason we're going to teach the kids Thai. And then Chinese. And more ASL. And then Italian! In Thai, I can't really hear the five tonal inflections of the language and thus really can't duplicate them. But the will is there and the tools. DP bought Rosetta Stone so I can practice by myself--practicing with her makes me nervous and might lead to trouble. Sometimes it's best not to take lessons from a loved one.

Why? Well, I've been harrassing DP for two years to speak to the kiddos in Thai but she finds it difficult to generate conversation by herself. She's as self-conscious speaking Thai to them as I am to her. She doesn't think she speaks very well, even though it sounds fine to me. But we want them to learn another language and their grandparents are native speakers and it is the culture of the family. They need consistent exposure to the language so I need to be the one to speak it to them, which means I need to learn it. Ma and Gong can fix the accent later.

So far, I know words for man, woman, girl, boy, cat, dog, car, plane, and a few colors. It doesn't make for great conversation but I can at least point and repeat. For now, I'm ignoring all the lessons on reading and writing--even DP can't do that--there are something like 44 letters and all these accent marks and I only really need to speak it.

Wish me luck!