You can take the child out of her birth country but you can't take the birth country out of the child and that is how it should be.
When she was little, very little she wanted no part of being Chinese or anything Chinese but that slowly started to change and now she is extremely proud of her heritage. As we prepared for the Olympic party that we were having and we made flags, banners and that sort of stuff the first country that Lily covered was China. She made sure that Rosie and herself had plenty of flags to wave for their countrymen.
Last night during the Parade of Nations she stood in front of the telly waving her flag chanting, CHINA, CHINA, over and over again. She pointed out she beautiful the people are and how kind it was of them to carry Union jacks instead of the flag of their own country. The compliments flew out of her mouth. I agree with, they are indeed beautiful people. (as a child I always wanted to be Chinese)
Tonight we watched the mens gymnastics and the commentator made a remark along the lines of the Brits deserving to win the gold because the Chinese had been really unlucky. Lily jumped all over the guy from the comfort of our couch. She was upset that the Chinese had suffered such bad luck and that the commentator wasn't more compassionate about it. I agreed with her but compassion doesn't get good ratings when it comes to sports.
In the swim trials she was a child torn as her loyalty was divided. The American team who she has been watching so closely and knows so well or the Chinese swimmers who she only saw as they stepped out on to the pool deck?
With the exception of swimming, as that is her sport, her loyalty seems to lie with China, the Great Britain and then the US. Rosie on the other hand just sees a flag on the telly and runs over to our collection and picks up the one that matches and starts frantically waving it while yelling, mine, or Daddy's or Mummy's.
She also gets very worried that if the Chinese athletes don't do well that they will get into trouble when they return home. She knows how competitive they are. If you are Chinese you don't go to any competition to compete you go to win.
She is so very competitive, the next 2 weeks are going to be exhausting for her. Most people only have one country to root for, she has 3.
6 comments:
Sadly, I never sat down to watch it - ever. Todd, wants to but I really have no interest at all. Maybe one day, who knows. But we will root for good old USA.
Hey, by the way i'm going to be meeting Pam, Emma and family in 4 days, can't wait.
Good for Lily.....you have to remain true to who you are!
We route for the USA and China in our house! Briana loved the opening ceremony the other night. I have the Beijing ceremony on DVD. I think I will pull it out so she and I can watch it.
that is but one, of many, beautiful blogs.xxbb
I love that our girls are finally proud of their birth country!
We never cheer for any country in particular, because we too are torn. We like to watch them all, and cheer for the most amazing athlete we think should win - no matter where they are from. But deep down, if they are from Argentina, Canada, Germany, USA, China, Great Britain, or Ireland...we might do a little mental fist pump. ;o)
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