Her heart will always remain

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.


 

Let the games begin

The girls have been counting down the days to the start of this years Olympic games. To say they were excited is an under statement. I really don't know why Rosie is excited because I am not sure that she really understands the concept but then she is Rosie and any excuse for a party is a good excuse to get giddy. They have been busy making banners, flags and Olympic torches, we baked an Olympic cake, invited friends over to watch the opening ceremony with us and generally went overboard (and thoroughly disgusted my loving brother and many of his friends LOL)

 They hung their banner with the US, British, Chinese and Brazilian flags on it and marched with their torch for the opening ceremony. We were so very excited but then, but then, but then, the opening ceremony actually started and what in Gods name was it all about? I was totally lost. It started off OK but by the time they got to the music bit I was flummoxed. I loved the part with the Queen and Rowen Atkinson always makes Lily and I laugh but for the most part ? ? ? 

The good news is the parade of nations started and we were all able to get excited again. The girls frantically waved their flags for China and now they are waiting for the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. but I don't think their eyes will stay open that long.

Betsy Ross the flag maker

Our Olympic cake ( oh how I love Pinterest)

The flags representing the people in our house tonight.

The girls with their Olympic torch

watching the ceremony

I thought this part was great 

someone forgot to smile. (but she looked lovely)

Olympic fever.

Now all that is left is for the best athletes to win. We are going to be watching the swimming very closely.