Belated happy mooncake festival! And MTL...

Had wanted to post on time but I was on a very draining course and fell asleep before 9 pm on Wednesday!

Luckily, we already had fun with lanterns on Sunday. And by that, I meant we walked home from Mum's place at 7 pm carrying lanterns in the bright evening light!

The big boys happy with their lanterns with LED lights

I didn't even give Yu a light :p

I bought Kai and Yang's lanterns either the year they were born or the year after - dragon for Kai and unicorn for Yang, according to their Chinese horoscope. Unicorn is a kind of horse, right? :p Anyway, they don't have horses. I found out last Saturday that they don't carry monkeys in cellophane paper too so I decided on a fish for Yu - yup, 谐音!

I told Kai and Yang about what their 灯笼 meant.

Kai: Is Yang's one a 灯马?

*.*

At least he knows that dragon is 龙 in Chinese! But I need to show him that this 龙 is different from the 笼 in 灯笼!

Three reusable home lanterns with two school lanterns (already in the bin! oops)

That night, we read Kai's new book from Chengzhu. His teacher flagged out a few difficult terms. Kai didn't ask me about them but Yang did when he heard them.

Yang: What's 千家万户? What's 贡献?

I explained, and he kept quiet. I hope he understood me!

And their curiosity in language - I hesitate to say interest! - doesn't stop at Chinese. We passed by an electric box on Sunday morning, and Kai spotted the word DANGER. I read the Chinese and the Malay versions too but said that I could not read Tamil.

Kai: Do you know how to learn Tamil?
mf: How?
Kai: First, you watch Junction Tree...

I wanted to laugh so hard!! Of course, I just acknowledged that. I asked him about the second but I forgot what he said :p

Yang is probably absorbing as well. For a while last year, he could count up to three or five in Malay! And of course his famous sapu sapu :) Kai didn't show an interest in Malay until end July, when they sang Chan Mali Chan in school. I never knew the lyrics as a child so I was surprised to keep hearing "anak kambing saya" - I now know what that meant after doing an elementary course on Bahasa Indonesia on an app. 

Eventually Kai could sing the whole song. On our way home on Sunday evening, he was singing when a Malay uncle came from the bus stop and heard him. The uncle laughed and said he was very accurate! Kai thought he was laughing at him and ran off *.* This boy of mine can be a tad sensitive. But he's still singing the song. More anak kambing every day!

Oh, we didn't buy any mooncake this year. No date night how to go to mooncake fairs?? Hope to do so next year!