Bilingual Support

Having two days free, with Gabriel at school, meant I could set up a Bilingual Support Group at the ibu association’s house. At the same time I was asked to do a talk about Bilingualism at the Alliance Francaise in KL.

This was to be a bigger more formal talk than the last one I had done. The Director asked me to do a PowerPoint presentation lasting about an hour, followed by questions. ‘In which language?’ I asked. ‘Well, if we do it in French our students won’t understand it all, and I think most French expats understand English, so can you do both?’ I agreed that it would be a shame if the beginner students could not follow, but then a dual language talk would be a) too long if I had to say everything twice, b) daunting for me to do a simultaneous translation. I had never spoken in public in French and did feel comfortable in a formal situation. In the end we decided to do the talk in English, but with an on-screen translation for French speakers and handouts in both languages. That seemed acceptable. I took the basic themes of the book and edited them to simple one or two sentences for the PowerPoint. My French friend, Odile, translated it into French for me, adding all those dammed accents and Chinese-hats that I would have forgotten, and making it fit beautifully to my text.

A week before I had a mild panic that nobody would come and sent out emails and sms’s to everyone I knew. The French school handed out invites, noting the importance of learning more about Bilingualism. Although it was a rainy Thursday night around thirty people came, including most of my KL friends, filling up the room with their pre-talk chatter and cheering me on. Most people were English-speakers with a French connection, and several parents and teachers came from the French school. We sold many books afterwards and with the glass of free wine, provided by the Alliance Francaise, people stayed late to discuss, compare stories and chat.


Suzanne's Talk on Bilingualism

From that came the spin-off Bilingual Support Group, which began in March. The monthly meeting had a theme, such as Mixing, The Early Years, Parent’s Roles and Trilingualism. The group was a wonderful mix of languages, stories and experience. Mothers told of problems with husbands who refused to let them use their first language, teachers who had banned on language, children who were mixing, had delayed speech or could not speak to their grandparents. I gave advice as needed, and also urged the group to give solutions as well. This worked well as two German mothers passed on information on German-speaking playgroups, or the Malaysian mothers advised how where to buy books or DVD’s in foreign languages. Seeing the relief on their faces as they saw they were not the only ones struggling with bilingualism or multilingualism was very moving for me. I was delighted to give them handouts, suggest books or websites and help them find their way through the early years of Bilingualism. The third Tuesday of the month, when I did my talk, was soon my favourite day of the month.

Gabriel goes to school

Gabriel was growing fast, now two years old and beginning to find his place in the family. His sunny personality and big smile still attracted passersby to stop and talk to him, but he knew how to upset his siblings and get his own way at home. He began to talk, a little, and was secure in his world of parents, big brother and sister and adoring maid, Aimee. His days were easy, a late breakfast on the balcony, followed by either a English or French-language playgroup or accompanying me to the mall, lunch with me or the maid, a long nap and then fun when the big ones came home at three when we went to the pool or to play outside.

One Friday in January at the playgroup he had brought along a toy elephant, and another boy began to play with it. In a split second Gabriel sunk his sharp little teeth into Daniel’s arm. As the other mothers gasped at the bleeding wound and bruise I had no idea what to do. Marc and Nina had never bitten. I couldn’t believe he could be so violent. I apologized to the mother, gathered up Gabriel and ran off. As Gabriel grumbled he had not had his snack I drove home fast with tears in my eyes. I knew I would never return to that playgroup. Later after talking to friends I decided he was either bored or needed some social training and my neighbour recommended a local English-language Montessori school where both her boys attended.

Although we had thought Gabriel would go to the French school when he was two and a half or three years old we decided to try out two or three days a week, and stop the playgroups that he would soon be banned from. I was getting bored with the social networking, endless chats about toilet-training and fussy eaters anyway. The Malaysian school year starts in January so he was able to start immediately. The school was run by Malaysian Miss.Tim, who seemed to genuinely love her job. The school was a rather scruffy house on a busy street in the suburb of Bangsar. It was not the green oasis I had hoped, but they had a slide and climbing frame, bikes to ride, and a white rabbit in the playground. Although the school was officially following the Montessori method the academic side was low-key. Some Asian schools pushed children to read and write at a very young age, which was something we did not want.

Gabriel’s evolving strong character was noticed by Miss.Tim in the first week. She told me he refused to sleep upstairs with the others for a nap, instead he brought his little mattress downstairs and slept next to Miss. Tim’s office. With his school uniform and backpack he looked much older and I felt rather weepy dropping off Gabriel at school. I felt nostalgic for our lazy days when he was a baby and the dawning realization that soon all my children would be in school and I would have to find something worthwhile to do all day!

My husband is French too!

A new group of friends had formed around New Year. In Marc’s class a new girl called Eva had arrived. Eva was half Scottish and half-French, her father worked as a top pastry chef in the Hilton. Nina had made friends with a new girl in her class, Elodie, who was a beautiful mix of Phillipino mother and French father, who also worked as a top pastry chef at the Shanghri-La hotel in KL. Thinking they would have something in common I introduced Scottish Hilary and Phillipino Maribeth to each other at a school event.

Maribeth then introduced us to Youssy, an Indonesian woman also married to a French pastry chef, with a boy in maternelle. Maribeth was studying French with Sasi (or Mem) a Thai lady married, naturally, to a Frenchman, who had a boy in Nina’s class. We then met Yuen-chi, who had been one of the Vietnamese boat-people as a child and lived in Canada, married to a Frenchman and had a daughter the same age as Nina and Elodie. Our last member of the group was Audrey, who was a Chinese heritage Malaysian with French hubby and a daughter a year younger than Nina in the French school.

Although it was a diverse mix, Scottish, English, Phillipino, Indonesian, Thai, Malaysian and Vietnamese/Canadian, we bonded quickly. They had all lived abroad before in places as diverse as Dubai, Korea or America, and we usually moved every two years so we knew we must make friends fast before time ran out. Very quickly the group became a regular weekly fixture. We began having coffee together and comparing notes on our class teachers and the French school. Once a month we would eat at one of our houses, Maribeth was famous for her spring rolls, Sasi her spicy soups or I would make a quiche and salad. The group then graduated to sampling the posh hotel lunch buffets (with discount because the father worked there), or meting up in twos or threes to try out local Thai, Japanese or Malaysian restaurants. We even did Girls Night Outs, sipping cocktails or watching a band in the hotels.

We had a certain camaraderie, a safety in numbers against the stuck-up French-French families, that we all disliked, and we would welcome each other with smiles at the school gates. At school events it was wonderful to arrive at a class show or cultural event and find one of the group had saved me a seat. Six or eight people seems to be the ideal number for a group, and we could pair off or meet as a trio without any rivalry or hurt feelings. Although I felt closest to Hilary in character, I enjoyed greatly Sasi and Maribeth’s company.

However there were certain days when I felt split between my group and making efforts with the French. At one class coffee morning the maman’s split linguistically. I was in the middle, torn between talking in English (to Sasi and Maribeth and Yuen-Chi) or speaking French to the French mothers. We all had a few French friends through our children, and we took pride in them and tried hard to maintain contacts with ‘Friendly French’. However in a crisis we knew who to turn too. We were there for each other, when we felt homesick or when we didn’t understand the homework, when our kids got bad reports or our French husbands drove us crazy!

Bali and the tsunami

The year ended with a Christmas trip to Bali. It was quieter than it should have been after the terrible terrorist bombings. Hotels stood empty and the beach was full of women trying to sell massages or sarongs. We had a fantastic Christmas day in our resort, with Santa surfing in on the waves and delivering gifts for all the children. On Christmas Day, which is also my birthday, there was a show that our children performed in and Marc stood up and asked if he could sing happy birthday to me, and everyone sang along, as I blushed bright red on the stage!

The next morning we heard on the BBC news that there had been an earthquake and saw first reports from Sri Lanka. After we returned from a snorkeling trip later on we realized the enormity of the situation as reporters spoke of a tsunami hitting the north of Indonesia, Phuket, where we had been just a year ago, and some parts of Malaysia. We imagined what our families must be thinking and quickly called to reassure them. Prayers were said and clothes and money collected for the refugees. We spent New Year in the small town of Ubud, the atmosphere was solemn and the tourists walked quietly as if not to upset the locals. It felt like something had unleashed the god's fury and the Balinese loaded their shrines with fruit and incencse to appease the angry spirits.

Three days later we were sat on the beach and Jacques' cell phone rang. It was the French embassy in KL. They wanted to know if we were all ok. Jacques asked if they were calling all the French expats. ‘Oh no!’ The lady replied, ‘You have been reported missing by your neighbours…’ Then the line went dead. We flew back in to find all our neighbours waiting for us. One had been sure we had gone to Phuket, like we did last year, and no-one could really say for sure if it was Phuket or Bali, in the middle of Christmas shopping they had not really had time to ask specific questions. The Algerian diplomat had phoned the French embassy on our behalf. We were very touched by their kindness, but saddened to hear that a new family in the condo from South America had cancelled their last-minute trip to Langkawi and flew into Phuket the day it happened. Luckily they were on the fourth floor and survived although seeing the carnage on the beach shocked their nine-year-old daughter terribly.

A book, a talk and a visitor

My book was published in May 2004 and I had a talk booked at the international mothers group, ibu, for the beginning of November in a local bookshop. My father was visiting and brought over some extra copies of the book. It was on a Tuesday, a busy day for coffee mornings and activities, so I was expecting a small crowd, but more and more women arrived and in the end there were about twenty. I was nervous and it was hard to distil a book into a thirty-minute lecture. I explained the seven strategies and the types of child bilingualism. It sounded rather boring and more like a university talk and the all looked rather sleepy, so I concluded earlier than planned and asked if anyone had any questions.

That opened a floodgate of queries, comments and discussion. It was a wonderfully mixed crowd, some Malaysians women married to foreigners, and several expat English, Dutch, German, French and Australians curious to know more, or who wished to bring up their children bilingually after seeing the success Malaysians have had. We discussed schooling, parenting and how to have more input in the weaker language. At the end I sold four books and promised to start a monthly group in the new year, so we could meet regularly and discuss more. It seemed they wanted to talk and share advice and experiences. After Dad and I went to celebrate with lunch at a local Japanese restaurant in Sri Hartamas.

Grandpa stayed two weeks in KL with us. He was bitten badly by mosquitos but apart from that loved Malaysia. He adventurously tried reflexology, rode on an elephant at the sanctuary, climbed over a hundred steps to visit the Hindu Batu caves temple and sampled all the cultural foods he could. The kids loved having him around and after school would rush to tell him about their day. One evening I found him reading through Marc’s French homework with him, I was touched because it must have been rather disorientating to see the children studying in French rather than English, and although he might not have understood everything he was making an effort and that’s what matters in the end.

Love and war at school

School restarted in September and Nina got lucky though with a newly arrived teacher, Delphine. Nina was now in the top class of maternelle, or Grand section, and absolutely loved school. Within a few weeks she had fallen in love with a new boy in the class, Dorian. He was trilingual and had a Spanish-speaking mother, Gina, who was married to a French man and Dorian had attended English school before starting at the French school. When Delphine put on a class show displaying folk dances and Nina and Dorian danced together like Ginger and Fred.

Dorian became a frequent companion on trips to the park or museums, gallantly buying Nina an orange juice in the café one time and bringing her a pink silk scarf from a trip to Paris. Unfortunately Dorian played more with Marc when he came to our house, and the two boys would sneak off together to ride bikes or play in the pool, leaving sulky Nina all on her own. One weekend he invited himself for a sleepover, and Marc and Nina fought to have him in their rooms. In the end he bunked with Marc. But after a few months Dorian declared his undying love for two other pretty girls in the class. When asked which one he would marry he announced that he would marry all three, like some of Muslims do in certain parts of Malaysia. Nina was horrified and refused to share him, and dropped him like a hot stone.

Marc was in CM1, with the same teacher who taught Nina when we first arrived in 2003. I had not got on with Madame Chapeau then and it didn’t seem like this would be a good year for Marc either. I met the teacher in the playground one day after school just after the year had started. I bonjoured her, as one does and she replied ‘Hello’. I asked in French ‘Is everything OK with Marc’ and she replied ‘He is mixing up his English with his French’. The conversation continued with me speaking French and her replying in English, as though she didn’t understand my French. I was furious.

A few weeks later Marc had a punition, or a punishment, and had to write ‘Je n’ai pas droit de parler en anglais en classe’ (I am not allowed to speak English in class) fifty times, because he had spoken English to his friend, Adam, in class. Marc told me she often punished children who chatted in English in class. It was a problem because about half the class was bilingual and although they could speak French they chose not too, which annoyed Madame Chapeau even more. At the class talk for parents I found her aggressive and often rude to parents, but she was friendly with several influential parents and teachers and I knew if I complained to higher powers it would get me nowhere. But I disliked her nevertheless…

On top of this Marc’s English marks plummeted and I had to talk to the English teacher, a French woman. She explained how she had two levels: ‘just arrived in KL beginners’ and ‘bilinguals, those who have a foreign parent or have lived here a long time’. She preferred teaching the beginners. I got the distinct impression she was sick of all the annoying bored bilinguals who could talk the hind legs off a donkey but had terrible grammar. She said Marc spent his hour making paper aeroplanes or scribbling messy stories that she couldn’t read. I tried to talk to Marc, who didn’t care at all about his English grades, and said that English lessons were ‘nul’ or worth nothing anyway….