Grandpa and flight chess Momo’s grandpa has come from hometown several days ago, to live with us for a period of time in the following days. Momo loves her grandpa very much. These days, she clung to her grandpa all the time. As early as 6:30 in the morning I had heard the two people were already talking and chatting in the other bedroom, while in usual she was still asleep. And, I guess all her teachers in the kindergarten have known her grandpa’s visit, because she would like to share it to everyone around in the first time, especially her teachers and schoolmates. Yesterday evening, Momo asked her grandpa to play flight chess with her, which I had just taught her a few days ago. Although she had not got all the rules, she taught her grandpa seriously. At the moment, I was quite moved by the happy time between the two generations. As Momo turned to me for the rules of the chess time and time again, I and her dad were asked to join the play in the end, and all of us have had a good time in the evening.

I owe iTalki two notebook entries now Till today, I owe iTalki two notebooks entries. I hope I can complete by tomorrow.

Mum, please take a donut for me! There is a bakery near my office, called Tous Les Jours. My daughter loves its donuts. Several days ago on Monday, she asked me whether I could bring her a donut next day, and I said yes. But I forgot it on Tuesday. I felt very sorry and promised to bring the donut for her on Wednesday. Although, she was very disappointed, she forgave me in the end. I told her to remind me after back home from kindergarten in the next day in case I forget again, and she nodded her head heavily. At 5:30 pm on Wednesday, I saw an incoming call from home on my phone, and I just thought it was my mother-in-law’s call to ask me what time can I get home. But when the phone connected, my daughter’s ringing voice was coming from it: “Mum, please take a donut for me!” I was surprised because I didn’t expect she could really remember to remind me. It appears that the donuts is so attractive! And I really shamed myself for not having kept my words.

My daughter's first idol in her life First idol of my daughter in her life My four and a half year old daughter has been in the kindergarten for more than one year. One night a few days ago, she was humming and then sang out a line: “你有没有爱上我？(have you fallen in love with me?)”. I was so surprised, and either was her dad. We exchanged looks and asked her several questions with a casual and normal voice, such as what’s the name of the song, where did she hear from, and did she know what’s the meaning of “爱上我”, etc.. Finally, we got to know that it’s a hit song of the most popular boyband “TFBoys” now in China, and she heard the song from her schoolmates. Then through Baidu, I had learned more about the boyband. The three members of the band are all teenagers, whose average age are less than 15 years old. But their fans are tens of millions and there is one beside me here, now ——my daughter. After that, she could easily recognize the members of the band, TFBoys, her first idol of her life on TV or in outdoor ads. I believe she’ll give me more and more surprise in the future.

An interesting thing about my kid Recently, my four year old kid has an interest to write down, or would rather say to draw the Arabic numerals on paper under her grandmother's instructions. I was surprised to find that except 1, 5, 0, and 8, all the other numerals were written in backward. For example, the 7 was written to “┌”，3 was “E”, 9 was “P”, and 2 was “S”, as showed in the photo below. It also reminds me the phenomenal that she speaks some words in an opposite sequence, such as she would say “条纹” into “纹条", “马代”to “代马", “劲爆”to “爆劲”, and etc.. This is really interesting and mystical to me! Could someone explain?

The newly wrote notebook entries here were well corrected by warm-hearted people I began to write an English notebooks in iTalki just four days ago, and kept on writing at least one entry a day. I’m very glad and really happy to find that in the last several days, every entry was well corrected by warm-hearted native people. It encourages me to continue to learn English. And meanwhile, I should help more other people who want to learn Mandarin, especially the writing, as my routine work is closely connected with written Chinese.

Thick Smog in Beijing The on-going thick smog in Beijing has lasted for almost a week, and no one knows when it will disperse. I pray there comes a wind, a strong wind to blow away the smog. However, it is not a permanent solution to the air-pollution. Most of my friends and I have an air cleaner at home, working for 24 hours a day, and wish the small home space could survive. But how could it be? We all, including the houses, factories, rivers, trees etc., are surrounded by the smog. I had thought about escape, moving to another place to live, but cannot make up my mind to leave Beijing so far for certain matters, mainly are work, education of the kid, house-hold registration.

It seems that people learning English on iTalki is much much more than those learning Chinese. It seems that people learning English on iTalki is much much more than those learning Chinese.

11.11 Shopping Day in China 11.11 (November 11) has been created by the e-commerce behemoth Alibaba several years ago and already evolved into an all-citizen shopping carnival, especially in this year. As early as one month ago, the promotion ads of all the e-commerce platforms, such as Taobao, Tmall, JD, Suning etc., have existed everywhere. It is a great joy to watch the war of words in the ads between the platforms. Anyway, up to 50% discount is attractive and tempting to everyone, and I was no exception. I have previously saved the goods I’d like to buy in my shopping cart and carefully waiting the coming of 0 o’clock. Still, some of the goods in my cart are sold out in just seconds after 0 o’clock. It is said that a kind of new job called hand-cutting has created and the demand of it will exceed supply in the next couple of days. Hahaha….