Martin Adams

History Comes Full Circle

beijingkids — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:00:00 +0800

Daniel and his great-grandfather

Even before I got engaged to my now wife Su, I had heard horrible things about how much Chinese families “welcome” laowai interlopers to steal their daughters. Luckily, in my case, I found this to not to be true. Not only that, but I also soon discovered that there was actually a cosmopolitan streak in her family: my wife Su’s granddad (Laoye) came from a cosmopolitan upbringing in pre-war Shanghai. Moreover, back in the days when ganbei was about the only word of Chinese I knew, it was an unlooked-for blessing to find that I could even communicate with him directly – after a fashion, at least. Laoye spoke French, a language I used to mangle at school.

Burning the Baby Fat

beijingkids — Mon, 12 May 2008 12:24:55 +0800

No pain, no gain

The verse for this month’s lesson on daddy-ing dilemmas comes from chapter one, page one of the quaintly named “The Pre-school Book.” Written by Brenda Thompson and published in the year of my birth (1976), this bible of parenting wisdom is getting to be a little more faded and smelling a little mustier these days.

Despite its age, however, it remains a timelessly trendy guide to how parents should bring up their kids. What’s more, as one of my mum and dad’s parenting manuals, it is now a family heirloom. Thompson offers educated advice that is guaranteed to warm the staunchest of liberal hearts – “encouragement” and “help” feature prominently.

One quote in particular has been playing on my mind as I have been reflecting on my latest adventures in fatherland: “You needn’t be disappointed if your child is late developing a certain skill,” says Thompson. “Children develop their abilities in different orders and at different rates.”

Thinking Ahead

beijingkids — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 10:00:00 +0800

Planning our baby’s future

It might seem a bit premature to be worrying already about my son Daniel’s education. After all, he’s only 8 months old – there’s plenty of time yet to save our pennies for his formal education. But they say education begins at home, and as a headmaster’s son with memories of extra homework during the school holidays, I know it to be true. What happens, though, when home is multi-cultural?

I’m fortunate that my wife and I seem to be on the same page: I was subjected to intense competition and my wife suffered spoon-fed rote learning, so we both want to avoid our son being pushed in the same way. And if Su and I share many of the same ideas about how to bring up our child, we also share many of the same worries. Chief amongst these is the difficulty of bringing up an independent-spirited, unpampered child in Beijing around his extended family. Loving as they are, some of Dan’s relatives have a tendency to mollycoddle. Okay, I know he’s only a baby and babies are meant to be coddled, but how many people does it take to change a nappy? Two, it seems: one to do the actual changing, and another to hold baby’s hand lest he utter the merest whimper, offering comforting words like “There, there, it’ll all be over soon.” I admit that at this stage it almost certainly doesn’t matter. But as parents, we worry about what will happen later on, and I am inclined to believe it may be kinder to be cruel.

The Amazing Ayi

beijingkids — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:16:36 +0800

Not quite family, but close enough

After trying to explain the word ayi on the phone to my mum, I’ve concluded that it just doesn’t translate. “Child-minder” is too officious, though Zhao Ayi does look after our baby. “Maid” just brings to mind characters from old comedies on TV that poked fun at class distinctions. “Au pair” perhaps? Or “nanny”? For middle-class Englishmen such as myself, such luxuries simply do not exist. An ayi is, well, an ayi, and somehow seems a warmer word than anything we have in English – it is, after all, often translated as “auntie.” So I’ve given up trying to translate it, and now Mum has learned a new Chinese word to add to her wei and ni hao.

Meeting Granddad

beijingkids — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 20:13:41 +0800

Four generations, three countries, two continents, one family

Before we had children, I might have thought of the following as drawbacks to living in Beijing in an international marriage with a Chinese girl: being mutually incomprehensible in an argument, never being able to win an argument, protracted lunches with the extended family on frequent feast days, not being able to have Sunday lunch with the European relatives, and being bankrupted by the cost of sharing Christmas dinner and a pint with the folks back home. For sentimental reasons, living half a world away from my son's Anglo-Saxon grandparents now tops the list, while practical reasons place the cost of bridging the distance to our far-flung family at second.

With that said, we don't regret a penny spent taking Daniel to see the big-nosed branch of the family in Europe this summer. Though the month-long family reunion may, perhaps, have been a bit extravagant, it yielded many priceless moments. One of the highlights was introducing Daniel to my irrepressible granddad, who, at 94, is one of the sprightliest among those in the retirement community in London where he lives. The old fella was so excited, in fact, that as soon as he clapped eyes on Daniel he rushed next door, returning moments later to wheel his neighbor in for a viewing session ñ after all, it's not only the Chinese elderly who like to show off their newest family members.

Sharing My Son

beijingkids — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 12:00:00 +0800

Introducing Daniel Martin Adams

I am finally worthy of this column’s title. I became a Beijing baba at 10.37am on April 26, when our son Daniel Martin Adams/Su Rui (苏锐) was delivered by caesarean at the Beijing OB/GYN Hospital (Beijing Fuchang Yiyuan). Showing an early propensity for the forward somersault, our germinating gymnast flipped himself the wrong way up in the 36th week – hence the caesarean, which went well. If readers are anything like my mum, they will be dying to know that Daniel was born 51cm “long” and weighing 7.2 jin. (And in case, like my mum, you thought jin was a drink, you might like to note that it is a Chinese measurement equal to half a kilogram.)

Together in Sweetness, Together in Pain

beijingkids — Mon, 07 May 2007 12:00:00 +0800

An expectant father experiences sympathy pangs

Some articles are not easy to pen. Some admissions are almost too private, too painful to share. But in the interests of my fellow man (and I am using this term in its gendered sense here), I need to confess a shameful secret: I am a couvade syndrome survivor.

I’d never heard of it before I was afflicted, but couvade syndrome is a condition that transcends national boundaries, political persuasion and depth of pocket – anyone with a Y chromosome and a pregnant wife is vulnerable to it. If you, too, are an expecting father, you may be familiar with it. If you are a Cosmo reader you may even be an armchair expert on it. I’m about to have my first child, though, and I’m not a keen Cosmo reader, so I was totally unprepared for the bewildering effects of what is more commonly known as “sympathetic pregnancy.”

Pregnancy with Chinese Characteristics

beijingkids — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 12:00:00 +0800

Thoughts of a soon-to-be-dad

I’m not yet a father, so it’s odd to be writing a column as a Beijing dad. However, on May 7, give or take a few days, I am due to become one. Genealogically speaking, my new baby will be half-British, half-Chinese. But judging from my experiences in China so far, it’ll take some efforts to keep things this balanced when it comes to the baby’s upbringing.

You see, ours was always going to be a pregnancy with Chinese characteristics. After all, it has always been a marriage with Chinese characteristics. Since we arrived in Beijing three and a half years ago, my native-Beijing bride and I have shared a hundred square meters with a Pekinese named Bubby that has a taste for foreign flesh, a terrapin (that, to be fair, causes little trouble), and two irrepressible in-laws.