Is he Chinese or English?

According to Austin, there are 2 types of people in the world...Chinese and English. Austin does not have a very clear concept of race or ethnicity, but I realizes the way he categorizes people he knows here is not so much by how they look as by what language they speak. Xiao Ji is definitely Chinese to Austin. But my friend V, who is Chinese, came over for dinner last night. She has babysat the boys before and Austin really likes playing with her. I said something about her being Chinese to Austin last night and he said "She has good Chinese but she is English". So I said she does speak English well, but she is Chinese. Today we had playgroup and I was talking about this with the other moms. We asked Austin what Angie ayi was (she is Chinese-American) and he said "She is English. But she is a little Chinese too". He does know one African shu shu, Glorie, who plays bass with Chris sometimes. I am pretty sure he refers to him as "English", though we have told him Glorie is from Africa (and speaks Rwandan and French best, followed by Chinese and then English, though all of his languages are pretty good). I guess that is what happens growing up in the often confusing world of a "third culture" ("Third Culture Kids are those who grow up in a culture different from their parents, so neither their parents home culture nor the host culture where they live are completely theirs...they move into a third culture, identifying most with kids like them who are in between cultures). But also not necessarily a bad way to understand one's cultural identity in some ways, since language is so tied to culture. But it is funny to hear how Austin perceives people and the world.

In other news, the toilet water was a false alarm. This morning both toilets flushed fine...I think it must have been some other issue with our apartment complex. So our $12's worth of toilet water paid at the end of 2007 continues to keep us well supplied.

One more day without Chris...about 24 hours from now he will land. Yeah! Thanks for your comments...keep them coming :)