My Two Girls – All About Zara and Zaria

At 4+, Zaria is still gullible enough to believe the lies I told things I said.

When I told her I was giong out with Aunty Dinah (Jazzmint‘s farewell), and kids were not allowed.
Zaria asked, “Why? They serve only beer in the restaurant? They serve only sambal?”
I lied answered and said Yes to those questions, and she said, “Oh, then I better don’t go too.”
Phew.

I bought 2 tickets to Jacky Cheung’s concert (Yippie), and I was planning to bring Zara with me (or maybe just go with Daddy).
Zaria cried when I told her I only bought tickets for Zara and myself.
I lied told her there was a height limit, and because she’s below 120cm, they wouldn’t sell me the ticket; also taking the opportunity to tell her she has to eat well to grow taller.
Zaria told me after she stopped crying, “I have an idea, you can buy me high heel shoes. And when I wear the high heel shoes to the concert, I’ll be tall enough.” o.O”
I told her that the tickets have been sold off (which is the truth), and no way I could get another ticket.

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My girls have better sense than some racist goons out there.
I asked Zaria one day, “Mei Mei, do you know what race you are?”
Zaria replied, “I’m human race.”
(Best ever reply!)
When Zara got back home, I asked her the same question.
Zara replied, “You mean my culture?”

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Zaria came back from school one day and told me, “Mummy, Aidan scratched my eye with his shoe. Can you report to the police?”
I told her ok, I’ll call the police later.
After 1 minute, she came back and told me, “I think better you don’t call the police, you tell his mummy, so that his mummy will beat his bumbum.”
(at least she has some compasion)

Zaria saw one of her stickers on Zara’s book.
Zaria : Maa, jiejie took my sticker without permission.
Me : So what should we do about that?
Zaria : Send (give) her to another family.
Me : Do you really want to do that?
Zaria : Actually I do not want to do that, but the only way to teach her is to punish her. o.O”

One day Zaria refused to do her Chinese reading, and I had to push and push her. She then declared, “I wish I have no mommy!”
The following day when I picked her and her carpool friend from school, she told her car pool friend “You know, if your mommy is fierce it’s actualy good. It’s to teach you good things you know.” o.O”

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Zaria saw the neighbour went topless watering his plant.
Zaria : “Eeeeyer Mum, why is Uncle P not wearing his clothes?”
Me : “He’s hot I think… If mommy is hot can mommy take off my clothes?”
Zaria : “Eeeyer.. no mum, because you are a big breasted lady.” o.O”

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On another day.
Zaria : Mom, you should put a Y in my name. Now it’s Za-ri-AH. If you put a Y, then only it becomes Za-ri-YAH.
Me : So how should your name be spelled?
Zaria : You should spell my name as Z-A-R-I-Y-A. o.O”

The Little One is very into drawing lately although we did not start her on any arts classes.

In the beginning, she liked copying what Zara drew. E.g. Zara drew this.

She drew this (even the font for her name, she’s trying to copy Zara).

And guess what movie they were drawing about?
TANGLED.

Then she stopped copying, and started creating her own. Some following movies she’s watched, like these :

Some following famous characters.

(See if you can make out what she’s drawing, answer is at the end of the post)

Sometimes she just drew whatever that came to the mind.

Or inspired by what she was doing (taking photos, plucking flowers, and wearing the dress that she wore in the photos above).

I was praising her and then I called her Little Van Gogh one day. And since we told her briefly in Singapore who’s Van Gogh and what is he famous for, she replied very quickly, “Don’t call me Van Gogh, after I’ll cut my ear suddenly.” o.O”

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Of all the subjects in school, Zara scored the worse for Arts (She got As for all subjects, but B for arts). Hmm.., I think her drawings are quite original, I would have given her higher score myself. Then again I’m her mother, so I may be buyous.

These are the 2 that she did recently and passed up for arts class.

Topic was to desgn and decorate their names.

Topic was to draw something from or with Angry Bird.

Not too bad right?

And answers to Zaria’s drawing : Monster Inc.; Power Puff Girls; Angry Birds (a bit abstract though).

It seems I’m slacking in blogging. I find I barely have time with a full time job, all the chauffering (kids to school and to activities), home work and revision with a school going kid and lately another item has added to the to-do list, i.e. completing a course for career development by year end.

Anyway, this post is not about how busy I am, but the trip we made to Singapore during the school holidays.

Before the trip, I asked Daddy to get us a GPS, as I could foresee navigating with a map in Singapore, there’ll be lots of stress in the car. The El-Cheapo He went to Daiso and bought a compass instead; he thought a compass would at least tell us which direction we’re going without a GPS. o.O” Thank goodness I shared this joke with my neighbour, and she loaned us her GPS for the trip!

♥4th June, Saturday♥
To keep up with Daddy’s (dilly dallying) track record, we left the house after 11am (we’d never left the house earlier than 11am on any driving holiday trips we made), and got stuck on the North–South Expressway.

It seems everybody was heading towards Melaka for the weekend. It took us more than 4hrs to get passed Melaka. By the time we reached our hotel in Singapore, it was 6pm.

We stayed in V Hotel Lavender, a newly opened hotel located in Lavender housing area. We got very good rate for a room with 1 queen and 1 single beds. Although the room is a little small, it is comfortable, and best of all, its location is super. The Lavender MRT station is on the basement of the building, and around the hotel, there are lots of small eateries, and also a few small HDB food courts.

Not wasting any time, after checking in, we headed straight to Orchard Road to shop, as well as to have dinner (at the Ion Food Court). With the exchange rate of S$1 to RM2.50, every thing seemed extremely expensive even during the Great Singapore Sales.

♥5th June, Sunday♥
The original plan was to go to Singapore Zoo, but it was pouring in the morning, and we have to change our plans, it was to Singapore Science Centre instead. Tickets were : $9 for adult, $6 for children (3~16yrs)

I prefer Petrosains, as there are more things for kids to ‘try’ out there. Still, we spent a 4hrs there, *yawn* watched 2 shows, The Tesla Coil Show and World of Insect Show.

In the evening, after a rest/nap in the room, we took a taxi to Marina Sands Bay, to watch iD by Cirque Eloize at the Grand Theatre. It’s a colourful Hip-Hop Circus act from Montreal, with lots of music and dancing. Girls of course loved it.

What more, we met our neighbour and her girls, who are the girls’ age and their best friends, visiting Singapore and watching the same circus!

They played together during intermission, and also after the show, went to explore Marina Sands Bay and had supper together.

♥6th June, Monday♥
Girls said they had already been to the Singapore Zoo on our last trip, so they wanted to go somewhere else instead. Sentosa Island was the somewhere else we chose.

We took the MRT to Harbour Front, and took the cable car ride (Tickets were : $26 for adult, $15 for children round trip), there was a promo going on where Malaysian tourists only need to pay half price, but because we didn’t bring along our passports, we had to pay the hefty full price. 🙁

We took the cable car to Mount Faber first, spent some time there.

Then took the cable car to Sentosa Island.

If you are going to Sentosa Island, plan your trip well so you can save some money buying combi tickets or play passes. We only went on 3 activites, and spent quite a fair bit because we didn’t know about this.

We watched the 4D Magix (girls screamed and shouted, and they said they didn’t like it at all because the ‘visual effect’ was too real) and went on the Extreme Log Ride (a ‘roller coaster’ rides with high-definition wide-screen projection, which the girls loved but I didn’t like it at all). (Combi Tickets were : $29.90 for adult, $17.90 for children)

We had dinner at Sentosa so that we could catch the Song of the Sea show (Tickets were $10 per person), a show which uses fountains, lasers, projection to tell a story. Now seriously, I don’t think Song of the Sea is worth the money, as you can get a similar show in Marina Bay Sands for free (read on).

After the show, we walked back to the cable car station, as there were long queues for the free monorial and bus ride.

We didn’t go to Universal Studio this round as there are lots of rides Zaria cannot go on due to her height. We’ll do that the next visit.

♥7th June, Tuesday♥
Girls pleaded with Daddy to stay in the hotel with them, as they wanted to spend time in the pool. So, the first half of the day, Daddy spent time with the girls at the hotel pool, and I went shopping on my own.

In the evening, we went to Marina Bay Sands (MBS). We took the MRT to Promenade Station, and then took a 10min walk via the Double Helix Bridge to MBS. It is a very scenic and pleasant walk, there were some local joggers jogging, but mainly foreigners enjoying the view as well as to take photos.

Daddy spent so much time there snapping photos, the girls got pretty impatient and in the end, I had to bring them into MBS first while he continued shooting away.

We have dinner there at the food court (we had almost all our dinners in the food court this trip, so sad), did some shopping, and then headed to watch the show at the Promenade. It’s a similar fountain and laser show like the Song of The Sea, except this is free, and we find more entertaining (no cheesy dialogues).

We then walked back to the Promenade MRT station the same way. The night view from the double helix bridge (and from the Promenade at Marina Bay Sands) was spectacular.

♥8th June, Wednesday♥
The last day of our trip, we only did shopping around Orchard area, and then it was home.

Zaria asked if she could stay in Singapore forever on our way back. And when we asked the girls which event/activity they liked best, they both claimed the morning they spent in the pool was the best. o.O”

Their holiday, we probably should just book a hotel nearby with a pool for them.

After realizing the sugar content in the girls’ growing up milk, I was really looking into switching the girls’ milk.

I started doing research on the web.

There is a lot of information on the web about sugars in children’s growing up milk from various milk companies. Most have stated their reasons on why sugars are added. I.e.
1) Children need carbo because carbo generates energy which is required for their rapid growth
2) Sugar is added for taste and what’s added by milk companies is compliance with Malaysia’s Recommended Nutrient Intake (RNI) and World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendation
3) Added sugars are from natural plant sugars
4) High lactose is not well tolerated by Malaysian children, therefore natural sugar is added instead of lactose

However, these are my thoughts :
1) Sugars are sugars, natural plant sugar, natural sugar, they are basically the same. If I want the girls to have natural plant sugar, I would give them watermelon (a fruit which has the highest natural sugar) for example, and not what is added to their milk for whatever reasons. And to be honest, I won’t give them watermelon every day, because of its sugar content, so why would I want to feed my children milk added with sugar every day, three times a day?

2) I don’t want the girls to develop a sweet tooth. I’d tried a few brands of growing up milk, IT IS very sweet, overly sweet for my liking.

3) I read on the net and also was told by a dietician, and got this – Under Malaysian food labelling regulations, the ‘carbohydrate per serve’ number in the Nutrition Information Panel (NIP) on growing up milk is only made up of two things:
a. Lactose which is sugar naturally present in the milk. The natural lactose level in a glass of standard milk is approximately 9g-13g per serve (200ml).
b. Sugars that are added to the milk powder. Anything higher than 9g-13g for ‘carbohydrate per serve’ in growing up milk is equal to added sugars

So as parents, we have to make informed decision about getting what growing up milk for the kids.
1) Check your child’s growing up milk powder pack/tin – look only at 2 things.
a. The ingredient list – corn syrup solids, sucrose, glucose syrup solids, these are all added sugars.
b. The carbohydrate per serve in the NPI – remember, anything above 11g-12g per serve (the lactose present in milk) is added sugars

2) Taste the milk. I do that often when I want to introduce a new brand to my girls. If I find it too sweet or too artificial tasting (some milk tastes like plastic!), I won’t consider.

3) Talk to people (other parents, your paed etc), do your own research and find out more.

For now, while still hunting for the right milk, Zara, being almost 7, has stopped drinking growing up milk but is on fresh milk now; as for Zaria, because she’s still not 5, she’s still taking her growing up milk. As fresh milk lacks the added nutrient, we are supplementing Zara with multivits.

Once we’d found the right growing up milk, both girls will be switched to that.

Over dinner.
Zaria: Jie, your boy friend is PhangSY, R, BeiYQ?
Zara : Ya
Zaria: Are you going to get married to all of them?
Zara : I’m not a bigamist ok!

So she’s not a bigamist, but what do the girls say about getting married?
Maybe it’s my fault, I showed them a video of me giving birth to Zaria, and told them getting married means having babies; since the video of me giving birth to Zaria was filled with gore and blood, they had this conversation one day.

Zara : I’m not going to get married
Zaria: Ya jie, me too.
Zara : I can spend time on my own.
We can go bow and shooting together Zaria. o.O
Zaria: We can go for treasure hunts o.O
Do painting, go shopping, go have dinner (together)
We can go Disneyland
Zara : Zaria, by then, you don’t want to go Disneyland, you want to go Ikano
Zaria: We can go to the cinema to watch Harry Potter
(sounds like a great plan to me, so much freedom, so much sparetime to do things enjoyable. I wish I had thought about this before I tied the knot)
Zara : Ya. We don’t want to get married and have children

Me : Then why do I have children?
Zara : Because you are married that’s why. You can’t change that!

One evening, while spending time with Zaria, she told me, “I wish I have face like jiejie.”
I asked her, “But why? Why do you want to have a face like jiejie?”
She replied, “Because I’m ugly.”
Shocked! I don’t know where she got that idea from. I asked, “Who said you are ugly. You are very pretty and cute.”
She said, “No, jiejie’s face is nice. Mine is not.
She didn’t look upset or anything, as though she’s just stating the fact.

I told her that she’s pretty too. Her face has a nice shape, she looks very sweet, her eyes are beautiful, and best of all, she has lips like Angelina Jolie.
She asked, “Who’s Angelina Jolie?”
I told her she’s an actress and very pretty, and they have similar lips.
She then further asked questions like, “She copied my lips?” “Is she sexy?”o.O”

And then, she didn’t talk about her face any more.

I’m not sure what made her think she’s ugly, is it comments from friends or family? I guess when you have 2 daughters, it’s natural for people to compare. So and so is prettier, so and so is taller or more slender or fatter.

I came from a family of 3 girls, and both my sisters were beautiful, and I got lots of negative (and insensitive) comments when compared with them. It did affect the self esteem, and I don’t want the same to happen to my girls.

So friends and family, if you see families with more than 1 child especially of the same sex, don’t do this sort of comparison. I too will try to be more sensitve towards my own children and others.

To me both of them are beautiful. How can she say she’s not beautiful?

I attended the Proton Exora VIP Test-Drive Session held in Full House, Sunway Giza Mall on Saturday (21st).

Participants were selected based on the registration at their website : http://www.allaboutexora.com/, and the session that I attended was held for the Chinese community and had about 20 couples attending (well, it wasn’t all couples, there was a pair who’s a mother and son team).

After registration, we were ushered in to have breakfast.

And when it was time, everyone proceeded to the Event Hall in Full House for the start of the event.

Melvin Wong, Head of Marketing Communication from Proton Edar, made the opening speech.

This is a session to let the couples selected to experience Proton Exora as never before. It’s not just a test drive session; various speakers were invited to cover topics of interest, and then games will be played which actually allow you to get to know the car better.

Kenneth Chiew, Driving Instructor for Proton Exora covered the Product Safety of Proton Exora, i.e. airbags available, advance seat belts for all passengers, protective frame of the car etc.; and we were shown how the car was designed to handle various accidents (front collision, roll over) as well.

For those couples who have children, Ms Loh Sit Fong, Clinical Psychologist from UKM Medical Center, talked about child development, and how to keep children safe in a car ride.

She definitely caught the attention of this little girl, who came with her parents for the event.

It was then the start of the test drive session. First we were all brought outside for a group photo (I didn’t get in, because I prefer to be the photographer than to be photographed).

Or maybe I should have joined in, because see the number of photographers available?

We were then assigned our cars. 2 couples to a car and I got this red one, the last car of the lot and my partners were Mr Ong from Sin Chiew Jit Poh, Izaton from Proton Edaran, and Sam from the media company.

Mr Ong, since he’s going to be our drive, got briefed.

Look at the number of Proton Exoras assigned to the Proton Exora VIP Test-Drive Session.

Couples started boarding their cars, ready for the take off.

Each car were given a walkie-talkie, and the organiser had the walkie-talkies tested out. He gave the last of the instructions, and then of we went.

The convoy of cars driving towards Desa Park City.

Somewhere in Sri Damansara, we stopped to swap drivers, so that everyone get a chance to test drive the car.

The parking lot next to Waterfront in Desa Park City has been set up for the outdoor event, with driving circuits and all.

3 different games were held concurrently. All were eligible for points collection, which will qualify couples for various placing, and gifts were then given later based on this placing.

Game number 1 was the blind fold challenge. Each couple decided on the driver, which was blind folded, and the navigator, which was to give instructions to the driver. The challenge is to have the blind folded driver do a parallel park with instructions given to him/her by the partner.

This is to see how a couple trusted one another, for if there was no trust, it’s difficult to give the instructions as well as well as to receive it. Of course having a car that’s easy to maneuver with power steering, like the Proton Exora, helped a lot as well.

Some navigators really did a terrific job, getting the driver to park the car in slightly more than a minute.

Game number 2 was piling challenge. Each couple was timed, they had to get some suitcases, a golf bag and a pram into the car boot, usher in their 3 passengers, get themselves into the car and buckled up as quickly as possible.
From this challenge, you can see how much luggage the Proton Exora can take, and how easy it is to turn the seats on the last row to provide bigger boot space.

On the driving circuit, game number 3 was held, to test out the ride handling of the Proton Exora. Kenneth, the Proton Exora driving instructor were giving instructions to cars via the walkie-talkie on when to accelerate, when to step on the brakes on the circuit, or when to do a steep turn.

This is the sort of things you won’t get to try out in a normal test-drive session. Here, you get to actually try out the ABS & EBD brake, and the Proton Lotus Ride and Handling on a circuit.

Lots of brakes screeching were heard. This must be fun for those who get adrenalin rush from speeding. I get dizzy just seeing the cars zoomed by.

Kenneth took the excitement 1 step further, he took the wheels and drove a couple of people in the Proton Exora, and of course being the driving instructor, he was driving faster, and tested the ABS and EBD brake, and Proton Lotus Ride and Handling to its fullest. I didn’t want to be his passenger (or anybody doing the ride handling) in case I threw up.

That was the end of the outdoor fun, and we then went back to Full House in our respective car. The convoy again stopped in Sri Damansara for another driver swapped.

Back in Full House, the cool aircon and lunch welcomed us.

We were famished!

While lunch was going on, some couples were brought to a corner to be interviewed about their Proton Exora test drive experience.

After lunch, we all got ushered back to the event hall.

Ms Loh Sit Fong went back on stage to talk about relationships. Couples were asked to rank things important to them in a relationship, and then checked if the female and the male have similar priorities.

Cherrise Tan, an image consultant from Adamaya Image Consultancy, came on next, and did a make over of one of the participants.

Kenneth came on again to answer any questions we had after test driving the car. I guess people were really impressed with the Proton Exora, its ride handling after they have driven the car on the circuit, its ease of maneuvering, and its space available.

We then got a talk on managing investment as well from Eric Wong, from A.D. Financial Sdh Bhd.

A little boy named Ethan (Merryn’s son), patiently sat through the talk after talk (I salute him, not easy for a kid his age), but he did say, “Why this one always not yet finished one.”

(Zaria wanted to follow me, and good thing I didn’t bring her along. Getting a child sit through the whole thing can be really testing their patience).

What was the end message delivered by Melvin Wong? Proton Exora is a practical and economical family car(fuel consumption : RM0.13/km), now if any of us is considering a family car, this is a good option, however, “Do not buy a product if you have not tried it.” We should have at least done a thorough test drive before committing. And in deed, this session allowed the participant to thoroughly test out the car.

At the end of the session, there was prize giving (it was Cash prize, ok?); it was done in such a way that every couple got a prize, but of course the couples in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd places, got bigger envelopes.

Every couple got a goodie bag with spa vouchers as well.

Haisay, I sat at this table throughout.
So no spa vouchers nor cash prize for me.

I’m going to register myself for the next Proton Exora VIP Test-Drive Session, I want to go as a participant this time.

So what was the knowledge that I gained from this session? For me, with a family of four, to choose an MPV, I’ll choose one :
1) that gives me space (I sure love the space in Proton Exora),
2) that’s economical (RM0.13/KM for Proton Exora, half of my current car’s fuel consumption),
3) with all the necessary safety features included (2 airbags, ABS & EBS brake system, advance seat belt, protective frame).

Now, don’t believe what others say about the car, don’t even believe what I say here, test drive the Proton Exora and experience it for your own.

What are you waiting for?

Zaria loves her Yamaha JMC class. In fact, she’s saying, “I don’t want to go to school any more, I only want to go to music class.”

Everyday, without fail, she’ll play the songs she’s learnt in class without me asking her to, and she has great satisfaction if she could play the whole song right. To her, it’s not like a practice at all. And she likes Daddy calling her “Little Mozart”.

4 months after attending Yamaha JMC class, she’s started playing the 2 most difficult songs for this level, Happy Days, and The Cuckoo Clock, and she’s really happy to be able to do it.

See the grin after she’s completed the song?

She’s now asking me why she has to continue attending class for Book 1 when she can already play all the songs. She is impatient to move on to the next level!

Well, each JMC book takes 6 months to finish, so another 2 more months, and she’ll be moving to Book 2. But I’m wondering, since she wants to move on, if we should pull her out of JMC course and get a private tutor to teach her so that she can progress at her own pace instead of following the 6-month schedule.

Any piano players out there to advice?

Zara and Daddy falling asleep in the LRT

Here is a typical conversation you can hear when I’m doing revision with Zara.
“Are you paying attention or not Zara? Did you see what was the question?!”
“Can you write properly, they are different words, make sure there’s space, when it’s one word make sure the letters are together!”

Here is a typical conversation you can hear when Daddy is doing revision with Zara.
“Dad, don’t even say the ‘R’ word ok? I don’t want to hear it.”
“Dad, I’d done this so many times, did you pay attention to what revision you did last time or not?”

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When I ‘play’ with the girls, normally we do building blocks, cooking (I’m always the customer so I can just sit there with my book while the girls served me), or beading together.

When Daddy ‘plays’ with the girls, he’ll be the horse they ride on, he’ll be dancing ballet with them (imagine 6feet tall and tippy toe-ing with his girls), or he’ll run after them when they cycle.

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When I’m the one tucking in the girls, if we started reading at 10:15pm, I’ll rush through the book, and by 10:30pm, lights out, girls sleep.

When Daddy is the one tucking in the girls, at 11pm when I peeped in, he’ll still be reading.
I tell him, “Hello, lights out by 10:30pm. They have to go to school tomorrow ok?”
He’ll reply, “But they are enjoying the book.”
o.O”

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And this happen one day during breakfast.
Daddy having bread and jam and a cup of tea. He left his tea bag from his cup of tea on his plate.
When he wasn’t looking, Zara tore open the tea bag, sprinkled the wet tea dust on Daddy’s bread.
When Daddy bit into his bread, he spat everything out, and shouted for me to see what Zara did.
He then laughed and said, “You tricked me yeah?!!”
Then Zara, Zaria and him had a good laugh.
Imagine, if she did that on my bread….what’s going to happen?

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So besides not knowing what time the girls have to go to bed, what time their school starts or ends, what activities happen on what day, what medicine they should be eating (if they fell ill), whose cup is whose, or whose toothbrush is whose, and besides occasionally being his girls’ Knight in Shining Armour;

Daddy is more fun and Mummy is uptight.

(You’ll probably be able to relate to this more if you know Chinese)

After more than 4 months in a Chinese school, how is Zara doing in her Chinese? I would say she’s doing well, but her Chinese is probably at the level of a 5year old native speaker. I’ll quote some examples later.

What language do they speak in school? She told me when she’s in her class, she and her friends speak in Mandarin; but once outside the class, they will start conversing in English. Her school has many English speaking kids, so this is good, as she still gets to speak English while improving her Chinese. However, the down side is, she started mixing 2 languages in her speech, unconciously.

She told the teacher, an Indian, from the maths centre, “Teacher, I got 一百分for my maths in school.” She repeated a few times and couldn’t comprehends why the teacher didn’t understand her, not knowing she said, 一百分 instead of one hundred.

So to make her concious of only speaking 1 language at a time, I implemented a system for her and her (carpool) friend, James, in the car. Each day, they are to speak only 1 language, either English or Chinese, fully, on our journey home. On an English day, should they or even myself accidentally use any Chinese words, we’ll have to pay a RM0.10 fine, and vice versa.

Initially, we collected a lot of fines, but after a while, I saw them making a concious effort to speak only 1 language. This helps to improve their Chinese proficiency too, because on Chinese day, they’ll try very hard to find the word they need to describe something.

Here are some “Chinese Day” conversation taken on our journey home.

Zara : 今天，有个男孩子…err.. muak muak 我的朋友Ohana. [Today, there’s a boy who muak muak my friend Ohana] (obviously she doesn’t know how to say kiss in Chinese)
Me : 今天, 有个男孩子吻我的朋友 [Today, there’s a boy who kissed my friend] (corrected her)
Zara : (repeated) 吻我的朋友 [Kissed my friend]
Me : Ohana是马来人吗?[Is Ohana a Malay?]
Zara : 不是, 她是中文. [No, she’s Chinese language] o.O” (She’s supposed to say 华人or中国人the words for Chinese people)

She was playing this hand game with James.
Zara : 公鸡, 母鸡, 小鸡, kay-poh-jee [rooster, hen, chick, kay poh jee]
Me : kay-poh-jee 不是中文来的，kay-poh-jee中文是八卦 [kay poh jee (nosy) is not Mandarin, kay poh jee in Mandarin is 八卦]
James : 啊我知道, Bak-gua [Oh, I know, Bak-gua (BBQ pork slices in Hokkien)] o.O”

I asked James if he likes Chocolate cake.
James : 我不喜欢, 因为那个蛋糕很….我不会讲那个字, 我可以讲英文吗? [I don’t like, because the cake is very …. I don’t know how to say the word, can I speak English?]
Me : OK
James : Very strong (concentrated)
Zara : 哦我知道那个字, “很有力”. [oh, I know the word, it’s very strong (in strength).] o.O” She doesn’t know how to say the word 浓 (the Chinese word for concentrated).