Wednesday, April 22, 2015

A little Malaysian in Paris : Aelig

She always tells me she is both French and Malaysian.
I didn't correct her, as by blood she is French and Malaysian, but officially she has not obtained her Malaysian citizenship, yet.

Initially I planned to bring only the youngest to Paris for the Malaysian citizenship application, so that it would be a quick in and out process. But when my eldest asked me if she was going along, I didn't have the heart to say no. At her age, it was easy to travel with as she eats with us, walks along, and knows how to entertain herself.

The little girl using her fake phone telling her friend that she is going to Paris. She remembered that she had been to CDG Airport in Paris (on the way to Malaysia), so she told her friend that this would be the third time she is in Paris. I told her no, this would be the first time, as going to the airport doesn't count as visiting the city.

She was telling anyone in school that she was going to see Eiffel Tower. Before the trip, I picked her up at school, she repeated it to her teacher, and her teacher said: Yes Aelig, everyone knows you are going to see Eiffel Tower: lol

Three highlights of the trip:

I want to hug Eiffel Tower
We approached the Tower and decided to climb up using stairs since there was only 20 minutes waiting. There was a long queue if you want to use the elevator. She was elated to see the Tower and told me that she wanted to hug it. Seeing me laughing, she was annoyed and kept asking why I made fun of her. I calmly told her that I was not laughing at her, just that she was too cute to want to hug a Tower that was so tall and huge. She then declared : I would hug its leg! She was just too sweet. I then mentioned about a report I once watched on the TV : an American woman annouced that she was married to Eiffel Tower, and she would fly to Paris once a year to kiss her husband. She puzzled at this story, she couldn't understand how someone can get married to a Tower, especially she was at the moment couldn't decide who to marry among her two boyfriends. lol

After seeing the Tower she wanted to buy some Tower key chains. There were a lot of illegal vendors around the area, 5 for 1€. I insisted that we only buy from legal shops. We were rushing to another place so we ended up didn't buy any until the second day. The whole morning she was nagging me. We finally got her two for 1€, but she lost one when she was playing at the Chatelet area. She was very sad, I comtemplated to buy her more (shops at the metro station selling 3 for 1€), but I think she needed to learn a lesson to take care of her own stuffs.

Saying bonjour to everyone
She tried to say bonjour (hello) to everyone on the street. Imagine the crowd on the streets in Paris! Seeing that I didn't do the same, she complained that I was inpolite! Well, I didn't know how to explain that we just don't say hello to whole bunch of people / strangers on the street. Exactely why? I figured it is because people in big city won't response anyway and if I do so I would have to say many times of Bonjour in a day? But, to my surprise, some people did reponse to her. The cold faces turned into warm smiling faces seeing her saying bonjour. I learnt a lesson.

Respecting the traffic signs
When crossing the road, we taught her to use the zebra zone and cross only when the pedestrian light turns green. Well, we were in Paris, in some area the pedestrians just cross the road so we followed. She was so mad! She was whinning the whole journey from the train station to the restaurant where my friends were waiting. We were already late, hubby was looking for the restaurant so he didn't pay attention to her. She was angry and sad that we didn't wait for the green light, and hubby actually stepped outside of the zebra zone when crossing the road. This was so unacceptable to her. She mentioned that the police might catch us and it was totally not her fault, but her daddy wouldn't listen to her! She was literally yelling to her daddy. At this point, I wonder how much we respect the instructions we gave to the kids ourselves.

Overall she did well traveling with us. I felt that she would be equally happy if we were at somewhere else, she was still too young to appreciate the charm of Paris. Here is her drawing to remember her trip to Paris.


3 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:08 AM

    She is so cute! I think it's great she considers herself both French and Malaysian, even without the paperwork for the latter. You know, she may remember the trip more than you think. Mark is still talking about a few places we went to while in Latin America, and it was a few months ago... and he is only 2.5!

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  2. You are such a good mother to bring Aelig along because I can see from your post that she enjoyed herself so much, especially at the Eiffel Tower.

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  3. She is just too adorable! Bring her again to Paris next time ;)

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