Lately it seems that I have seen more and more mixed race couples out and about with their mixed race kids. The funny thing I noticed is that if the kids look more caucasian they are more likely to be speaking Mandarin and if the look more Chinese they are more likely to be speaking English! I think it is all fantastic by the way but I am wondering if the increase is something that anybody else has noticed lately. Thanks.
Hey thanks for straightening me out on that one. I thought everyone in the U.S. was blond!
That has to be one of the dumbest things I have read on this site for quite a while.
That has to be one of the dumbest things I have read on this site for quite a while.[/quote]
Come now, the sample size in Taiwan to draw such a conclusion is huge. 
All I am saying is that it is what I have seen a lot lately, and I was wondering if anybody else had noticed it. I wasn’t claiming to have done a scientific survey. Geeez.
We are all geniuses and smart asses here bob… simple.
I guess you didn’t notice that bob specifically qualified his statement with the words “[color=red]I noticed[/color]”, eh?
TMT, you’re right insofar as Bob did not explicitly state that he thought there might be some kind of inverse relationship between appearance (Chinese vs. Caucasian) and use of language (Chinese vs. English).
I was inferring (reasonably so, considering his status as village idiot) from his observation that he believes such a relationship does in fact exist.
So, Bob, whaddya think? You reckon there might be something in it?
I guess you didn’t notice that bob specifically qualified his statement with the words “[color=red]I noticed[/color]”, eh?[/quote]
More importantly - who really cares. [color=red]I noticed[/color] that this board is oft visted by arrogant idiots, does it make it true? No. Does it mean people will ignore my statement and have their say? Of course… its a forum. If the mods deleted every post that didnt stay on topic this forum would be pretty slim pickings. 
How long have you been in Taiwan, bob? When I got there in 1991 I knew very few Chinese-Western couples with kids. Now I know a bunch. Don’t know if that’s because of my age, because Westerners are staying longer and settling down in Taiwan more often than they used to, or what. As for the inverse relationship between appearance and preferred language, I haven’t noticed it. One of mine looks more Chinese and another looks more white, and neither can speak Chinese worth a crap.
Don’t have a shit fit there Spack, but in fact I believe that an inverse relationship may indeed exist. Mixed race kids sometimes look a little more like one race than another. It may be that some parents push their kids harder to speak Chinese if they look more caucasian and vis versa. It is just a theory but a reasonable one to explain what I have seen lately. Jeff’s experience seems to contradict mine but actually that was what I posted for, to see if other people had noticed the same thing or not.
You always seemed reasonable before spack. What is your problem today.
Hey Jeff I bet they both speak better chinese than you though! 
One thing I have noticed, please keep in mind that my sample group is a small town and I only have on Eurasian child(is that a better term?), the more people think that my son looks Chinese the more they will ask if he can speak English. Then some idiot will say that he doesn’t look European at all and that explains why his Chinese is so good and his English is trailing somewhere in the distance. Simple fact is that it has more to do with the people he spends more time with, his grandma and mom, his father, me, only sees him for a short time each day. The environment is everything. However, I can understand, from the bumpkin attitude that prevails here, that the more people think my son is Chinese, then the more pressure he has to learn English, or should I say, we as the parents feel the pressure to teach him more.
Actually, he is doing quite well with English at the moment, it’s just that his Chinese and Taiwanese is so much better. Sometimes it’s just habit, now he’s getting the habit of speaking English to me, and Chinese to all non-big noses.
Maybe, just maybe, if the parents bow to the pressures of society, as hicklike as it can get, then the results could be something like bob has suggested. Personally, in my small sample case, I have found it to be true, in a small way at least.
Not yet, but maybe one day. It’s improved a bit lately–comprehension, at least-- because their Chinese grandparents were here since November and left just last week.
Many, many factors affect a mixed race child’s ability to speak his or her parents’ languages (assuming they speak different languages). Is the child’s appearance one of them? IMO, no.
Bob’s proposed theory about parents pushing the child to speak Chinese if (s)he looks more Caucasian, and vice versa, might sound reasonable to someone who has never met and spoken with mixed race kids and their parents, but as the father of a mixed race child myself I find the idea - how shall I put it - whimsical.
Whimsical. There’s a good word especially since it was on a kind of whimsy that I posted the article. Over the past three weeks or so I have seen about a dozen situations that fit my description, and since it is true I have never spent much time around mixed race kids I decided to post an observation.
I don’t know much about the thought process that goes on when deciding which language to speak to the kids, which school to send them to, which television programs to watch… That’s why I started the thread. So some genius like yourself could enlighten me as to the complexities involved. Thanks a lot.
The standard wisdom that i’ve heard is that (assuming you want your kid to be bilingual) both parents should consistently use their native tongue when talking to their kids (so in my case, I speak English & my wife speaks Chinese). I’d be interested to know if this is, in fact, what other parents do …
Incidentally, Bob, are you sure it isn’t just a case of you noticing a ‘white-looking’ kid speaking Mandarin and ‘asian-looking’ kid speaking English more than the other way around? Perhaps, you’re subconciously expecting something different.
According to some experts on this subject (not me!), parents need to pick a system and stick to it. Some parents prefer ‘one parent one language’ (OPOL), others use ml@home, minority language at home. In most mixed race families in Taiwan the minority language (ml) is English.
These are the two main methods people use to raise a child with two languages, but there are numerous variations. The important thing is that parents need to make a rule about how they will speak their respective languages to their kid and then keep with it.
We use OPOL, but when the three of us are together my wife will use English as well as Chinese.
So here is a question: Suppose me and my boyfriend have kids one day, how many languages do you think a kid can cope with?
I’m asking cause I myself am from Switzerland and therefore would speak Swiss German and German to my kid. My boyfriend is Taiwanese, he speaks Chinese and Taiwanese and his parents speak Hakka. We mostly speak Chinese together but sometimes English as well. So is our kid either going to be a super brain or just totally fucked up?
[quote=“Bassman”]One thing I have noticed, please keep in mind that my sample group is a small town and I only have on Eurasian child(is that a better term?), the more people think that my son looks Chinese the more they will ask if he can speak English. Then some idiot will say that he doesn’t look European at all and that explains why his Chinese is so good and his English is trailing somewhere in the distance. Simple fact is that it has more to do with the people he spends more time with, his grandma and mom, his father, me, only sees him for a short time each day. The environment is everything. However, I can understand, from the bumpkin attitude that prevails here, that the more people think my son is Chinese, then the more pressure he has to learn English, or should I say, we as the parents feel the pressure to teach him more.
Actually, he is doing quite well with English at the moment, it’s just that his Chinese and Taiwanese is so much better. Sometimes it’s just habit, now he’s getting the habit of speaking English to me, and Chinese to all non-big noses.
Maybe, just maybe, if the parents bow to the pressures of society, as hicklike as it can get, then the results could be something like bob has suggested. Personally, in my small sample case, I have found it to be true, in a small way at least.[/quote]
Is that your son in your avatar Bassman? Regardless of language he has the classic hips out, V sign Taiwan kid pose for photos going on! 