Mommy, Noam, He is What?

Last week, I just picked up the boys' Israeli passports. These are their fourth ones. No, I do not mean their fourth Israeli passports. No, these are their fourth passport, after their American, their Canadian, and their Polish ones. A real bunch of globetrotters. And it makes me look like a poor mother, with only one passport!

This is a picture I took of family's passports... We are a family of four, for those who do not know us.

For those unfamiliar with the passport business, nope, you can't buy these online (or else we would not have so many people lining up our embassies). As they were born in the States, the kids automatically got the citizenship, and now for most travels, they have been using this passport. Since Pauli and I are respectively Israeli and Canadian citizens, the kids also qualify for those two nationalities. Of course with different countries, different rules, so even if they would have been born here in Beijing, they could never be Chinese, and even if one of us two parents would be Chinese, they would eventually have to make a decision between one and another, as China does not allow dual citizenship. The Polish one? Well, Pauli's parents are of Polish origin, and since Pauli also has this citizenship, the kids automatically qualify for it. The only drawback to all of these is the amount of paperwork. But as you see, it is possible.
Now, time will tell what use they will be able to make out of them. Already last week, when I applied for Russian visas (we are traveling via Moscow to Israel next week), I realized that Polish passports were better, granting for cheaper visas (50$ instead of 150$ or so!). And only later I will come to realize that for this specific destination, Israeli passports are best (free)... 

So indeed our kids are globe-trotters. They already have logged many visas, many long flights, and many immigration officers. But are they only that? Defacto, they are citizen of the world. Later, when one will ask them where are they from, they might have trouble answering... Today, Noam says he is Canadian (proud mommy) but is he really? I was just reading about similar questioning in a blog...

Kids born from parents of different cultures already have a faire bit to process. If they live in one of the parents' birth country, the answer might become easier with time, as they immersed completely in that primary culture. However, when these mixed couples raise their kids in a (third) different culture, then things becomes more tricky. Are our kids Israeli or French-Canadian, or simply American? Are they Jewish or Christian? Can they be all of that together?

Take Emmanuel. Born in the US, he spent most of the 20 months of his long life in China. One month last summer in Canada, one month at birth in the US, 3 weeks in Israel last year and 2 more soon. So he is maybe more Chinese than others. But is he? We obviously do not eat dumplings daily and do not do like the Chinese in most of what we do. But he needs his daily rice! We do not dress Chinese, we do not cook Chinese, we do not spit in public, we do not even speak good Chinese... Well, I might drive now like a Chinese, but I don't think it applies.
In fact, outside of our respective cultures, I came to realize we need to find (and create) references and markers to maintain some of our own cultural identities, and to create our own unique family identity. So, to the despair of my dear husband who finds religion cumbersome, I try to ensure the kids get a bit of a Jewish culture at specific holiday times. But yet I also celebrate our usual Christian holidays, and try to also include some of our traditions. The tricky part for a parent is to know what is important, and how to carry that cultural baggage without too much effort. So it appears it is easier to make a Christmas tree than to make a Seder dinner... We still have to work on that.

One of the main determinant of a culture is its language. So here in Beijing, we try to maintain the Hebrew and the French language. We do it because both are important for me and my husband, respectively, in how we define ourselves. But also because we feel that it can be a strong baggage for our kids' future. So to avoid confusions, I address the kids in French, and Pauli in Hebrew. It has been great for me, now my Hebrew is at the level of a 3 and half year old. Then me and Pauli converse mostly in English. So the kids get exposed to the English language in that way, but also in kindergarten, where Noam has now extensive conversations in English with his little friends. And then of course, by being in China and having a Chinese nanny, we all speak a bit of Chinese, sort of. The kids are really good at it. What is really amazing is that amongst all this mix of languages, the kids seem to make sense of it. When Noam was about a year and half, he could already ask for water in French, in Chinese and in Hebrew, knowing whom to ask in which language.

We have this book at home. It is 42 pages of Hellos, in 42 languages. The book is filled with cute little drawings of kids faces, and not other text than the various forms of greetings. When I first read it first to Noam he asked me right away: "Mommy, Noam, he is what?" I pointed at the little girl with the frizzy hair that says "Shalom", the one with straight brown hair that says "Bonjour", the little boy with a cap that says "Hello" and the little almond-eyed girl that says "Nihao" and told him that he is lucky because he is all of those all together, and that makes him quite special. I am not sure he understood well what it meant but in any cases, he looked happy to be 4 different little guys at one.   

War Zones

With all the recent events, we hear a great deal about war.  Osama bin Laden's death. The war on terror. The new Libyan war. Uprising in the Middle East and its bloody repression.  And the eternal Israelo-Palestinian problem, and Hamas latest rounds on Israel. Or is it Israel latest shelling of Gaza? (I can't recall)... Indeed, with the speed of development, it is hard to keep up. But in fact, I am a news junky. I need my daily dose of news or I feel uncomfortable. I need information, about the world. I want to know, understand, analyze.

However, despite the captivating developments of the new front lines, or the various uprising here or there, I keep my kids away from news broadcasts. They will certainly have time later, when they grow up, to learn about the realities of our complex world. I feel there is no need to impress and imprint their young and fresh minds with images of hate and violence. But despite me and Paul's sheltering reflexes, reality reaches us - and them - in unexpected ways.

Last week, a friend of mine, a journalist, was killed in Lybia. Tim was a great photographer and reporter. He was really interested in telling a story. During the Liberian war, he had rented a house in Monrovia to  really capture better what was happening in the city. This is where I met him. Only today when others detailed his work, I realized how much and how well he was doing his work.
It is just strange for me to think of him from this perspective - the war perspective - when I met him in peaceful and hopeful times, just around the election of Shirleaf-Johnson. He was a photographer, recording history being made - in times of peace. I had not given too much thought into how he had got there, and Tim was not the type to boast about his "war coverage". I never have lived through war, I have only roamed in a few devastated places, a while after the facts. It is hard for me to imagine what effect it can have on ones' mind when living through it "live".

Yesterday at the dinner table, Noam looked at me and asked me: "Mommy, do you know war, when you are small?" I am not sure what prompted the question. Maybe me and Paul were talking about Tim, about Lybia, about the conflict. I can't recall. Anyway, Noam popped the question again.
It was not the first time. He first had asked about war right during our CNY trip. In fact, he first inquired  when we were in Cambodia, while visiting a war "museum" - essentially a yard with a number of damaged war equipment, helicopter, plane, a few old thanks, some lance-rockets, some other various things torn and old half taken by the weeds. Our guide was a victim of land mines: he had lost him mom, dad and two sister in front of his eyes, when a young boy. He also had lost one of his arm.





For Noam it was the strangest of things. I was not fast enough to catch a picture of him, but I vividly remember him standing beside our guide, right below the empty sleeve of the missing limb, directly in line with what should have been there. He was staring. Then the questions came later.  "Why no arm?" Answer: "He lost it". Q: "Where is the arm?" (looking around). A:"We cannot find it, it got broken". Q:"Why did it get broken?" A: "Because of war". Q:"What is war"? A:"It is like when you fight with your friend, but this time it is big people, and many big people, and they use terrible things to make each other suffer. And many many people suffer because the countries fight." Q:"And what more?" A:"When there is war people loose their house, their moms and their dads, sometimes they even loose their arms or their legs". Q:"What more?"....
You get the gist.
So for several weeks, at times, he would return again with similar questions. One day, he looked at me and asked: "Mommy, when you are small, you know war?" A:"No." Q:"Daddy know war?" A:"Yes". Then his eyes light up, and he goes, "Yeah!". Then Paul proceeded to explain again about the lost limbs, lost houses and lost moms. For a 3 and half year old boy, some concepts are harder to grasp, and the idea of explosions, fires and making a mess can sound like good fun. And yet, at times, I can feel there is a really a little compassionate soul behind these large blue eyes, when he realizes that an arm an a family have been missing forever.