Mei-mei is now really walking. Instead of sitting back down when she loses momentum, she just squats and then picks herself up again. She can move across a room, or indeed between rooms, with surprising speed.

When she was still just testing this capability, she would smile and clap her hands after each attempt, expecting us to praise her as well. Now she's becoming more ambitious. Mike's friend was over last week, jumping up and down on the mini-trampoline in the basement. His sister watched with interest. When the friend got off, she hauled herself up on the trampoline and carefully stood up -- then tried a little bounce.

***

Thursday soccer practice. The weather has turned abruptly cold (it was 93 degrees a couple days ago). The coach does a drill in which each kid is sent to chase a kicked ball, recover it and then guide it into the goal. Michael is having a good practice. He's able to do the drill with some ease and he shoots the ball well. However, he does better in drills -- where the ball is there for him and he has time to set up his shot -- than in live play. His approach is a little too studied.

Some of the kids, even at age four, are super-competitive. One boy, for example, erupts into angry tears because the other side won a goal. This in a practice scrimmage, mind you. The same boy is a powerful scorer. Then there are various kids who are not instinctually so competitive but whose parents want them to be. These parents are the ones pacing around on the sideline, yelling instructions or in at least one case offering monetary bribes. Ok, I have done some yelling and pacing myself. I confess to having no idea what gives a child athletic drive -- whether it's primarily something they're born with, or the result of parental influence.

I would be happy to see Michael really take to soccer, but I also have to be realistic. He's smaller than some of the other boys, less aggressive, and doesn't have a soccer coach or a sports fanatic as a dad. The main thing I want is for him to enjoy playing and develop his confidence. But this is where it gets difficult. Enjoyment of a competitive sport can't be separated from the competitive part. If the other kids are scoring goals and you aren't, it stops being fun.

Sometimes after practices he's quiet, and I wonder about it.

"How was practice?"
"Good."
"What did the coach tell you?"
"I don't remember."
"You don't remember? Already?"
"Ah..the coach said...the coach said...when he blows on the whistle, everyone has to freeze!"

Among Chinese speakers, the number 88 is IM/SMS shorthand for "bye bye". In Mandarin the number eight is "ba". Eighty-eight = ba ba = bye bye. Cute.

Unfortunately, 88 is also used as shorthand by neo-Nazis, because "h" is the eighth letter of the alphabet, and HH means...well, you can guess.

***

About a decade ago, I lived in Korea. When I first arrived there, I was surprised to see swastikas painted on the rocks down at the cove near my apartment. What could this mean? Was there some kind of right-wing extremist group active in the neighborhood?

As it turned out, it wasn't fascist hatemongers, but Buddhist monks.

The number 88 has a special meaning in Korea, too. It is a brand of cigarettes ("Pal Pal") named after the Seoul Olympics. "Pal Pal" is the Sino-Korean version of "Ba Ba", so in theory you could also call them Bye Bye brand cigarettes. And "bye bye" is what would have happened to me if I went on smoking them.

***

Back to China, where the acronym "PK" has entered wide circulation, thanks to the Super Girl singing contest. (A contestant who gets booted off the show is "PK-ed").

The term comes from computer gaming ("player killed"). I'm not part of that world, so when I first heard it, the only thing I could think of was "penalty kick". So here is a term originating in English which is more familiar to Chinese people than to me, a native speaker of English.