Li Bai’s Jing Ye Si(Quiet Night Thoughts).

I bet this is the first Chinese poem many of us learnt when we were little.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise as it is Minibean’s first Chinese poem too.

Chuang qian ming yue guang
Yi shi di shang shuang.
Ju tou wang ming yue,
Di tou si gu xiang

(Before my bed
There is bright-lit moonlight
So that it seems
Like frost on the ground:

Lifting my head
I watch the bright moon
Lowering my head
I dream that I’m home.)

And yes, she can now recite the entire poem without any prompting, and she even improvised it on her own, much to the chagrin of my mum.

And she will laugh heartily with plenty of cheekiness, when my mum gets annoyed with her improvisation.

Me? I will laugh and praise her for being such a smart kiddo.

And what does she say?

Instead of Yi shi di shang shuang (seems like frost on the ground), she will always go a pitch higher and says, “Di shang ang zang!”(The ground is dirty!), before covering her mouth and break into a chain of silly giggles.

Kids, aren’t they simply the most amazing thingies? Yes, even at terror/terrible twos.