John gave Anna-Li her first encounter with the dreaded television yesterday: while I was on a conference call, they watched the very psychadelic Teletubbies for a bit, but Li-Li wasn’t terribly impressed, and quickly shifted attention back to her beloved calculator.
So tonight, after bath-time while we were brushing our teeth, I tried to find something visual for her on TV: and Tora! Tora! Tora! was just starting. Before I could flip away, Li-Li had pulled herself into an upright kneeling position, gripping the bed rail with both hands and was staring, rapt, at the Japanese naval officers, yelping with delight. Fortunately, she was not as enthralled by the US bureaucrats in their offices, and she was exhausted from an afternoon spent trodding the boards with John who brought her to the theatre for rehearsal until I could leave work for the hand-off, and she was asleep before the first commercial break.
So, instead of years of Wiggles and Barney, are we in for rainy afternoons spent watching the Bridge on the River Kwai, The Longest Day and Midway (which is how I spent my youth when Dad was in charge of entertainment) or is my little Chinese girl a fan of Japanese cinema?
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” - Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
