Our daughter has spread her wings, flown to France

When our daughter left to study in France she said at the airport: "If you want to know about my life go to MySpace. When we finally found the weblog it added fun and worry to our lives.

She is majoring in international negotiation and is eloquent. But her MySpace is totally illogical.

For example, she writes: "I've entered a tiresome period for all my lessons. The grandpa with a white beard cries out: 'Kids, cheer up!' The fridge in the kitchen has been locked. Nobody has the key. What on earth is that vicious looking Frenchman thinking about?"

The primary concern is, of course, food. The domestic university she previously went to had scores of canteens offering various cuisines, around the clock. We all expected the French university to be the same.

Thus we only gave her a small electric pot to boil water. We heard the French only drink cold water, but we Chinese are accustomed to drinking warm water. To our dismay, the small pot had become an essential cooking utensil. My daughter reported preparing spaghetti in it one day and rabbit meat with tomato the next.

It wasn't long before the overworked pot broke down: "For unknown reasons, my small pot is playing truant." That made me restless for a whole day. But soon she wrote: "I went to the supermarket and spent some 4 euros on a saucepan. I can fry, boil and steam everything I want to." Good, I thought, she seems to have graduated to a higher stage of independence.

As for her studies, the biggest barrier seems to be the language barrier. She told a story about her teacher, Pascale, who asked the students to choose a film and recount the story in class.

"Pascale and I talked about our different views, then the old man let me choose a film. He recommended a film about Indians in Paris. But I didn't have any interest in naked kids running down the Champs-Elysees for two hours. I saw the front cover of The Choir Boys. Wonderful! There are lots of songs and not much talk. But as soon as the film started, I wanted to die - this was the same old Gerard Jugnot, with another group of children."

Normally, I like to post comments on whatever my daughter says. But this note left me clueless. I wrote about my ignorance of the films she mentioned.

She quickly replied: "Some things are written just for myself. I don't want to be serious with ancient people (like you)."

A good idea popped into my mind and I asked her: "What did the old landlord say to the bad guy Yang Shouye in the 1955 movie Guerrilla of the Plain?"

There was no answer. Obviously, she was looking around on the search engine.

It was time for me to write with a smile: "There are things you don't know. The landlord said: 'I am your dad'."

(China Daily 01/30/2008 page20)