Bao & Bun's Bilingual Journey

This week, we tried something new: a Mandarin museum tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the past, the twins usually struggled with standing for long periods during lectures, so I never thought they’d be interested in a museum tour—especially one where they’d encounter a lot of unfamiliar vocabulary.

But my curiosity got the best of me, so I decided to take them to a free Mandarin tour at the Met.

The tour lasted an hour and covered a variety of artwork from different parts of the museum. It wasn’t specifically designed for families or kids; it was actually aimed at adults, with most participants being Mandarin-speaking tourists.

To my surprise, the twins were engaged and patiently listened to the entire tour. I think part of the success was due to the tour guide’s approach—she explained the artwork through storytelling, mixing in historical facts with fun anecdotes. Little Bao even raised his hand to ask a few questions. Both kids loved sticking close to the guide, and I happily stayed at the back as the group was quite large.

Prior to this, we had only done an English tour focusing on local architecture, and the twins did well there too. That tour also involved walking around and exploring different architectural features.

Even in a big city, finding Chinese/Mandarin activities can be challenging. I’ve been doing my best to expose the kids to Chinese outside of home and classes so that they realize it’s a language that’s used frequently and widely.