A Leisurely Summer Vacation and Chinese

The cicadas were chirping loudly during the second week of summer vacation.

This is the first summer vacation since the start of the new school year. Erika, who is now a fifth-grader, invited her juniors to her house for a gathering ostensibly for studying but actually for cooling off at the beginning of the summer vacation.

Although they were only one grade apart, Hua Hua already considered herself a "senior" and would often pat Xia Mo and Fei Biao on the shoulder and say, "If you ever get into trouble at school, just say my name."

"Give me your name? Has your reputation as the 'Ikuta Trumpet Flower' spread from Bunkyo Ward to Katsushika Ward?" Natsume couldn't help but think to herself.

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Before leaving home, Feibiao's mother checked her bag several times—whether the food container was tightly closed, whether her phone was charged, and whether she had enough change in her wallet.

The bird was so tired of its mother nagging that its ears were practically calloused, but it was helpless to stop her.

Starting from the Keisei Main Line in Katsushika Ward, after changing subway lines twice, the two finally arrived in Bunkyo Ward half an hour later.

Feiniao took out the map that Huahua had given her, looked at the red circles marked on it, and walked out of the station with her mother.

After exiting the station, they walked for about seven or eight minutes and found the quiet residential street.

Rows of off-white buildings stood neatly in the afternoon sun, with lush azalea bushes growing in front of the doors. Wind chimes hung from the open windows on the second floor, occasionally tinkling as if greeting the passing breeze.

The bird's mother rang the doorbell.

When Hua Hua opened the door, she was holding an ice pop in her hand, with a little pink sugar stain on the corner of her mouth, and her hair was casually tied into a bun. She looked ten times more free than the well-behaved senior she was at school.

When she saw the bird's mother, she immediately stood up straight, almost dropping the popsicle in her mouth, and hurriedly bowed, saying, "A-Auntie, hello! Welcome to my home!"

Feiniao's mother smiled and patted Huahua's head: "I'm leaving Feiniao in your care. I'll pick her up tonight. You two have a good time."

After saying that, she turned to Fei Niao and told her, "Be good and don't cause trouble for others." Then she looked into the house, greeted Hua Hua's mother from a distance, and left first.

Feiniao stood in the entryway, watching her mother's retreating figure, and raised the food container she was carrying—it contained the chilled jasmine tea jelly that her mother had made that morning.

"My mom made tea jelly, jasmine flavor." Asuka handed over the food container.

"Asuka, you're too kind!!" Huahua held the food container with both hands as if it were a treasure, and couldn't wait to open the lid and take a look—

A few tiny jasmine flowers are nestled in the light amber-colored tea jelly, glistening under the fluorescent light and emitting a sweet floral fragrance.

She took a deep breath, her expression like that of a cat basking in the sun.

The sound of a piano came from a room at the end of the corridor.

It wasn't a light and cheerful melody, but a series of heavy, forceful chords, crashing down one after another, like someone pounding on a heavy door with their fist.

This is followed by a rapid scale that races from the low register to the high register, with distinct notes and a powerful, aggressive sound.

The bird looked towards the corridor.

Hua Hua closed the food container and put it in the refrigerator, then leaned closer and whispered, "Xia Jun is inside."

"When he came, his mother made him practice the piano before he could play. She said that since he's in fourth grade, the pieces are getting more difficult, and he can't slack off even for a day during summer vacation. He's been playing for over an hour. I just brought him some iced barley tea, and he didn't even look up. He just said, 'Put it there.'"

She gestured as she spoke, which made the bird laugh.

Feiniao quietly walked to the door of the music room, which was half-open.

Xia Mo sat in front of a brand-new upright piano—the one Hua Hua's family had just replaced last month. The body was dark walnut, polished to a shine, and the lid gleamed softly in the afternoon light, completely different from the old piano in the school's music room.

Xia Mo stood up straight, his fingers flying across the piano keys. The afternoon light filtered through the blinds, casting golden stripes on his shoulders and the pristine piano lacquer.

A thick sheet of music lay open on the music stand, its open page densely covered with notes that looked like bean sprouts. A thin layer of sweat beaded on his forehead, but his expression remained one of utter concentration.

His brows were slightly furrowed, and his lips were pursed into a line, like a student solving a difficult math problem.

The bird didn't disturb him and quietly retreated back to the living room.

The coffee table in the living room was covered with things—two cups of iced barley tea, an unopened bag of shrimp chips, an open shoujo manga, and several crumpled textbooks with pandas on the covers. Feibiao sat down, picked up one at random, and flipped through it.

The pages were covered with phonetic symbols written in pencil, with red circles and exclamation marks in some places. The title page had the words "Ikuta Erika" written in large characters, with a smiley face drawn next to it.

The contents start with pinyin, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l... Every page has messy, crooked handwriting, some places say "This is different from Japanese!!", and some places have arrows and question marks.

Flipping to the middle, there were even a few pages with folded corners, on which were written simple short phrases—"Hello," "Thank you," and "I am Huahua."

"What is this?" Asuka asked curiously.

Hua Hua came out of the kitchen carrying a plate of sliced ​​watermelon. She glanced at the book, and her expression immediately shifted to one of proud smugness: "I've been teaching myself Chinese lately!"

"Self-taught?"

"Yeah! I'm just killing time during summer vacation, so I want to learn something amazing." Hua Hua put the watermelon on the coffee table, sat down cross-legged, opened the textbook to the first page, and pointed to the pinyin table.

"Look, this is Pinyin, the alphabet for Chinese. It's different from English and Japanese. I've already learned the tones!"

She cleared her throat, used a shrimp cracker as a pointer, pointed to the four tones of "ma," and earnestly recited: "Ma-ma-ma-ma!"

She pronounced the four tones with great rhythm and intonation. Although her pronunciation of "ma" was slightly off and "ma" took an unnecessary detour, overall—for a self-taught fifth-grade student—it was already quite remarkable.

Feiniao's eyes lit up when she saw Huahua's serious expression.

"That's amazing..." she whispered, her tone filled with genuine admiration.

Hua Hua immediately perked up her tail: "Of course! Let me tell you, Chinese tones are the hardest part. Once I get this right, the rest will be easy!"

"Huahua, how long have you been learning?"

"Hmm... about two weeks? I checked it every day, but I wasn't really paying attention." Hua Hua waved her hand, pretending to be modest, but the smile on her lips betrayed her.

Feiniao flipped through the textbook again, looking at the square Chinese characters and strange pinyin on the pages, and an idea came to mind.

She looked up and glanced at Hua Hua with some embarrassment.

"Then... could you teach me?"

Hua Hua was stunned for a moment.

"Really?! You want to learn?! Great, great, great!! I was just worried about not having anyone to practice with! Every time I ask Xia Jun to practice, he gives me that 'your pronunciation is weird but I'm too embarrassed to say it' look, it's so annoying! Asuka-chan is so much better!"

Feiniao was a little embarrassed by her enthusiastic response, turned her face away, and muttered:

"...I didn't particularly want to learn it, it just seemed interesting."

"That's because you want to learn!" Hua Hua put her arm around her shoulder. "Don't be shy!"

The bird struggled for a moment but couldn't break free, so it could only let out a groan.

Hua Hua had already turned to the first page of the textbook, pushed the watermelon and shrimp chips aside to make room. She took out a pencil and sticky notes, sat up straight like a real teacher, and cleared her throat.

"Alright! Asuka, today we'll learn Chinese Pinyin. Lesson one—b, p, m, f!"

"Hmm!" Asuka sat up straight and stared intently at the textbook.

"Read after me—b—"

"b——"

"p——"

"p——"

"m——"

"m——"

"f——"

"f——"

Hua Hua nodded in satisfaction: "Very good! Now listen carefully—the difference between 'b' and 'p'! 'B' is unaspirated, 'p' is aspirated!" She put her palm in front of her mouth, "b—p—can you feel it? The airflow is different!"

Asuka mimicked her, putting her hand to her mouth to carefully feel it: "b—p—wow, it really is! There's so much p!"

"Right! I'm telling you, I figured this out myself; it's not clearly explained in books—"

"What are you doing?"

A voice drifted from the direction of the corridor, carrying a hint of weariness from just finishing playing the piano and a curiosity that hadn't been properly concealed.

The two of them looked up at the same time.

Xia Mo had finished practicing sometime during the summer and was leaning against the living room door frame, holding a cup of iced barley tea that had barely been touched.

A few strands of his hair were damp with sweat and stuck to his forehead, while his fingers were still moving unconsciously—the inertia of his muscles after long hours of piano practice.

His gaze fell on the Chinese textbook spread out on the coffee table, then on the sticky notes in the hands of the two people, and he raised his eyebrows slightly.

"Xia-kun! You've come at the perfect time!" Hua-hua waved to him. "I'm teaching Asuka-chan Chinese!"

Xia Mo walked into the living room, sat down in a corner of the sofa, and placed the barley tea on the coffee table. He looked at the sticky note in Fei Niao's hand—on which were crookedly written "bpmf" and the four large characters "Mom," "Ma," "Ma," and "Ma."

"Where have you gotten to?" he asked.

"We just finished learning the initials! We're going to learn the finals soon!" Hua Hua proudly reported.

Xia Mo glanced at the flowers, then at the birds.

Feiniao felt a little uncomfortable under his gaze, so she raised her chin and glared back at him with a "what are you looking at?" expression. Xia Mo looked away and raised his hand to touch his earlobe—a small gesture he made when he was embarrassed or didn't know what to say.

"You two..." He considered his words carefully, and finally chose a gentler way of expressing himself, "Your pronunciation is about 30% correct."

"Only 30%?!" Hua Hua exploded, "I pronounced the 'ma' in 'mama' perfectly just now! Ma—ma—"

Xia Mo paused for a second, then touched her earlobe again with her fingers.

"You're saying 'horse-horse'," he said.

"Nonsense!" Hua Hua retorted, flipping open her textbook and pointing to the tone chart. "Look, the first tone is a high-level tone, and I pronounced it with a high-level tone!"

"You recited it in a way that went from high to low and then back up, like a valley."

Hua Hua opened her mouth and tried again, wanting to refute, but found that she really couldn't refute it. She pouted and took a big bite of the shrimp cracker, chewing it with a crunching sound.

Feiniao couldn't help but burst out laughing, but quickly covered her mouth with her hand after laughing, pretending that nothing had happened.

Xia Mo glanced at her, then at the textbook, hesitated for a moment, and reached out to pull the book in front of her.

"I'll explain the vowels." His tone sounded like he was reluctantly taking on a task he didn't want to do.

"Are you sure you can do it?" Hua Hua looked at him with a doubtful gaze.

"I am Chinese."

"Oh, right, then it's alright."

For the next half hour, the living room transformed into a makeshift Chinese classroom. Xia Mo sat at the head of the low table, writing each pinyin syllable on a sticky note with a pencil, teaching them one by one. His teaching method was simple—first demonstrate, then have two people repeat after him, and then correct them one by one.

"a - Open your mouth wide and flatten your tongue."

"Ah—" Hua Hua's voice was very loud.

"Ah—" The bird's voice was soft, but very clear.

"o—round your mouth and pull your lips slightly forward."

"o——" Hua Hua pursed her mouth too much, making an expression like she was about to blow out a candle.

"o——" Asuka looked at Xia Mo's mouth shape and imitated it seriously.

Xia Mo's gaze shifted back and forth between the two people, finally settling on Fei Niao, where she paused for a moment.

"Asuka's 'o' is correct. Erika, your 'o' looks like you're blowing up a balloon."

"I didn't blow up the balloon!!"

Feiniao laughed again. Her laughter, like a string of little bells, escaped her mouth, but she immediately straightened her face, covering half of her face with her textbook, revealing only her curved eyes, leaving Huahua beside her in helpless rage.

After learning the finals, move on to the whole-syllable recognition. The retroflex consonants zhi, chi, shi, and ri are the most problematic. Hua Hua's tongue always doesn't curl properly, and the "zhi" she pronounces is somewhere between "ji" and "zhi".

The bird's curl was a bit too much, sounding like it was reciting a very exaggerated "er" sound.

"You two should just get together," Xia Mo commented.

"That's perfect! The three of us can each take a part!" Hua Hua suddenly had an idea. "Asuka-chan will take care of the tone, Natsu-kun will take care of the parts you're fine with, and I'll take care of—"

"What are you responsible for?" Xia Mo asked, looking at her.

Hua Hua thought for three seconds, then confidently said, "I'll be responsible for being cute!"

The living room fell silent for a moment.

"...Well, no one's going to take it from you then." Xia Mo finished speaking and silently turned to the next page of the textbook.

Hua Hua had already picked up the cushion and hurled it at Xia Mo. This time, he didn't dodge and took the hit squarely. The cushion bounced onto the coffee table, knocking the textbook to the floor and spilling Hua Hua's barley tea.

"My textbook!" Hua Hua exclaimed as she bent down to pick it up.

Feiniao helped pick them up, and the two of them, heads bowed, almost touched.

Xia Mo sat across from them, watching the two girls tidy up in a flurry, sighed, and took another sip of barley tea.

This kind of learning doesn't seem as...boring as I imagined?