标题: An American Couple's Chinese Daughter Who Crazes Irish Dance [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 3-16-2014 13:01 标题: An American Couple's Chinese Daughter Who Crazes Irish Dance Christopher Reynolds, Two Threads, Three Cultures; Irish dance meets a triple-A family -- Asian American by adoption. Los Angeles Tims, Mar 16, 2014 (op-ed). www.latimes.com/opinion/commenta ... e-adoption-20140316,0,4377702.story
Note:
(a) Two white parents with a Chinese adoptee: "By LA standards, we're no more exotic than a Korean taco. Then this second thread began to unspool. In some slender way, it might trace back to my mother's mother's people, who came from Ireland's County Clare; or Mary Frances' father's father's people, who came from County Waterford."
(i) Taco is Mexican: "The taco predates the arrival of Europeans in Mexico." Wikipedia
(ii) If one reads further, he will realize "this second thread" is green, alluding to Ireland--each parent of the adoptee appears to be a quarter Irish.
(iii)
(A) The English surname Reynolds means son of Reynold.
(B) The English surname Reynold, in turn, is "from a Germanic personal name composed of the elements ragin ‘counsel’ + wald ‘rule’, which was first introduced to England by Scandinavian settlers in the Old Norse form Rognvaldr, and greatly reinforced after the Conquest by the Norman forms Reinald, Reynaud."
(iv)
(A) County Clare
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Clare
(The population of the county is 117,196 according to the 2011 census; "The county's name comes from the Irish word Clár, meaning a board or plank. A board was placed across the River Fergus outside Ennis, at a place which was to become known as Clare, (now Clarecastle town)")
(B) County Waterford
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Waterford
(named after the city of Waterford which is derived from the Old Norse name Veðrafjǫrðr or Vedrarfjord [meaning "ram fjord" where ram and ewe are male and female sheep])
(b) "But mostly, it started with the look on 4-year-old Grace's face when she first saw Irish dancing on YouTube. High kicking. Rigid rhythm. Military precision. Fancy dresses. Grace wanted to learn. Mary Frances and I didn't know a jig from a reel, so when Grace was 7, we enrolled her in lessons with Cleary Irish Dance, one of about 30 such schools in California. We didn't realize how weekly classes could quickly multiply to thrice-weekly or more, or that the competitions come fast and furious, beckoning you to Westlake Village or Anaheim or Sacramento or Seattle. We didn't know about hard shoes, soft shoes, sock glue, solo dresses or bun wigs."
(i) "didn't know a jig from a reel"
(A) reel (dance)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reel_%28dance%29
(In Irish stepdance, the reel is danced in soft shoes and is one of the first dances taught to students)
(B) jig
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jig
("developed in 16th century England, and was quickly adopted on the [European] Continent; Today it is most associated with Irish dance music, Scottish country dance and the Métis people in Canada; section 1 Origins)
(ii) The Irish surname Cleary is a "reduced [ie, shortened] Anglicized [ie, becoming more English] form of Gaelic Ó Cléirigh (or Mac Cléirigh) ‘descendant (or son) of the scribe, clerk, or cleric (cléireach).’"
(iii) Westlake Village, California
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westlake_Village,_California
(incorporated in 1981 as City of Westlake Village; straddles the Los Angeles and Ventura county line; headquarters of the Dole Food Company)
(iv) We didn't know about hard shoes, soft shoes, sock glue, solo dresses or bun wigs."
Iriish dance
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_dance
(popularized in 1994 by the world-famous show Riverdance [last photo]; section 3.4 Shoes and costume: "Solo dresses are unique to each dancer. Today most women and girls wear a wig or hairpiece for a competition, but some still curl their own hair")
(v) To view a "bun wig," go to images.google.com.
(c) "Irish dancing began, like much of folk dance, as something for the boys and girls to do after church. The Irish Dancing Commission formed in 1930 to promote it and started organizing international competitions in 1970. But by many measures, Irish dance truly reached the world stage on April 30, 1994, the night that a seven-minute presentation called 'Riverdance,' starring Michael Flatley, appeared on the TV broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest.* * * And with that, people in Acapulco, Hong Kong, Krakow, Milan, Prague, Shanghai, Stuttgart, St Petersburg and Taipei started stepping into ghillies (soft shoes), spending hours in the company of accordion-players and dreaming of the World Irish Dancing Championships. (This year's edition, in London in April, will include more than 5,000 dancers.) Basically, Irish dancers are like Irish pubs now — they span the world, vastly outnumbering the inventory back in the old country."
(i) The Irish surname Flatley is a "reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Flaithfhileadh, an earlier form of Ó Flaitile ‘descendant of the prince poet.’"
(ii) Kraków
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraków
(the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland; section 1 Etymology)
(d) "Grace was ready for her first solo dress. These are essentially mandatory for girl Irish dancers above a certain level, and they're not cheap. But we found a way. And what a dress it is — made in Northern Ireland by designer Shauna Shiels, who was kind enough to include a mandarin collar and embroidered lotus flowers. Red threads, on a dress from Derry. Time is another challenge. * * * we race through days like Feb 15. By 8 that morning we were in an Irvine hotel ballroom, at a feis (local competition) where Grace would spend hours dancing, cheering on friends and waiting for results. By 4 pm, she was dead to the world, dozing in the back seat as we rushed north on the 5 to the Golden Dragon in LA's Chinatown. Why? For the fanciest night of our year — the Chinese New Year banquet thrown by the Southern California chapter of Families with Children from China. It's a 10-course dinner, complete with magic, acrobatics, drummers, lion dancers and scores of girls in shiny dresses, all with mandarin collars. * * * Then, at the DJ's signal, the girls converged in a frenzy of stomping. The racket — our way of driving off evil spirits without fireworks — is always deafening and strength-giving."
(i) Shauna Shiels
(A) Shauna is a female form of Shaun. For the latter, see Seán
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seán
(B) The Scottish and Irish surnames Shiels is a variant of Shields.
(C) The Irish surname Shields is a "reduced form of O’Shields, an alternative Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Siadhail ‘descendant of Siadhal.’"
In addition, "Shields" can be a surname in Scotland and northern England, but has a different origin.)
(ii) Derry
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry
(officially Londonderry; second-largest city [after Belfast] in Northern Ireland; The name Derry is an anglicisation of the Irish name Daire or Doire meaning "oak grove;" In 1613, the city was granted a Royal Charter by King James I and the "London" prefix was added, changing the name of the city to Londonderry)
(iii) Feb 15, 2014 is not a holiday (except to a few, see February 15
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15
(section 4 Holidays and observances)
. The writer just selected a typical day as an example.
(iv) feis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feis
(v) From Irvine, "we rushed north on the 5 to the Golden Dragon in LA's Chinatown"
(A) Irvine, California
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvine,_California
(in Orange County; In 1864 settler James Irvine bought land, died in 1886 and bequeathed it to his son James Jr)
(B) Interstate 5 in California
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_5_in_California
(vi) Golden Dragon Chinese Restantant, Los Angeles www.goldendragonlosangeles.com/home-page/
(vii) racket (n; origin unknown): "confused clattering noise : CLAMOR" www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racket
(e) "One day, your daughter leaps into an enterprise that rewards persistence, keeps her fit, builds friendships and demands good manners — so you sign up. The next day, you stand atop the Great Wall of China, hunting for a flat spot where she can do a jig."
(i) Here, "your daughter" is HIS daughter.
(ii) "Three cultures" in the essay title may refer to English--or American, to boot (meaning "in addition").