Inclusivity on the Playground: Finding Friends in Unexpected Ways

This is a story that starts with an idea for a children’s book about big imaginations, and ends with the forming of a friendship between two parents in real life.

My original inspiration for writing Let's Pretend! - Ràng Wǒmen Jiǎxiǎng - 让 我们 假想! was my sister-in-law’s twin nephews: I had envisioned the two of them playing at a park and going on wild adventures, so I asked their dad for permission to send a few images of his kids to my dear friend and illustrator for this book, Matt Wooding, and he came up with the hilarious and adorable look of the illustrations. (And I am SO happy with them!)

 

As for the words in the book, I knew I wanted the brother characters to use regular playground equipment as tools for imaginative play, but what I was very surprised to discover when I started to write the book was that not all vocabulary for playground equipment translated smoothly and directly between Mandarin and English. It is really surprising when something we take for granted as an “everyday” kind of word can end up putting a simple children’s book through such a detailed editing and refining process! I consulted many Chinese dictionaries, both the “old school” physical book kind (ha!) as well as online and dictionary apps, and would go several rounds of debating with my Mandarin native speaker friends as to whether one option for a word was better than another.

It’s kind of funny that one of the main themes of Let's Pretend! - Ràng Wǒmen Jiǎxiǎng - 让 我们 假想! is about going on imaginative-play adventures because we went on a bit of a journey of our own to find some of the words in this list:

草地 – cǎo dì – grass

沙池 – shā chí – sandbox(es), or pit(s) of sand

滑梯 – huá tī – slide(s)

爬猴杆 – pá hóu gān – literally “climb, monkey, rod/bar” (monkey bars)

跷跷板 – qiāo qiāo bǎn – seesaw(s)/teeter-totter(s)

秋千 – qiū qiān – swing(s)

旋转木马 – xuán zhuǎn mù mǎ – carousel(s) (in this case, merry-go-round)

Words like grass = 草地 , slide(s) = 滑梯, seesaw(s) = 跷跷板, and swing(s) = 秋千 were easy; they already existed, and basically every native speaker of Mandarin who I checked with, no matter which part of China or Taiwan they were from, had agreed those were the correct words. The hiccup came when I got to “monkey bars”. Almost everyone I asked disagreed about which words in Mandarin to use, and I was getting results that meant things like the horizontal bar in gymnastics, or other types of equipment that weren’t quite the same as a single set of monkey bars as seen in the illustration in the book.

 

In the process I discovered that the word “jungle gym” does exist in Mandarin and it translates smoothly and directly but I had made the rookie mistake of getting the illustrations done before completely finalising the text and I did not want Matt to have to literally “go back to the drawing board.”

As for the words that were more difficult to translate, we included this as part of the lead in to the book’s Glossary:

If you were to look in several dictionaries to find the vocabulary for many of the playground equipment words in this book, you’d be surprised at how little agreement there seems to be within the Mandarin speaking world about certain words, or between English and Mandarin for certain translations. Ultimately our vocabulary translations were chosen after extensive consultation with native speakers of Mandarin and with the context of this specific book’s illustrations in mind. For example, a “carousel” in English brings to mind fairgrounds and model horses that kids ride on, round and round, which rise and fall by use of electricity. Meanwhile, a “merry-go-round” brings to mind the turntable of sorts that children play on in neighbourhood park playgrounds which they power with their own energy (running and pushing or pulling). However, in Mandarin the word “carousel” is really used for both. As another example, Mandarin does have a word for “jungle gym” but not a really a universal word for “monkey bars”, so you will find “monkey bars” described/defined many different ways depending on the dictionary, website, or book you are reading. For this book, we settled on the most literal translation by using “climb = 爬 / pá”, “monkey = 猴 / hóu“, “rods =  杆 / gān” = 爬 猴 杆 / pá hóu gān, to match with English.

There are many reasons why we have such high standards for our books at Little Crab Educational Press (LCEP), and why we knew we had to get the vocabulary in this book just right. That need speaks to the heart of one of our major company values: inclusivity. We want kids from Canada to be able to welcome newcomers from China and be empowered to play together on the playground. And, although it’s less common for Canadian kids to move to China, it does happen, and those kids need help making friends too. Now, obviously we aren’t creating a world where every kid at the playground will have a copy of this book with them just in case they run into someone who doesn’t know the word for seesaw, but the point is that a resource like this didn’t exist at all before; now at least it’s out there in the world, ready to be found. A Mandarin speaking kid or their parents/caregivers who read this book can easily learn things like the fact that in English, “seesaw” and “teeter-totter” are the same thing. Conversely, an English speaking kid or their parents/caregivers who read this book won’t have to scour the internet for what they should be calling a merry-go-round in Mandarin. Having even the simplest vocabulary in common empowers local kids to be inclusive to newcomers, and helps newcomers to break down communication barriers when engaging with local kids. Heck, inclusivity isn’t just one of our company’s core values, it’s a modern Canadian one as well!

Speaking of new friends, an at-once-unexpected-and-extremely-welcome by-product of my pickiness about getting perfect translations is that it has led me to a partnership with our now-in-house consulting editor, fellow author, and my friend Zhang Xianjing (pronounced similarly to “Shee-en jing”). Xianjing and I met years ago through a job I had at a University on Vancouver Island, and I liked her instantly! Although we had never spent time together outside of that job, we became friends on Facebook so she was included in my pleas to my Mandarin speaking friends when I needed a second (or third, or fourth!) opinion on certain words. We ended up reconnecting over our mutual love of bilingual kids’ books, and our new partnership was subsequently formed. Our whole team at Little Crab Educational Press is proud and excited to also be releasing titles in 2023 which were spearheaded by Xianjing, so stay tuned for that!

Have you made an unexpected connection - either when you were a child or as an adult - that resulted in a lasting partnership or friendship? We’d love to hear your story.

We made you a bilingual phrase page with a list of common playground equipment words and an invitation to play: share it with your kid/kids and empower them to include others who might otherwise not be included. Click here to have it sent to you.

Hope you get to play today,

Rebecca