Half and Half by Lensey Namioka

say it any other way!”
    But when I pronounced it that way to my friends, they laughed at me. So I try to say it the Scottish way with Grandpa and Grandma and the American way with my friends.
    “Did you and Grandpa have your scones?” I asked, doing my best to make “scone” rhyme with “gone.”
    Grandma smiled. Maybe she noticed the careful way I pronounced the word. “Yes, darling. They were very good, too.”
    As I went into the kitchen, I thought about Grandma's smile. There was something sad about it. I also noticed that Grandpa didn't give us his hearty, booming laugh when Ron and I came back.
    I found Nainai in the kitchen. For once she wasn't cooking. She was sitting at the kitchen table, sewing a loop for the button on a silk jacket. I caught my breath. It wasthe most gorgeous jacket I had ever seen, made of pale green silk, with brilliantly colored embroidery.
    “Is that …” I had to swallow before I could continue. “Is that part of the costume you made for me to appear on Dad's talk?”
    “It's the top,” answered Nainai. “I made a pair of silk trousers to go with it, but they're much more plain.”
    Ron sat down at the kitchen table and took a big bite of his scone. “Dad told me that in the old days, Chinese women wore trousers, while the men wore those long gowns with the slits and buttons up the sides,” he said. I knew he was trying to lighten things up.
    Nainai nodded. “I remember my own father sometimes wore a qipao—that means ‘Manchu gown,' you know, because they were first introduced by the Manchus in the seventeenth century, when they conquered China.”
    I had seen pictures of the qipao, and I couldn't believe my ears. “You mean those slinky things worn by girls trying to look sexy?”
    “The ones worn by men were loose, not slinky!” laughed Ron. “I wonder how all those old kung fu masters managed not to trip over their gowns when they fought.”
    “So you wouldn't mind wearing a qipao?” I challenged Ron.
    “It's not what you wear, but what you do that matters,” declared Ron.
    Nainai finished sewing on the button and folded the shiny jacket. Then she picked it up and left the room without a word. Ron and I looked at each other, then went back to munching on our scones.
    I tried to do my homework on the dining room table, but I couldn't concentrate. Should I stick with the Scottish dance troupe and make Nainai unhappy, or appear on Dad's program and leave Grandpa and Grandma MacMurray in the lurch?
    When Dad came home, he went into the kitchen to get dinner ready. I saw Nainai go in and join him. As I sat doing my homework, I overheard their two voices in the kitchen speaking in Chinese. Again, Dad's voice was much higher than usual.
    I knew very little Chinese, but I did understand Dad when he said, “Bu yao jin,” which means “It doesn't matter.”
    Then Nainai said, “Zhen kexi,” which means “It's really too bad!”
    So Nainai was obviously very upset, and Dad was doing his best to console her. He had to be disappointed himself at the thought that I might not be going to his talk. But instead of sounding bitter, he was doing everything he could to make Nainai feel better.
    I understood that this was what Mom had meant by “filial duty.” To Dad, Nainai's feelings are more important than his own. After listening for a while, I was no longer embarrassed at hearing Dad speak in his boyish voice. Mom is like a child when she's playing games at being thrifty. But when Dad speaks in his childish voice, he's really an actor playing a part, like that man in the Chinese story who babbled and drooled and crawled on the floor. He was doing it to be a good Chinese son. I was proud of how my father treated his mother, and I was glad that half of me was Chinese.
    How could I be cruel enough to disappoint Nainai? But it was just as cruel to disappoint Grandpa and Grandma MacMurray. They had come all the way from Vancouverlooking forward to having one of their own