So this last weekend I met three youngsters, as my dad would call them, two 13 year olds and one 11 year old. All three were spending their summer in Beijing living with a Chinese family and studying Chinese. They were American and they lived in Singapore. They went to an American school there and their parents were diplomats. One of the youngsters' parent used to be the ambassador to Honk Kong. They were very smart. Very mature. Two of them were already learning their third language. One of them had an older sister who spoke four languages at the age of 22-French, Mandarin Chinese, English, and Arabic. They were nice and cool and polite and I was extremely jealous.

Why weren't my parents diplomats who spent thousands of dollars for me to spend my summer mastering difficult languages before I hit puberty? Why didn't my parents raise me in varous South East Asian countries where I could learn to list my favorite steamed bun or curry dish at the age of 11? Why didn't my parents teach me how to disuss the delicate politics of the Taiwan/China issue before I ever had my first kiss? I felt like I was really behind and like there was no way I could catch up or compete with children raised in these kinds of environements. I took a look at myself and instead of seeing the girl raised in a middle class house in the suburbs with loving parents who taught me respectful values, I felt like a minority kid from the ghetto who never knew her dad and did drugs at the age of seven for the first time compared to these kids.

I tried to quell my jealousy and sense of injustice by telling myself these youngsters would never appreciate what they had. They probably would not even want to travel when they hit the age of 20. They probably would live in a suburb themselves and become business people and spend their money on vacations to Cancun. Right? The answer is probably not and I knew that deep in my heart. I don't really have a point with this by here is my question-what do you think about this?? Tell me your thoughts.