Bluff

At my mum's, she has a money frog that looks similar to this. Except that hers sits in a 'pond' and has a glass 'ball' (which must have added meanings that I am unaware of).

The moment Chip saw it, he was so intrigued. Within seconds, his hands were all over it, stroking its face and extracting the coin off its mouth to examine. He even wanted to bounce the glass ball!! 

His curiosity made Ah-ma anxious. Naughty, naughty. She would repeat. He was told off for playing with them and reminded several times to refrain from touching. Examine with your eyes, not fingers.  

A while later, when the adults were in another room, M came reporting that Chip had said the 'fxxx' word 5 times. Gosh! My first reaction was annoyance and disbelief with his poor behaviour.   

A few minutes of reprimanding swiftly followed. 

Then he explained he wasn't scolding anyone, just saying the word to the frog. But why? 

Because Ah-ma said the frog would move if he behaved badly. He wanted to see if she was bluffing. After saying 'poo-poo' and 'da-bian' (which is 'poo' in Mandarin), calling it ugly and stupid and a bunch of insulting words and even making faces at it, it still didn't move.

The 'fxxx' words was his last attempt.

Hahaha...