This last weekend we were invited to Isabelle’s first birthday party. These pictures were taken after the party. You can see Isabelle and Michael sharing some philosophical comments while examining this very detailed cook book.Jenny, Isabelle’s mom, and Cara spend a fair bit of time together and, as a result, Cara gets to see first hand how Chinese people treat other people’s children.
Now, Isabelle is a pretty cute little girl. In the States we would expect people to come up and smile at her
and maybe pat her on the head or even possibly touch her cheek without asking permission first. Although it would also be okay for the parent to politely ask strangers to, ‘please don’t touch her’. But here, people are not so subtle. The first time Cara was holding Isabelle in a the store while Jenny tried on a pair of shoes, one of the salesladies came up and started trying to get Isabelle’s attention. As soon as Isabelle smiled at the saleslady, she TOOK 
Isabelle right out of Cara’s arms. TOOK – no asking, no nothing! Just took the child away. Cara, being a little startled, called out to Jenny, who took one glance and told her that yes indeed, this was normal behavior. It was not like the saleslady took Isabelle far away or anything. They stayed within the same room, about 4 feet away, but it still seemed pretty odd. It turns out that this happens any time you are out with small children. They are immediately the center of attention and any Chinese adult in the immediate vicinity has no compunction about picking up or even feeding the child whatever the adult thinks might be a good idea. Last weekend, one store clerk tried to give Isabelle a small, shiny, sharp edged piece of plastic that was about perfect choking size for a 1 year old.Can you imagine what would happen in the States if someone tried to take a baby from their parent’s arms?
1 comment:
We hadn't noticed how few children we see in the city until we went out west to Xinjiang a few months ago. In the cities out there we commented on how many children we saw running around which really made us realize how few we see in Beijing. There are definitely children, we actually have an elementary school a block away that we can see from our living room, but other than seeing them riding on the backs of bicycles, we just don't notice them that much. Part of the issue is that we live in the financial district of a major city - not exactly child central - but it feels like there are less children here than other cities. There is that one child policy that applies to most of the Chinese living in Beijing that must be taking some of the credit too.
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