No Crybabies!

I don't know if it's something in the rice porridge that they feed these children, or the lack of incessant Tyco toy stimulation, or the constant attention from a grandparent, aunt, cousin, sibling or neighbor but these Chinese babies really never cry. They always seems so passifyed like little opium doused Buddhas, that make their way through the day on motorbikes, crowded buses, and congested trains.

One thing I have noticed though, when the children are of an immobile age they are rarely put down in contraptions such as strollers, car seats, or play pens . Since these plastic commodities come from the world of privledged child rearing, these babies are simply held or hoisted on a back and taken out for a day with grandma. They seem to generally be pretty content watching the world go by and rarely do you see them kicking and struggling against the confines of their little carrier contraptions. They also are tossed around like they have about twelve lives, as I noticed yesterday when I was sitting in my apartment listening to the sounds of two year old YuanYuan playing outside my door. He generally runs around the entire campus looking for adventure until you hear his grandma screaming out the window for him to come back about a half an hour after he's been gone.
The other day as I was sitting at my computer and listening to YuanYuan play at the top of the stairs when I heard the inevitable thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud as he had toppled down the entire length of the concrete stairs. There was the silence before the storm, where I sat and cringed at my computer imagining the purple hue swelling his face and the gasping, soundless scream gaining strength. I walked outside and he began to cry and wail so I picked him up and the crying stopped after about a thirty second catharsis. His grandma came out and said, "oh, he's ok, maybe next time he will learn." That was all the time they were going to spend on that trauma, and rightfully so because YuanYuan needed to get back to important sessions of playing Automan at the top of the concrete stairwell.