Rule of Thumb

I'm around a small child for over twelve hours a day, so a lot of my opportunity to see cultural differences is through the prism of parenting. Perhaps not surprisingly, the first thing I noticed was a difference at the playground. With smaller children and babies, there is a lot of "helicopter parenting" going on, especially if the grandparents are the caretakers. They are always hovering right by the child, admonishing them not to bump their head or take a risky step. Needless to say, Joseph and I have been on the receiving end of more than a few dirty looks for our comparative neglect of Evangeline. Our playground attitude is typical of what we've seen from parents in the US - as long as she's within her limits, we don't interfere with her because we don't want to teach her to be afraid. Sure, if she's trying something new that might be a stretch for her abilities, I'll go over and spot her, but I generally let her make her own mistakes as long as she can't seriously hurt herself. So it's been weird for me to see these grandparents and parents and not feel judgmental. I believe in Evangeline's capabilities and her capacity to learn. If she bumps her head on a tunnel because she doesn't duck, she rubs it for a minute, but then the next time she goes through she ducks her head. It's hard to see this philosophy in action and not think that it's better, but I guess that's the point of us being here--growth!

The parenting difference that has been the most irritating so far here has to do with attitudes toward thumb sucking. It is really frowned upon, even for small babies. It's rare to see a Chinese baby with a pacifier. For those of you who have been around Evangeline a lot, you know that she's always sucked on her ring and middle fingers for comfort. She does it less and less as she gets older, and now she really only does it when she's tired or upset. I've done research on thumb sucking, and in her case, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it until her permanent teeth start coming in. Every single credible source will tell you that. Last week we were on an outing with my Chinese friend, Grace, and her little boy who is a year older than Evangeline. We were going home on the metro, and it was getting close to nap time, so Evangeline got on my lap and popped her fingers in. Grace was very surprised that I didn't mind, so we talked about it. She told me about the draconian methods she used to stop her older daughter from sucking her fingers as an infant, which was hard to listen to. And Grace said that their pediatrician was blaming the trouble her son was having with a certain consonant on the fact that he was sucking his thumb at night. She was frustrated, saying that she couldn't monitor him all night to make sure he doesn't suck his thumb. I never feel good about contradicting someone's doctor, so I just said that it probably wasn't anything to worry about until he's older. But it makes me sad to think of all those babies who are prevented from following their natural instinct to suck. And I wonder how much people here use the internet, even doctors. Of course, the internet has come too late for old ladies. The other day on the metro, an old lady actually pulled Evangeline's fingers out of her mouth when I was holding her. I was too surprised to react the first time, but when she tried to do it again, I told her in no uncertain terms to leave Evangeline alone!

I still can't get over how weird the "helper" thing is, too. Here's a picture of the kids from the mom's group that I'm in. One of the moms took it when the kids were having their snack. We just leave all the kids in the playroom while the helpers take care of them:

But it's not like everyone has a helper. Two of the moms who live in our apartment complex don't have helpers, so we're not alone with our lack of domestic assistance! :)

I'll have more pictures soon. Sorry for the lack of scenery, but the last few weeks we've been in a serious get-settled mode.

The King of Fruits?

We were so lucky to have my little brother, Dave, here for a week and a day. He was in town to speak at a WWF conference about the proposed third runway at Hong Kong airport, and stayed the rest of the week. Although I wish we'd been a little more knowledgeable about the city and local culture for his sake, our blind-leading-the-blind experience led to quite a few laughs.

Joseph and I have been trying local desserts every night, and as you'd expect, sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. One day, we brought home a pint of green tea ice cream to find that it tastes EXACTLY like green tea. Not sweetened or anything, just frozen green tea. The lack of sugar in some of these desserts has been a shock to our American palate - what's the point of dessert if it isn't going to be sweet? Anyway, we're almost to the Mid-Autumn Festival here, so there are lots of mooncakes around, both regular and an ice cream version. The ice cream ones were in our local grocery store in two-packs, so Joseph got a bunch for us to have to celebrate the end of Dave's conference. There's no English on the packaging, so we had no idea what flavors we were eating. The first night, we had two different kinds and they were delicious. The second night, it looked like we only had one kind left. Dave and I shared one two-pack, while Joseph had one from the last package. Dave and I were raving about the ones we were eating, which tasted just like frozen cheesecake. Joseph was strangely silent while eating, but cut the last remaining mooncake into thirds so we could all have a little more. As soon as we bit into it, we knew something was terribly wrong. It tasted disgusting; familiar, but we couldn't put our finger on it. After another cautious bite, we knew what it was - the mooncake tasted exactly like the wet market smells in our village. We didn't know what flavor it was, but it was definitely not good! Dave and I threw the rest of ours away, and laughed about how Joseph had been eating the awful one while we were eating the cheesecake versions and waxing rhapsodic about how delicious they were! We couldn't believe that he didn't say anything, and that he ate the whole mooncake.

A few nights later, we decided to get some ice cream cups in a new flavor we had never tried, durian. We didn't know what that was, but it was made by Kowloon Dairy, and we had had their mochi ice cream before and liked it. One taste, and the mystery was solved! The terrible flavor of the mooncakes was durian, which is a fruit that is well-loved in southeast Asia. Some call it the "king of fruits," but its smell is so pungent and offensive that it is banned in a lot of public places, such as subways and hotels. Our local store doesn't sell the actual fruit, for obvious reasons, but the wet market does, which is why it smells so bad in there. Maybe one day we'll try the fruit itself to see what all the fuss is about, but it will have to be out in the open. I don't want to have to de-durian our apartment!

Durian fruit

Warning sign in the Singapore metro

Dave and Evangeline on the Peak (not a clear day, unfortunately)

Dave drinks a yuan yang, a mix of coffee and milk tea. Surprisingly good!

Dave and Evangeline lounge at the pool