Playdates after dark
There was an article in the China Daily last week about how Chinese children do not get enough sleep or outdoor activity. While the study cited makes some unbelievable claims (like Canadian children spend 23 hours a day in the company of at least one parent, including sleeping time), even a casual observation of the local lifestyles can give credence to the main thesis of the China Daily piece.
In the evenings, mothers and children, from toddler-aged to Myles' age, play in the parking lot of our building under the very bright lights of the massage parlor. Our apartment complex has no greenspace or common area that is not a parking lot, so this is it.
The first time Myles was invited to play with the kids in our building we had just arrived home from eating dinner out that evening. Brigid had already fallen asleep in the car on the way home. The other mothers expressed surprise that she was asleep so "early" so I explained that she did not take naps anymore. This probably sounded a little unusual since school children up to Myles' age in Changping will often still nap during the two hour mid-day break from school. I hate to cut the playdates short at 9 pm, but even with our relatively late rising time around here (8 am), Myles was losing steam. Some of the kids with whom he was playing still had homework yet to finish that night before they would go to bed.
There's not a whole lot a bunch of kids can do at that hour of the night in a parking lot under the glowing neon of a massage parlor. Some try to wheel around on bikes or zipsticks, trying to avoid the cars that come through. Myles and his friends have taken to drawing with chalk on the pavement.
This one night they were drawing fire-breathing dragons. While the effort was collaborative, the Chinese kids used an interesting name for these creatures, 外国龙, wàiguó lóng. Foreign Dragons. Chinese dragons do not have such incendiary breath.
In the evenings, mothers and children, from toddler-aged to Myles' age, play in the parking lot of our building under the very bright lights of the massage parlor. Our apartment complex has no greenspace or common area that is not a parking lot, so this is it.
The first time Myles was invited to play with the kids in our building we had just arrived home from eating dinner out that evening. Brigid had already fallen asleep in the car on the way home. The other mothers expressed surprise that she was asleep so "early" so I explained that she did not take naps anymore. This probably sounded a little unusual since school children up to Myles' age in Changping will often still nap during the two hour mid-day break from school. I hate to cut the playdates short at 9 pm, but even with our relatively late rising time around here (8 am), Myles was losing steam. Some of the kids with whom he was playing still had homework yet to finish that night before they would go to bed.
There's not a whole lot a bunch of kids can do at that hour of the night in a parking lot under the glowing neon of a massage parlor. Some try to wheel around on bikes or zipsticks, trying to avoid the cars that come through. Myles and his friends have taken to drawing with chalk on the pavement.
This one night they were drawing fire-breathing dragons. While the effort was collaborative, the Chinese kids used an interesting name for these creatures, 外国龙, wàiguó lóng. Foreign Dragons. Chinese dragons do not have such incendiary breath.
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