The Main Attraction

I had told the children that people might stare at us because they are not used to seeing Westerners, however, I was not prepared for being bombarded by people with cameras and wanting to touch us as we came off of the airplane in Beijing.

When we stepped off the plane we were literally surrounded by fifty teenage girls with camera phones out. Flash bulbs where popping and people were pointing and waving. Talk about being the "Main Attraction at the Zoo."

In a sea of black hair and black eyes - our children with lighter brown hair, fair skin, and lighter brown eyes are stared at wherever we go. Kate with her curly hair draws attention and all of the girls and women want to touch her.

Kate is loving the attention, however, Donny in his "proper ways" thinks that it is rude to point and stare and tells them as if they understand him.

Every new place we go - people will join in our family photo - just to have a picture with Westerners. It cracks me up! My father taught me to say "don't touch" to keep the people from touching the children.

Yes, that is a local jumping into our family photo as her family took her picture with us!

The culture here is very touchy - and as many of you know - I do not like to be touched or hugged. I have a defined personal space that I enjoy having respected. That personal space does not exist here. First there is no room for personal space, second, it is the culture for woman to hold hands, and caress each other as a sign of friendship...nothing more.

All of the woman here carry umbrellas. They do not use sunscreen, but see it as a social symbol to have fair skin. Having fair skin means that you do not have to do manual labor and have the status to stay out of the sun.

So we bought the children umbrellas ($1.oo U.S.) in hopes of keeping the sun off of them and to keep people walking by from staring. We thought perhaps we would blend in. Not! The people just simply would bend down and look under the umbrellas as the children rode in strollers...getting even closer to the children.