THE Lowly Peon

Parenting 
23 May 2010, 11:53am

I just got back from a short trip with the Bray Accounting department to a resort in the mountains. Those of you familiar with my loathing for general accounting may wonder why I went on a trip with the accounting department. I went as the boyfriend of the Southeast Asia Internal Auditor, better known to the Avalantern world as daisy. It was one of those family-business trips, where everyone was invited to take their husbands or wives, children, and in daisy's case, awesomely cool boyfriend.

The schedule said to meet at the toll booth on the south end of Hangzhou. I was to be in a car with daisy and one other girl from near her home; our driver lives very close to me, so I was first to be picked up. It was actually rather enjoyable, listening to Chris Thile and chatting with Master Xie (the driver). After nearly two hours of just driving to the north end of Hangzhou and back, we got to the toll booth, where we waited for the three other cars to arrive.

Toll booth, you may be thinking. Who, in their right mind, would meet at a toll booth?

Well, apparently, we did. There wasn't much traffic, so it wasn't too bad. We just sat around for about twenty minutes while everyone went to the bathroom, a few people smoked cigarettes, and children wandered onto the highway. You know, typical roadside manner.

I couldn't believe it. The kids were wandering around in the second lane, and their parents weren't freaking out. In fact, one mother was even walking with her kid. In the second lane! My parents would have peed their pants. I'm not even sure the kid knew it was a highway. Which means he'll get older and wander into the highway again, only this time without realizing there's a huge truck coming to help him fly.

I made a few comments that I probably shouldn't have to daisy, who said calmly this is just how Chinese parents can be.

But what really got me was this. After sitting around on the side of the road, watching children almost die, I asked why we weren't leaving. Someone explained it to me, but I couldn't believe my ears, so I figured I misunderstood. I nodded my head and forgot it. Wait, what did she just say, daisy?

Apparently, one of the kids, an 8 or so year old boy, didn't want his mom to drive. In China, we don't exactly all have driver's licenses, so without her, we were short a driver. So we were waiting around to think of a solution, since she couldn't drive anymore.

What?!

So there were 22 of us, wasting time on the side of this highway, because a kid didn't want his mommy to drive her own car. And rather than explain to him why that's a ridiculous request, we had the boss and his wife separate, so his wife could drive the other car. I'm still in shock that it worked out that way. My parents weren't the kind to beat me with a ruler, but I'll be darn* if they ever held up 21 other people for half an hour because I couldn't get the red lollipop (or something).

There are more stories where this came from, but this is already too long. One day I'll write a post about 90后, the generation in China of children born after the 90s. Let's just say it's not a compliment.

Anyway, now I'm back home, catching up on my RSS feeds, and thought I'd share that story to anyone bored enough to read it.