Fake Smiles All Around — Except Mom

Today’s theme — Aggressive parents and terrified children.

People just love to look at the “foreign doll” — Sprite. And total strangers often want to take photos with her.  I managed to catch this occurrence to share with you. Sprite, of course, is not too thrilled. But she’s managing a polite, albeit fake, smile. The poor little girl is absolutely terrified. Her mother kept urging her to “put your arm around the big sister.” You can see from her face that she didn’t want to be close to Sprite much less touch her. But she was obedient to her mother’s wishes and posed for the photo.

The only person genuinely smiling is the photo-crazed mother. She is totally oblivious to the children’s emotions. She simply wants the picture of the foreign doll no matter the cost.

Another variation of this theme is the following dialogue:

aggressive parent:  Look,  there’s a foreign big sister. Why don’t you go talk to her?
terrified child: No.
aggressive parent: Go on! Practice your English!
terrified child: No.
aggressive parent: Listen. They’re speaking English. Is it English? Can you understand what they’re saying? Tell me what they’re saying.  (Child still cowers in fear.)
aggressive parent: (trying the shame tactic, often with a light smack) Wow! You’re so bad! I send you to English lessons and you can’t even say hello to the pretty foreign sister? It’s not hard. Just go up and say “What’s your name?”
terrified child: (Pulling away, hiding face)

The interesting thing is that rarely do the aggressive parents themselves approach us to speak English. They almost always try to push a small child to do something they themselves are not willing to do. On occasions, I’ve tried to educate the parents by suggesting that they serve as a role model and initiate the conversation rather than badgering the child to do something scary.

But considering a child’s feelings and psychological well-being is really not a common concept (except among the well educated upper class). We keep trying to educate and patiently endure the cultural differences. Sprite and I laughed a lot about the poor girl’s fake smile. We hope she wasn’t permanently damaged by the terrifying experience!

Tagged as: living in China