my chinese 'nephew'

***this is duffy writing, not kate***

all of you who have travelled in the same vehicle for any extended period of time know this feeling. you get on to a train, plane, bus or other motorized vehicle and see a small child. your stomach jumps a little and, no matter how much you try to avoid it, you get a little nervous. sitting for 6, 8, or 24 hours can be a trying experience, even for well-travelled adults. many times, it is simply too much for kids and they lose it. for those of you who have taken young children on trips, especially my parents, thank you for your patience and hard work. travelling is an important experience, especially for children, and those willing to make that happen deserve a lot of credit.

our car on the train from urumqi to kashgar there happened to be a boy who was, as he proudly informed me later in the trip, 3 years and 8 months old. about 2 hours into the train ride, kate, lindsey and i were sitting by the windows admiring the desert and the mountains and reading when a small head poked out of the door two compartments down. the boy saw us and his eyes lit up. he jumped into the aisle, did a few kung fu kicks and chops, and jumped back into his compartment. we all chuckled and went back to reading. a few minutes later, he reemerged and walked a few steps closer before chopping and running back to safety. this action repeated itself and each time he came closer and stared at us longer. i decided that this would be a fun way to pass time on the train, so the next time he came out, i did some blocks and chops to counter his. this was wildly funny, and he ran back to his bed to tell his mom. his mom stuck her head into the aisle and told him not to bother me since i was reading. i told her it was fine and the next time he came back out, he had a bag full of dates that he dropped on my table, said 'thank you', and ran back to his mom. the next hour went like this: him bringing food, me talking to him a few words at a time in chinese, and him running back. then the head-butting started.

chinese children love to practice their kung fu moves and powers, and this one was no exception. after seeing that his hits from a distance were not defeating me, he decided that he needed something more drastic. he walked up to my chair, looked me right in the eyes, and said something in chinese. the only words i understood were 'tou', which means head, and 'bi', which means you want to compare two things. while i was trying to figure this out, he bowed slightly, grabbed my head, and started trying to push it with his. now, i don't mean to sound arrogant, but i have a big head, so this was not nearly a fair match, even though he tried pretty hard. i pretended to fall out of my chair, which he thought was wildly funny and this game went on for hours.

around dinner time he was getting very brave. he walked into my compartment and proclaimed that i should come with him. he led me back to his compartment and introduced me to his mom. he gave me some more food, and then started pointing to things out the window. he was asking me what all these things were that he was seeing, and when i would answer in chinese with basic words like 'mountain' or 'river', he would look disappointed and demand his mom tell me to speak english. amazingly, she would tell him the english word. she never tried to speak english with me, but she had an amazing vocabulary. by the end of the evening, he was able to jump up to the window and yell 'hos' whenever we passed a horse. by about 8:00, kate and lindsey were getting hungry for dinner, but every time i left the compartment to make noodles, the child would come and inform me that i needed to come back to his. finally, the people in the compartment moved over so that we could all fit in there and eat together.

one of the funniest parts of the afternoon was when he asked what my name was. i decided to try my chinese name, and i told him 'da fei', and that my surname was 'jian'. this caused him to go running back to his mom screaming 'jian shu fu, jian shu fu', which means 'uncle jian, uncle jian'. i guess it surprised him that a foreigner would have a chinese surname.

the next morning, as soon as a climbed out of my bunk to go put my contacts in, before i even hit the floor, i here this tiny voice yelling 'shu fu, shu fu!' after a few minutes of head butting to prove that we were indeed men and we were in fact very tough, his mom walked by us to go wash up. she told him to go back to the compartment and sit with uncle jian. we spent most of the time having a very intellectual debate about whether it was raining, if we had or had not arrived (i maintained that we hadn't), if the mountains had snow, and if there were monkeys in kashgar (he had gotten the english words for donkey and monkey confused), and of course, head butting. his mom took a while coming back, and eventually, he began to wander out into the hall and yell for her. it seemed like it was going to be a page out of the kids' book 'are you my mother?' when he asked the conductor where his mom was. unfortunately for both him and me, the conductor told him that his mom had already exited the train at the last stop. i have no idea why this should have been funny, but the boy did not think it was either. his lip started to quiver, even after she explained that she was joking. i think it was only by head butting for the next ten minutes that we avoided a major scene on the train.

when we arrived at the station in kashgar, he got ready to exit the train. he could barely stand still because he was going to go see his grandfather and kept yelling 'ye ye' over and over. he was wearing his sunday best, too. a pair of black gym shorts, a red tank top and a blue aloha shirt, topped of with a visor that had an attached pair of mirrored sunglasses that came down from the bill.

the trains in china have been a lot of fun. i've learned to play card games, gotten to talk to a variety of people, watched a man eat a whole chicken that came out of a bag, seen eight hundred and sixty one ways to make tea, and become a connoisseur of instant noodles. this experience was kind of the pinnacle of all of that. i really want to thank amy, kate and my chinese teacher, as well. without her hard work, i know i would have missed out on this and many other unforgettable experiences that have let me really get to know china these last two years.

so, moral of the story, next time you see a little kid while your travelling, don't worry too much. it may turn out to be a lot of fun.