This is an imported post from my travel blog for my China trip in 2006.

… truly amazes me. They are like little buddhas, sitting there all quite and contemplative without bothering their parents the least bit. How is this possible? Mårten and I have been going around spotting them over and over again and we are baffled by them over and over again. These are not like western children, they’re not even like a well-behaved western child. They simply sit, calm, still, quite, obedient and look at what his happening around them with an expression that can only be interperted as if they’re quietly medidating on the meaning of life.

The other night we were even at a dinner a, for a child, boring, long dinner. A dinner during which the parents did such terrfying things as wanting the child to pose with foreigners. Allthewhile the child was completely calm and quite. How
many parents could say that their 2-3 yr child would be have like that?
I’ve been trying to ask my friends here what the magic key to this behavoiur might be – but they haven’t really given
us a satisfactory answer.. they’ve been saying things like “well, you know, it’s the Confuscian way”. I doubt many 2-3 year olds care about the Confuscian way enough to last through a dinner….