art of asking questions

Sometimes, whether you are in another culture, or if you just are in the dark, it pays to finally blurt out the questions that have been bubbling up inside your heart.

Think of it as the "asking" reflux, if you will, of curiosity. If you don't ask, you won't know what's going on--and ignorance is not bliss, my friends. Not always.

At least that's how Heidi and I felt in China.

We had been wondering why all the babies have crazy split pants on--pants with no seam between the legs-open from front to back. And the babies don't wear diapers.

We were a little horrified to observe the many tiny bums everywhere, on the bus, in their parents' arms, in shopping carts, on slides,...in our arms as parents take our pictures holding their little cargo.

I was slightly embarrassed for the children. (Even though, for some reason, our culture seems to think that children have no dignity. Maybe that's what pure innocence is: no need whatsoever to be dignified...)

Anyway, I was also worried about the sanitation. And then I saw a mother holding her child in the middle of the sidewalk so the child could pee, and I felt justified.

Well, I finally just asked. I tried not to be too judgemental, as a guest in another country that doesn't understand the underlying cultural bases, but I couldn't come up with any reliable explanation: so an ExPat fluent in Chinese gave us the scoop--the children are potty trained. By whistle.

When a newborn starts to pee, the mother whistles. Soon, the child is trained to pee on command. And since the Chinese use squatter toilets, the parents want the slit pants to...I don't know actually. Train them to squat?? That in itself isn't bad, but the split pants thing doesn't seem to help with people peeing in the streets, or babies in the grocery aisle, or perhaps on the subway. It happens.

Now that we knew, we felt, well, more informed. Maybe ignorance is a little bit bliss. But now, "whistling a happy tune" on the streets had just become funnier..