Mission to China

Thursday or Friday of this past weekend, Daniel asked me if we could go to Chinatown.  Even though we had the long weekend, with Columbus Day, I didn't see much chance we could go to Boston, so I told him we probably wouldn't be able to go.  I had presumed that he was interested primarily in his beloved Vietnamese "Pho Ga" - a rich rice-noodle soup with chicken, and probably some Chinese bean pastry for dessert, but no - he it turned out he was entirely altruistic in his interest in Chinatown:

"But Daddy, I think there's someone in Chinatown who lives on the street, and I want to give him all the money I have."

Then I remembered that one of the last times we were in Chinataown, there had been a homeless man wrapped up in blankets on a bench, with a cup in front of him for donations.  I had been frustrated that the boys weren't keeping up with me in the march down the street, and I came back half a block or so, to find both boys standing in front of the homeless man, staring in deep empathy and a certain amount of shock.  Both of them asked put money in his cup, and Daniel, on that trip, now associating Chinatown with the plight of the homeless man, declared, quite crestfallen, "This is not a nice China."

So this weekend, he wanted to go back to the not-nice China, to make it a nicer one.  Daniel might be something of a wild warrior, but there's a heart of gold under all those furs and leather and armor.

(October, 2012)