The morning after we arrived in London we were sitting at a sidewalk table at the Cafe Paradiso near the upper end of High Street, Chiswick, when I heard a familiar voice. "Dah-ddy," the little voice said in clear, round tones, "May I press the but-ton?"
I have seen enough episodes of "Peppa Pig" with my young grandsons to know that voice anywhere! I turned around, not really expecting to see Peppa, but delighted to know that somewhere little girls really do talk like that. There was a tiny girl with a backpack and a bicycle helmet standing on a small, three-wheel scooter. When the traffic stopped and the green "walk" figure popped onto the screen, Daddy pulled her across the street with a tether attached to the front of her scooter.
Among the subjects that capture my interest anywhere I travel are the little people who are busy being little people. It has happened everywhere I have traveled. When I have my camera in hand -- with permission when parents are nearby -- I take photographs of little people being themselves.
What I find most compelling about little people engaged in play are two characteristics: one is their lack of self-consciousness as they go about the serious business of imagining, often playing alone with toys and sometimes interacting in groups. The second characteristic I find compelling is how similar young children act across the variety of cultures. Young minds are young minds are young minds. And before they have been pulled into attitudes and behaviors that dominate the adult world, they simple do what they want to do and regard the person with the camera -- if they notice at all -- with openness and curiosity.
I began to include children among the "interests" I stop to photograph during our stay in Korea and China in 2011. The little boy in black (above) was playing in the ruins of an abandoned Hakka village. Prior to visiting the village with our Chinese hosts, I was unaware of this Han-Chinese subgroup. The ruins were interesting in themselves, but the little boy was fascinating. His improvised toys were sticks and some green plants. He was totally absorbed in his play and absolutely unfazed by the arrival of a carload of folks who wanted to walk through the old buildings. When we finished our short tour and came back to our car, he was gone. He had been playing by himself, the only local person we encountered there.
Some months prior to that visit to China we spotted this little boy in Korea.
As we might imagine, dispassionate observation can teach us a great deal about a culture; watching young children may be one of the most revealing. It was also in Korea that we frequently witnessed very young school children traveling in pairs and columns led by teachers and helpers. The sense of community responsibility and self-discipline begins early in Korea.
Of course, little people share many characteristics that transcend cultural boundaries, such as we see with this little boy driving his toy vehicle through a puddle. The fact that the puddle is on a public thoroughfare makes no difference to him; he was as oblivious to foot traffic nearby as the little boy playing with sticks in my first photograph was oblivious to our carload of chatting visitors.
Where there are no sticks or cars or puddles, a little person can find delight in whatever-is-there. This little girl, just one of our Asian "grandchildren," is turning her world upside down for the sheer joy of it.
Or this little girl who, enchanted by this erhu player in Shenzhen, has moved as close to the music as she can. Spotting her the moment we passed by was a real gift to me. The photograph makes me smile every time I see it. I love her total lack of self-consciousness. There is a kind of deeply human magic here.
All of these experiences, of course, remind me of my own children and my own grandchildren, the ways they have of exploring and the delight evident in their straightforward adventures. Much of this natural curiosity and openness eventually becomes complicated and outgrown, and too often this natural playfulness gets blunted, overtaken by other pressures. But for a while it is affirming to see that at some early point we are all, as humans, compelled by the same joy in life.
Perhaps it is just the grandfather in me, but I love the way nearly every episode of "Peppa Pig" ends with the whole family falling to the ground laughing! I wonder whether Jesus had some of this open sharing in mind when he admonished his disciples to bring the little children to him. We often think of that New Testament story in narrow terms of "simple faith," which surely it is. But it might well be that his intention went well beyond that singularity to that openness to life and to others he offers us. For of such is the kingdom of heaven.
