Spank yourself, not the kids.

Ok this has nothing to do with travel, but the cow has a pile to off load, so bare with me.



This photo can't be more terrible, but what can you do when you are stuck with a lousy phone camera trying to snap a quick shot in the middle of the night?

So what exactly is this? Big foot sighting? Aliens over Taipei? Some celebrity making out in the public? I wish!

Well, long story short ( but this is where the long story begins), I was at the public track doing my jog tonight and noticed that the playground is surrounded by warning tape and the playground itself is half taken down with parts laying all over it. Well, must be getting an upgrade! What's next? Playground with iPads for kids to play using their fingers?

Actually, I didn't take this photo because the playground is down, but the fact that kids are still all over it. OMG SOMEONE'S GONNA GET HURT LET'S SUE THE GOVERNMENT AND CONTRACTOR AND THE MAYOR AND THE PARENTS AND EVERYONE WHO DIDN'T SUE BEFORE I DO!!!!!! Hmmm.... this aint the US, so we don't do stupid things like calling the cops because the Mac D didn't have your favorite cardboard-tasting chicken nuggets. Alright, enough bull crap, back to business.

Months ago I was having a conversation with a friend. My point then was I think the concept of "lawn" is one of the most destructive things men/Americans ( since America = the world) have done to the planet. It's non-productive, doesn't yield any food. It doesn't support nearly as much life as the forest. It doesn't help keep the planet cool nor retain heat. It costs a lot of human dollars to maintain it, on stupid things like all the water in the world to keep it moist, all the fertilizers to keep it fat and greasy, all the pesticides to keep it mean.... and what do we get? A place for American men to display their manhood by riding on his pretty 4-wheeled lawn mower so that he can be the alpha male of the neighbourhood? That's right, it's neighbourhood spelled with an "U"!

Ok, enough unnecessary bashing. I learned this from watching American stand up comedy.

So my friend said he wants a lawn because he wants his kid to have a soft, safe and natural place to play..... OOO!!!! PLAY!!! What's a word! Who invented the word "play"? Kids? No, the mighty know-it-all adults did. We defined what play is and what's not play. We tell kids to "go play with your sister" and "stop playing!". We invented the definition of "toys" which means apparatus for playing, like as if you can't be playing if you are not using an object certified by the adults as toys.

See, my grandma is a bad cook, but she's damn good at one thing - making rice dumplings. Making rice dumplings involves wrapping half cooked rice in leaves and cooked in boiling water for hours. It takes very good technique in wrapping the rice, because if packed too loose, it will break apart in the water. If packed too right, it will burst. So I asked her how she learned it. She said, when she was young, they were dirt poor, so she started to "play" by wrapping dirt with leaves and became good at it.

Leaves and dirt are toys to her. Wrapping dirt with leaves is play for her.

Think about it, or rather, try to remember. When we were kids, what "crazy" things did we do? Did we stop letting our curiosity run wild just because there's a tape that says "keep out"? Or did that actually stimulated even more curiosity that drove us reaally crazy?

Play, as mentioned above, is what adults create because for some reason, adults have forgotten how it was like to be a kid. To a kid, play is simply the action of exploration due to curiosity. Play is to fulfill the desire to fill in the blanks. It's a natural part of the human being, and the only thing that is stopping humans from exploring freely is..... adulthood.

So let's think about it again, phrases like "go play with your sister" or "stop playing!". Let's substitute it with a more mature word, explore. Does it still make sense? No it doesn't, so it doesn't make sense to tell a kid when to or not to play, or what to or not to play with. To them, everything can be a toy, and every action can be a play. Just because it may not fell in line with your expectation does not make play negative. So adults, stop being stupid and play with your kids.

As for this photo, it's interesting and comforting to see the kids just climbing all over the dismantled playground despite the warning tape. Perhaps, they are playing "search and rescue"..... opps sorry, I meant hide and seek.