Desperation Parenting

We planned a day to visit the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square while in Beijing.  We managed to get there on public transportation with the help of only one person.  We found a little food to eat and then purchased our entrance tickets.  I make all of this sound pretty easy, but please remember we are in China and we don't speak or read any Chinese.



We started off at the Forbidden City which was the palace for 24 emperors for about 500 years.  We learned it was called the Forbidden City because if you went there uninvited, it resulted in instant death.  It is actually a complex of 800 buildings, plus courtyards, gardens and pavilions.  Exactly half of the members of our family were interested in learning more about the history and culture while the other half were ready to be done within the first half hour and therefore resorted to bugging and tormenting each other.  This is not the first time this year that we have experienced this.  I knew this had the makings of a hard day!

Then in a flash of inspiration (or desperation) I gave my camera to the youngest and asked her to find the most unique pair of shoes and take a picture of them.  Instantly the three stopped annoying each other (and us) and became highly motivated to take photos of shoes!  Now I will admit there were some pretty unique shoes and they spent the rest of the time in the Forbidden City taking picures of shoes.  They were not always discrete in their picture taking and got a few strange looks.  But a family of 6 in China already gets strange looks!

By the end of our visit they had hundreds of pictures of shoes and half of us actually got to appreciate the Forbidden City.