By now, Westerners traveling in China are common enough that a stroll through Beijing doesn’t draw so much as a curious glance. That is, unless you’re with a seven-year-old boy wearing a baseball cap. Recent trips to Beijing and Shanghai with our son in tow confirmed what veteran China travelers had told me: the Chinese love kids. And if my son’s experience is a guide, kids love China.

By the third day of our visit, Ethan had been photographed, gawked at, and generally fawned over at least a dozen times. He finally wearied of it when a man walking with his own young son tried to forcibly engineer a photograph of the two boys holding hands. I intervened as politely as possible, and the man settled for a shot of the boys sitting together on a bench. Somewhere in Beijing our son is in a photo album, not quite smiling at the camera. Call it our small contribution to diplomacy.

When my wife and I planned our trip, we debated the wisdom of taking Ethan along. Would he appreciate the culture? Would he remember the experience? Would he pester us with endless requests to play GameBoy? The arguments against it were mostly logistical and short-term, whereas the reasons for taking him were educational and long-lasting. At least that’s what we told ourselves. Given the influence China is likely to have on his life, an early introduction can only strengthen his understanding.

But taking our son to China turned out to be worthwhile for reasons that had nothing to do with high-minded goals of fostering cross-cultural awareness. It was just plain fun.

From the point of view of a child,China offers strange fascination (ancient costumed warriors with cool-looking weapons) and pleasant familiarity (54 Mc-Donald’s restaurants in Beijing alone). This latter feature may repel adults loath to acknowledge the imperialism of U.S. brands, but after eight or nine hours of heavy-duty cultural immersion, there’s nothing quite like a Happy Meal to restore the smile to your little trouper. (It was a vacation, after all.)

Mostly, though, our son found China to be a wonderful stomping ground. On our trek to the Great Wall, he scampered up even the steepest sections exuberantly, occasionally looking back over his shoulder with the exasperated expression of every kid whose dad can’t keep up.

When we passed an elderly Chinese man sitting in the shade in a small grove of trees near the Wall, Ethan noted that he was dressed like many other older men he had seen—in gray clothing, wearing “the same little hats.” I explained that this was the product of an earlier time, and offered a quick lesson on the tenets of socialism. “You mean they had uniforms?” he asked. And there it was, a Teachable Moment.

After completing a loop of the Wall, we descended in a conveyance that resembled the bottom end of a 1950s roller coaster. Each two-person car traveled on rails, driven only by gravity. As we whizzed down the mountain, it occurred to me that no amusement operator in the United States would dare such liability, which made the ride all the more interesting. We landed safely, clambered out, and Ethan asked, “Can we go again?”

The next day, back in Beijing, the New China was in plain view. A slouchy teenager with orange hair leaned against a light pole across the street from Tiananmen Square. His T-shirt read “Speak Your Mind,” while, nearby, a soldier stood stoically beneath a giant portrait of Chairman Mao. I was struck by the contrast and thought about pointing it out to Ethan, but he was busy using the paving stones for an impromptu game of hopscotch.

Inside the Forbidden City a few minutes later, we wandered among the gardens until a drizzle forced us to seek shelter. Our sanctuary was a 600-year-old building a few steps away from the Palace of Eternal Harmony. We noticed a line had formed. The attraction: a Starbucks wedged into the corner. Ethan, unschooled in globa economics, nevertheless noted that his mom could buy the same latte in the palaces of the Ming Dynasty as in the plaza two blocks from home.

Even the GameBoy turned out to offer a cultural insight. Wandering through a market on a Shanghai side street a few days later, we paused in front of a vendor who was selling used video games. Pokemon is part of the international language of sevenyear-old boys, so the fact that the box was printed in Chinese was no impediment to understanding. Ethan fingered the Chinese bills I had given him—an allowance in case he found just the right thing to remind him of China. Well, he had found it.

Back at the hotel a few hours later, he shoved the game into his device. Nothing happened. After repeated cleanings and insertions, it was obvious he had been sold a dud. Crestfallen, Ethan slumped into a chair, and declared China “stupid.” After some coaxing, he allowed that maybe he was being a little harsh. He remembered the father and son who helped him and his mother find their way during a visit to the Beijing zoo. He remembered the Chinese boys kicking a soccer ball in the park near our hotel, and how badly he wanted to join them. He remembered learning to use chopsticks at a real Chinese restaurant, and how much 10 yuan was worth, and that Qing is pronounced with a “ch.”

He learned a lot. Who knows how much of it will stick.

As for me, the experience was another reminder that kids are kids, no matter their address. Among the treasures of China, one that I will recall with great affection is the image of Ethan skipping along an ancient pathway in his red raincoat, a whirl of color, baseball cap askew. Not your average American in Beijing.

California-based writer and editor Kevin Crawford has covered travel in Guatemala, the Greek islands, and the American Southwest.

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