Our son was given the choice of playing the guitar or the ukulele. To my horror he decided he wanted to play the ukulele.

In the process of deciding what instrument he would play I of course had visions of him leaping about the place with his guitar like a miniature rock god. All my dreams of being a guitar hero like Clapton, Hendrix and a host of others could now finally be realized vicariously through my son… brilliant!

Then came the crushing decision that he would like to learn the ukulele.

“Why?” I asked trying very hard not to sound at all disapproving or disdainful.

“Because it is cute!” He replied.

I was crushed.

We live in Taiwan and it is very close to Japan. Through this connection and under their own steam as well there is a disturbing tendency towards all things cute. If you need any understanding of this then search for and try to comprehend all that is, Hello Kitty. I think you should get the point pretty quickly.

Anyway the decision on the ukulele got me pretty worried that the Taiwanese cute virus had attached itself to my son and was beginning to take it’s toll.

The ukelele lessons have been going for about six months now and it turns out my son is rather good at it. But to be honest I still didn’t really “get” the concept of playing what seemed to me to be a “toy guitar.”

His teacher has a small band that plays around Taipei and on occasion they get my son to go along and play with them.

Last week they were scheduled to play for a local dance group and as it was an afternoon gig my son was invited along. My wife and I were asked to go and watch as well so we thought why not and went along for the show.

You know you learn something new everyday and that day was no exception. I learned two things.

1. I did not know that hula dancing was so popular in Taiwan.

2. I did not realize just how smart my son is.

Now I TOTALLY understand the ukulele.

Do I look ok?

Is it just me or has there been some monumental shift in the universe since I was a kid.

I have a 9 year old son. His name is Lee-Ming but in the tradition of the Chinese family he is affectionately addressed as Ming-Ming. This is the story of his first date – he was six at the time. Before I get to the date, a little background.

My son had been attending an after school English class. My wife and I had received a note from the new teacher of the class that he had been behaving poorly and was disrupting the class with silly antics. This was was quite out of character for Ming-Ming. Silly antics are his forte but he had aleays shown a good grasp of the correct time and place for such activities.

Given the sometimes “questionable” teaching methods/standards in Taiwan we thought we had better give him the benefit of the doubt and take a look for ourselves.

When we arrived the class was in progress. We sneaked up to the classroom window to see for ourselves what was going on.

Our expectation was that the teacher would be some sort of dragon or child hating monster who was utterly failing to engage Ming-Ming in the class. After all, it couldn’t be possible that our little angel would be acting in such a manner!

I looked in through the window and to my surprise there was the teacher, all 5 feet 10 inches of her, drop dead gorgeous, in her late twenties, leading the kids in a song at the top of her voice and wearing the biggest pair of Bugs Bunny slippers I have ever seen!

I looked to the back of the class and there was Ming-Ming blissfully ignoring everything that was going on and doing his best to get one of the other kids to do the same. So there he was, the child from hell, the class disruption, my son.

Now knowing my son, as I do, I went into the class and sat down at the back with him. He seemed completely unaware that the class was even occurring. We sat there for a while and I said to him, “Dude, have you taken a look at your teacher?” He seemed surprised at the question as if it had never even occurred to him that there even WAS a teacher present let alone a class occurring.

I said, “Take a look, what do you think?” So he turned his attention to the teacher, possibly for the first time. He sat watching her for a few moments then I watched as a wave of realization washed over him.

“Daddy! Miss Chen is La Mei!” That literally translates into “chilli girl” meaning he thought she was pretty hot! I could see the wheels in his head turning, trying to find out how it was that no-one had informed him of this most important fact before now. I quietly left at that point knowing that from then on Miss Chen would have no problem with keeping Ming-Ming?s attention – and she didn’t.

The Date.

It was about 8:00am on a Sunday morning, I had already heard Ming-Ming up and about earlier but had managed to ignore it and continue sleeping. All of a sudden I became aware of a little face about four inches from mine staring at me intently.

“Daddy. I need to get ready to go on a date,” it said. In my half asleep state I told the face, “That’s fine there’s plenty of time and Mummy and I will be up soon.” “But Daddy,” it continued, “I have to get ready because I am going on a date with Miss Chen.”

By this time I was awake and I knew from the tone in his voice that resistance was futile. He left the room and I asked my wife what was going on. She too had been informed of the urgent need for everyone to get up so that Ming-Ming could prepare fully for his date.

We took a minute to recap the events of the week, both wondering if perhaps we had missed some vital piece of information regarding a class outing or soemthing like that. Neither of us could come up with anything. After we got up and we were all having breakfast Ming-Ming continued on about the date. While I engaged him in conversation my wife sneaked into the other room to call Miss Chen to find out if she knew anything about how Ming-Ming got the idea they were going on a date.

Now it has to be noted that Ming-Ming has, his whole life, been afflicted with a terrible handicap. He cannot recognise the existence of the word “if.” Any verbal communication and also certain words connected to the aforementioned “if” seem to disappear altogether. This results in a great many disappointments for him in life.

For example the statement, “If you finish your homework you can play on the computer” arrives in his mind and understanding as, “You can play on the computer.” You can imagine his disappointment on so many occasions when we have had to restore the original statement to its full meaning! It was our suspicion that this current “date” situation was another example of this.

My wife returned from the other room with a very amused look on her face and informed me that, yes, Ming-Ming and Miss Chen were going on a date. That morning Ming-Ming had called Miss Chen and had asked her if she would like to go to the movies with him. He had also suggested that they may like to have lunch together and Miss Chen had accepted. Meeting point and time had been arranged, tickets to the movies purchased and restaurant for lunch had been agreed upon.

Now this is the point where I started to formulate the “shift in the universe” idea I mentioned at the beginning of this.

How is it that a six year old child even had the idea of what a date is? Good grief, when I was six I not only had no idea of the concept but the only response anyone would have gotten from me on the subject of girls would have been, “Ewww! Girl germs!”

Now here I was with a six year old that had not only achieved a full conceptual understanding of the subject but, as his first foray into the area, had successfully chosen to ask out a five foot ten catwalk model! By the way, did I mention that? Miss Chen the English teacher only taight English for fun because she loved kids. Her real job was as a runway model!

The rest of the morning was taken up with detailed and meticulous preparations for the big date. There were many questions such as, “Mummy are these socks ok for a date?” and “Does this shirt look cool with these pants?” Now all of these questions and machinations were fine in themselves save for the fact that it was a six year old going through them. Finally, photos were taken and we escorted Ming-Ming to the main street behind our apartment which was the pre-arranged meeting point.

We were standing together outside on the street waiting for Miss Chen when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a rather strange apparition come out of McDonalds. What caught my eye was a very tall looking young woman wearing what appeared to be a pink fairy outfit.

I looked closer and sure enough it was Miss Chen. She was wearing a pink fairy dress (with wings), ballet slippers, a gold “Barbie” handbag and that sparkly stuff in her hair. Given Miss Chen’s other occupation as a model the term “legs that go forever” sprang quickly to mind and judging by the looks she was getting from the guys around on the street that wasn’t the only thing springing to mind!

Ming-Ming finally caught sight of her as she approached and his jaw instantaneously plummeted to his shoes.

We all stood on the street for a while exchanging pleasantries – well, not Ming-Ming, he was still standing there staring up at what was obviously, for a six year old boy, his dream girl!

Finally Miss Chen suggested they needed to get going so Kitty decided to try to snap Ming-Ming out of it by saying to him he needed to say goodbye. So of course Ming-Ming, still somewhere off in a fog, raised his little hand, waved slowly and said, “Bye-bye.” – to Miss Chen! It was only when we laughed did he come to and realize what he had just done.

With that they held hands and went off down the street chatting happily.

The date had officially started at 12:00, by about 4:00 we were beginning to wonder where they were and when Ming-Ming would come back. Finally at 6:00 they arrived back at our apartment. Miss Chen left immediately so of course I started grilling Ming-Ming on his date.

This is how it went.

First he took her to a restaurant called “Ruby Tuesday’s” which is at the cinema complex here in Taipei. They had a great lunch. Why? Because it involved hamburgers, fries, chocolate cake and coca-cola, what could I say?

Then they went to see “Monsters Inc.” Not exactly the height of romance but good fun.

Then, and this is the killer, he took her shopping! A guy that takes a girl shopping is king, there is no greater scorer of Brownie Points than that. I asked him what he did while they were shopping and he told me Miss Chen tried on clothes and shoes and stuff and he sat there and gave his opinion! What a guy!

THEN he told her that he would like to buy her a gift. She asked what he was thinking of buying her and he said, “Lipstick!” So he took her to the cosmetics section of the department store they were in and CHOSE a lipstick for her that, according to Miss Chen, was perfect!

Then he went home with Miss Chen to meet her parents and enjoyed a pleasant afternoon tea with his date’s parents. Finally Miss Chen brought him home.
    
This all brings me back to the original point.  Is it just me or has there been some monumental shift in the universe since I was a kid? I can honestly say that it wasn’t until I was at least thirty years old that I could manage to put together a date like that! Really! Lunch, movie, shopping, gift, meet the parents all in the one perfect package. All this with a runway model dressed as a fairy and done to perfection at the age of six.

Ming-Ming is now ten, when I pick him up from school there are all these little girls calling out, “Hi Ming-Ming!” I am looking forward to his teenage years with an impending sense of doom.