China Doll

As we walked down the streets of Jiufen, Taiwan we saw this little girl watching her mother washing the dishes in front of a restaurant.  She looked like she was about 2 1/2 to 3 years old.  Bob took the picture not because of the child, but because he wanted to show how the dishes get washed at some of the restaurants. This is just cold water in buckets. No health inspectors here, and that is why we brown bag it.  We didn't think much about it, but our friends that we were with wanted to eat in this restaurant.   

We sat down at a big empty table for 8 (there were only 5 of us). After we were there for a few minutes; the mother who had been washing the dishes outside in the buckets, brought the clean dishes inside, and then sat her little girl across the table from us.  The mother then brought her child some food; which looked like sticky rice on a popsicle stick., and said something in Chinese.  The words must have been "hot"; because the cute little "China Doll" started trying to blow on her popsicle stick, and all her blowing was going straight up and not on the rice ball.  I said to Bob, quick get the camera out this is too cute.  When the little girl saw the camera she stopped blowing.   

But she was still TOO CUTE!

Her mother walked out of the room to do something and she started crying "Ma, Ma".  I took 10 NT (30 cents US) out of my purse and put it in front of her.  She looked at the money, then picked it up, then got off the chair and went over to a plastic box where the money was kept.  The "China Doll" then stood on her tippy toes and reached up as far as she could to place the coin in the money box.  She looked back at us so very proud that she knew where the money went.  We all laughed, then her mother wanted to know what had happened.