Yo-Yo King

A few months back Aidan asked for a Yo-Yo so we bought him a cheap little one costing 15 RMB. I expected him to try it a few times and then put it down and go onto the next thing. A week later he was still playing for it and asking for a better yo-yo. I then spotted him watching a cartoon where the hero is a boy who uses the yo-yo as some kind of weapon. At least that was my impression for the 10 seconds I looked at the screen before the epiphany of why Aidan wanted the yo-yo sank in.

We ended up getting Aidan a better yo-yo, one costing around 80 RMB which he proceeded to practice with relentlessly. He takes it with him all over our apartment pacing back and forth playing with it. He takes it to school. He takes it to Christmas parties and plays with other parents who have more patience than I.

For Christmas we took him to the massive Kaku toy store (the same Kaku as the Bejing TV channel which shows cartoons for kids and where Aidan saw the yo-yo). Aidan wanted to buy two yo-yos and pleaded his case to me. I said he could buy one so he pleaded his case to Yang. We settled on one yo-yo, this one about 140 RMB. My projections are the next escalation will be a tradeoff between a yo-yo and his college education or more likely my retirement.

I told Aidan that his American grandfather was a very good at yo-yo, a kind of yo-yo king. Aidan is inspired by this and wants to practice yo-yo even harder to impress his grandpa. When I left home this morning Aidan said he would practice today and I told him when I got home from work I would video tape him and post it in this blog for his grandparents to see. And here are three short demo Aidan yo-yo videos.