I am walking with Aidan to the Baskin-Robins in Lido hotel complex. Aidan is talking about dragons. He shows me a card with a three headed dragon on it. He says the dragon likes to eat people. I ask him why not chickens. Or steak. Or..he interrupts me. Aidan says he just likes to eat people. I asked like daddy people, or all people. He says all people and this is a kind of relief. I clarify whether the dragon eats kids or just big people. Aidan says it will eat kids. We continue to discuss the dragon’s eating habits and Aidan is quite animated. Aidan says when the dragon sees people its like when other animals sees chickens. He describes it like a cartoon, at least that’s what I see in my head. When I asked him where the dragon poo-poos, he says the dragon does not poo-poo. I ask what happens after the digests a person and Aidan says the dragon spits the people out of his mouth on a plume of water. Aidan goes on to describe that the dragon lives in the water and not the land but that it can fly and hunt on the land. That the water provides the dragon with a weapon to spit at people like other dragons use fire.

We get to Lido and the store Aidan wanted to go to is closed for Chinese New Year and not due to open until next week. Aidan takes it in stride. Today has been a good day for him so far. First, he got to play at a kids grown up make believe place with Lydia for four hours. Kids could choose to be a fireman, a pilot, a doctor, a nurse, or other professions. Aidan choose to be a cook because he was hungry. He made himself a hamburger. After this first play date, we took him to  the Kaku store in Wanjing. Kaku is a kids TV network in Beijing and has opened a series of retail stores. It helps them sell the stuff they hawk during commercials and during the shows. Aidan is their prime target. I asked Yang what the birthday budget spree is and she says Aidan claims it should be around 700 RMB from an initial 300 RMB. I mentally settle on 400 RMB told Aidan as much when we entered the store. Aidan bought three toys for himself, two are sets of the plastic dragon ball things. The third is something he saw being hawked on TV. Total cost out the door was 159 RMB.

Anyway, we head over to Baskin-Robbins and pick up his ice cream cake, the one Yang and I ordered for him six hours before. The one we will have in a few more hours as we celebrate his birthday. We are celebrating seventh Aidan’s birthday five days early because Yang and I will be heading to Indonesia tomorrow, returning late on the 21st. Aidan is good with that as it means he will get his toys five days early.

Aidan getting ready to have his cake. One of those plastic ball dragon things is in his right hand. Picture next to it is Aidan kowtowing for Chinese New Year money.

On the walk back from Lido, I ask Aidan why the dragon has three heads. He says because its mama had one head, it’s papa had one, and he has one head. That makes three.  I start to argue that this doesn’t makes sense when I start to get his point. Aidan talks dragons all the way home, taking care to explain to me the names mean Chinese (like three head dragon or black lion dragon) and their particular strengths.