Never Talk to Strangers

One of the things about Chinese culture is their obsession with children.  Especially foreign children.  I'm not sure how things were before the one-child law, but children are treated royally here.  Thus the term "little emperors".
But even more than the shameless spoiling of Chinese children, Connor gets doted on everywhere we go.  Shouts of "hello baby!" plague us whenever we step foot outside.  Old women come up and touch his hair.  Shop owners give him candy and call him handsome.  Chinese parents perpetually tell me that he is too cold.  Old men take him by the hand.  Students try to pull him away from me.
This is not good.  Yes, I like that he's liked, but really it's just that he's a novelty.  One of my students told me that Chinese people see foreign children as little dolls because they're so different.  She didn't understand why Americans don't see Chinese children that way.  It took a long time to explain that it's because our culture is diverse.  We have plenty of Asian babies in America.
Anyway.  I do not enjoy having people I don't know come up and try to take Connor away from me.  I don't believe that anyone would do him any harm, but it's a matter of respecting a parent's wishes and the child's feelings.  They don't do this to Chinese children, so why do they think it's okay to do it to mine?  Connor does not like this unless he's in the mood to meet new people.  Most of the time he freaks out when someone tries to take his hand and pull him away, and rightly so!  Besides, I would never allow this in America, so I certainly won't allow it here just because they think my child is a doll.
So there's this book that I remember from my childhood called Never Talk to Strangers.  It's so cute, with different animals that you don't talk to because they're strangers, like the camel hanging from a trapeze by his bony knees or the whale driving the automobile.  Of course, the book goes on to explain that you can talk to your parents' friends because they know them and the Easter Bunny's okay too because everyone knows him.  It doesn't sound special, but it is.  We bought this book for Connor when we were in America this winter, and he loves it.  We were walking through campus today and a group of students came up and "hello baby"d him.  Connor grabbed my leg and buried his face into it, saying, "Strangers!  I don't talk to strangers!"  The students were instantly discouraged to try anything further.
Bravo!  Lesson learned.  Although, perhaps it was learned a little too well.  I was explaining to Connor why he could not play with something yesterday and he didn't like what I was saying, so he said, "No, Mama, you can't talk to me, you're a stranger.  I don't talk to you.  Stop talking, Mama."
Sigh.  Sometimes I wish he wasn't quite so clever.