Children should be seen but not heard

A new library opened up in our area, Tung Chung recently. Oh boy, I was waiting for this moment. Being a sort of new residential area (10 years), Tung Chung is building a lot of new facilities. Too bad that they are just building a hospital now and not when we needed it last October when Khaya contracted H1N1 (swine flu) but that's another blog post.

Back to my nerdy excitement towards a brand new library in our area - a mere 5 minute walk from our flat! As a child and teenager, I spent entire weekends at the local library, reading the latest editions of the "Highlights" magazines and then later, teen romances (e.g. Sweet Valley High's). I even had a crush on a slightly older boy (e.g. 16) who worked at the library part time. The library was my "after school soda shop."

When we entered the new library for the first time, the girls and I marvelled at all of the new books and publications and mostly, the children's section. This section was decorated with all the requisite kiddie furniture and even a multi-tiered stage that was obviously the centrepiece. Brightly coloured stools and kiddie-sized benches encouraged kids to get lost in their chosen books. What more can any kid or parent want?

Complete and utter silence apparently. Not by the parents or kids but rather by the many uniformed attendants who disguise themselves as librarians but are really just there to "shush" your kids. Their shushing is so loud and frequent that that becomes more annoying and much more of a disturbance than the kids who are just being kids in a library.

Now with kids like mine who are not your typical Hong Kong shy kids, the attendants regularly meet their matches. I really think that as soon as they see me with the kids, their walkie-talkies immediately start going "Mayday, mayday...Mother with loud kids approaching door...all staff stand-by!" As soon as the kids pass through the doors, they immediately run, brimming with joy, into the children's section. And along the way, they do yelp the occasional "yay, we're here!". That is precisely when the shushing attendants deliver their finest performance.

"Siu pung yau (little friend), mm goy (please), shhhh (shhh)!"

But being the kids that they are, Bella and Khaya take this as encouragement to make more noise. And so it goes...the shushing is so frequent that our visits to the library are shorter than what I would like them to be. It's really too bad that kids can't be kids in the KID'S section of the library in Hong Kong. Hopefully they will lay off on the shushing and let kids be kids.