On Tuesday we went looking for children’s photo studios. There’s one called “Big Wind Vehicle” (translated means “Pinwheel”) that seems like it might work. We looked at their samples. They had the usual watermelon outfits and other costumes. They did say that they had a simple black backdrop and white backdrop that we could use. They even said, “Whatever you like is what we’ll do.” I told them that in our culture we tend to use one color backgrounds. They showed me several photos with solid color backgrounds, but the babies were all laying on or sitting in feathers or fur. I asked if they had any boy photos and they said, “Those are boys!” My bad. Then, I explained that in our culture feathers and fur were generally associated with girls. They then said that if we didn’t want the feather or fur we could do whatever we like. So, the small studio of “Big Wind Vehicle” seems like a fair prospect.
Next, we went on to the most popular studio in town. They, of course, had lots of “costumes” including the watermelon. They seemed equally excited to take photos of the foreign baby. However, it quickly became apparent that this larger studio had lots of people sitting around with nothing to do except crowd around a sleeping Schäfer. In particular, one lady loudly exclaimed how big Schäfer’s nose was. Then she grabbed his nose and repeatedly touched it. (would you like your nose grabbed?) She went away so I let the incident slide. But then she came back with her friend to show her friend how big Schäfer’s nose was. The made her proclamation regarding the size and again grabbed his nose. I politely asked if she could let the baby sleep. To which she responded, “Oh, the baby is sleeping.” Now let’s take a few clues from the closed eyes and overall comatose state.
“Big Wind Vehicle” it is.
This is a little boy.
Here’s an example of how they design the album for the photobooks. The English reads: “Drean song I must be dreaming Or am jreally lying here you I know my dream is soming true just one touch.”
Every photo studio had a watermelon costume.
Here’s a little girl having her 100 day photos taken.
