Chinese Mysticism and the Six Year Old

My son is at that point in his young life when he is fascinated by things like tigers, dragons and robot cyber-ninjas. Heck, I'm still into those things too! Anyway, Scottie loves egg flower soup, which he calls "Our Special Soup," so we try to go out for Chinese food whenever possible. The restaurant we chose tonight had those little paper placemats with the Chinese zodiac on the table from which we learned that Scottie was lucky to be born in the year of the Tiger, while I was stuck with the year of the Sheep. He had a great time with that and I feigned some tongue in cheek jealousy.

After studying the zodiac animals intently, Scottie looked to me and asked me a very solemn question: "If a hundred dragons fought a thousand tigers, who would win?" He's also at that point in his life when he's learning his numbers above ten. One of his more frequent questions when we are out on our forays is "How much money do you have?" It's hard to explain the difference between "I have" and "I can afford" to a six year old, in case you haven't tried. While he may not be an expert when it comes to family budgets, he's THE expert when it comes to the strengths and weaknesses of fighting tigers and flying dragons.

So we had a pleasant dinner discussing the fine points of dragon versus tiger battles over a big shared bowl of egg flower soup. I wonder how many ancient evenings Chinese philosophers spent pondering that same subject in the years of distant past? I wonder if that magical soup might have even played a part in the creation of their brilliant zodiac? I'll probably never know, and I like it that way. Some mysteries should remain unsolved, and the mystery of a hundred dragons fighting a thousand tigers is one of them.

Scottie's fortune cookie read "Your dynamic personality is fueled by your fascination with life."

I couldn't have said it better myself.