The Key in the Slot: Creativity in a Chinese Key

At the Jinling, a comfortable hotel in Nanjing, the key to our hotel room was attached to a large plastic block with the room number embossed on it. When leaving the hotel, guests were encouraged to turn in the key, either by handing it to an attendant standing behind the desk or by dropping the key into a slot. Because the key slot was rectangular and narrow, the key (with its plastic pendant) had to be carefully aligned by hand so that it would fit into the snug slot. Our twenty-month-old son Benjamin, whom we had adopted from Taiwan a year earlier, loved to carry around the key and shake it in his hand. He also liked to attempt to place the key into the key slot. Whenever my wife or I approached the hotel registration desk with Benjamin in our arms, he would bring the key to the vicinity of the slot and then try to shove it into the hole. Because of his tender age and limited understanding, he would usually fail to insert it into the slot. This lack of success did not bother Benjamin in the least. He loved to bang the key on the slot and enjoyed the sound it made and the kinaesthetic sensation it produced. My wife Ellen and I were both perfectly happy to allow Benjamin to bang the key in the vicinity of the key slot. But I soon observed an interesting phenomenon. Frequently, when there was a Chinese attendant nearby-and sometimes even when there was merely a Chinese passer-by in the vicinity-that individual would come over to watch Benjamin. As soon as the observer saw what our son was