- Baby Buddha
Kashgar, Xinjiang Provence, China 2002
A chubby cheeked child rests in his mother’s arms outside a mosque in Kashgar, Western China. We saw many beautiful children, but the beauty of this little boy stole our hearts. We were taken by the way his full cheeks pressed his mouth into a perfect cupid’s bow and his eyebrows that seem to express a Buddha-like contemplation of his surroundings.
We were told not to remark on his beauty because it might bring the wrath of the evil eye down on him or his mother. Luckily, his mother couldn’t understand English because we did exclaim over him.
The Chinese seem to have particular haircuts for boy children and it seems that his mother has tried to arrange his hair into a top knot with bangs.