Train

Gabriel and I are surfing the Internet.

He sits on my lap.

We're on the Thomas the Tank Engine site. We are looking at a page that lists the names of all the different vehicles that are part of the Thomas cohort. We click on George, a steamroller with a face vaguely like a North Jersey gangster. Mistaking George for a train car (well, it’s hard to tell in two dimensions, and anyway, the steamroller category is not set up yet), Gabriel’s face lights up.

“Mommy, George is a train and a monkey!”

I’ve often wondered about the ubiquitousness of train mania in preschool boys in the U.S. It seemed like a switch turned on in Gabriel sometime after he turned two, and suddenly he was spending hours hunched on the floor, painstakingly pulling a train made up of Thomas the Tank Engine cars across the hardwood floor. And watching Thomas videos. And playing Thomas matching games online. And yelling “Choo choo! Woo woo!” when hearing a train whistle at night. And what a treat riding the BART to San Francisco is.

Is this obsession the same worldwide? What are San boys on the edge of the Kalahari Desert obsessed with when they turn two? How about Balinese boys sitting on their mothers’ laps during wayang kulit (shadow puppet) performances that retell tales of the Ramayana? Do they have a white monkey obsession? Or do they crave aerial chariots like the one in which Sita was rescued? Or is their desire for a more modern form of transport, such as the Honda Astreas their parents ride through the mud paths that split the rice paddies?

A recent New York Times article discusses a scientific study that shows that human toddlers imitate more than chimps do. For example, if there is a treat inside a latched box, human children, even when already knowing how to procure the treat in a direct manner, would instead follow of set of elaborate steps (such as tapping on the top of the box) in imitation of adults. Chimps would take direct steps needed to procure the treat despite the over-elaborate steps shown them. This study raises intriguing questions: is it imitation which makes us human? Though imitation seems like such a rote, uncreative way of learning, it may very well be our skill in imitating other humans that allows religion, technology, and uniquely hominid forms of culture. For better or worse, we pick up what’s in the culture around us, whether that’s praying to an elephant god, learning to use a computer mouse, or fetishizing human forms of transportation.

Choo choo, woo woo!