Child's play

If you visit the ice festival in Harbin this month, the guidebooks won't tell you how to find the long, slick spot on the river bank, where you can slide butt-first down a chute of frozen reeds and slide smoothly onto the river's glassy surface.

Your hotel concierge probably won't mention it, either. The best way to experience such off-the-radar joys, I've found, is to take direction from some local kids.

Many travelers sigh that it's not easy to meet locals, especially on a quick trip where there is a language barrier. But if some youngsters approach you for a photo, for example, you've found the perfect locals to hang out with for a bit.

Kids are eager to show you what they know. In places like China, they often like to practice their English, and it can turn into a competition. Whose idea will the foreigner like best? Best of all, kids are in the business of having fun. (Hang out with a group, not a single child, and no one will worry about your intentions.)

"Uncle," a merry gang of 7-year-olds once asked me in Kivalena, Alaska, "Do you want to go to the haunted school?" I'd been making a solitary walk on the wooden-plank walkways of that Arctic village for about an hour, and the youngsters had formed a giggling chorus in my wake.

"A haunted school?" I asked. "What will your parents think?"

This got me a look of scorn that only a third-grader can make. They wouldn't dream of inviting Mom or Dad there.

I stifled the urge to collect permission slips from their moms, and we all sauntered to a quiet corner of the village, rousing a few barking dogs but no grown-up interest. We were above the Arctic Circle, after all, and sensible adults were indoors on a minus 30 C afternoon.

The "haunted" building turned out to be the original village school, abandoned 10 years ago when a new one was built. One of the boys quickly prised off the wooden beam that the formidable lock was attached to, and two others yanked the big door open. There was a lot of whistling and chasing and screaming, and I declined an invitation to enter a hole in the floor and follow a tunnel into "the mine".

Later we walked back "the long way" to the big store for some fruit drinks, and I learned that William's father caught fish for a living and Angie's mom ran the general store. Half of them knew Russian words, including some they didn't learn in any classroom. They had all been on airplanes - that's how you get out of a remote Arctic village for supplies - but only Joe had been on "a big one with no propellers". He was a year older than the others, and he had also killed some kind of deer - an elk, he's pretty sure - and he re-enacted this drama with gusto.

Most of his chums were rolling their eyes and teasing. They had heard the mighty hunter's tale before.

Later, he drew me a little away from the girls in the group and asked if I have "made pee-pee outside" here yet. "You have to walk backward into the wind," he said seriously, "and it will freeze before it hits the ground."

This is not information you get from even the most well-informed adults.

I met an equally lively group of youngsters in Istanbul back in 2006. After daring each other for a few minutes to approach me outside the Topkapi Palace, the bravest shouted the inevitable "Where are you from?" and we were all immediately best friends. There was nothing to see in the palace but old clothes and jewels, they assured me, though the swords were cool.

After a good chat, a teacher that I'd seen hovering in the background called them away, and we said our goodbyes. I asked their names, and the most outspoken boy shouted something I didn't quite understand.

"Brock?" I asked, puzzled.

He gave me that look that means, Why are grown-ups so dumb?, and repeated his name slowly enough for an idiot to grasp.

I quickly apologized and thanked him for teaching me something.

"I'm sorry," I said back on that summer day in 2006. "But 'Barack' is not a name that is very familiar to Americans."