I usually travel with two essentials; a packet of balloons and a bottle of whisky. I never give kids sweets and definitely never give them money. It makes beggars of them. Balloons are light to carry, cheap and universally popular. They are a great way of making friends, not just with kids but with their parents. 
The whisky is for making friends with men (mostly) although women to occassionally accept a drink – it’s unusual. The whisky also ensures you are invited to any booze-ups going on with other western travellers. In addidion, on this trip, I also took a couple of skipping ropes which I had bought in China for about 50p each. Only one of the children in my homestay family had any odea what to do with it so we had to show them how to do skipping with a prtner and as a team. After half an hour, they had got the idea and one of the smaller boys was able to do ten jumps.
However, it wasn’t too long before they reverted to a test of strength – a game tug of war with a neighbour overseeing it. The kids were crazy, a good kind of crazy, and managed to entertain themselves all weekend with this rope. It was a reminder that children don’t always need adults to entertain them, they don’t always need technology, mobile phones and game machines. Sometimes the simplest things can entertain them for hours.
It was lovely to see kids pushing each other down the hill in a wheelbarrow and then all of them tumbling out at the bottom. Chasing piglets, climbing onto roof timbers, swinging like monkeys off the rafters… this is the sort of things kids should be doing. They should not be spending each and every weekend with their nose in their book, at private schools.
One evening I got out my mobile phone and whos the kids the app which makes your face change. There was much screaming, giggling, grabbing at the mobilr phone, pushing ecah other out of the way to get a look.. craziness in the house as each wanted to see their faces transformed. There’s technology for you. But in contrast, that lasted a couple of manic minutes and I bet the skipping rope is still in use.
Vietnamese kids have the freedom that Chinese kids (certainly in the main cities don’t enjoy). They have brothers and sisters and space to run around in. Their parents are not always around when they are playing outside and they are happy and excited and great to be around.
The homestay lady kept apologising for the noise they were making as they ran around laughing but I told her there was no nicer noise in the world than children playing and I don’t hear that much in China.