China
The blog is back
For three weeks, at least. Two summers ago, my wife and I took our oldest daughter back to her birthplace in Vietnam. We got to meet her birth mother, her older brother, and her extended family. It was an emotional and rewarding experience for everyone involved. But more importantly, for at least a short time, […]
Another China Orphanage Post
Just when I though it couldn’t get more screwed up… About two years ago, I wrote a blog entry about a gentleman who does research for parents of adopted Chinese girls. He did some work for us. I found out last week that he has a blog as well. In the local paper last week, […]
No longer priceless
China’s quarter century old One Child law still isn’t working out. In addition to abandonment, families are increasingly using prenatal scan to determine the sex of the fetus and aborting it if it is female. The government used to ignore this problem, but now it is a criminal offense to have a gender selective abortion. […]
Reunion Vacation
Our family went on vacation to Gatlinburg. Because Katie is a horse nut, we stopped at the Kentucky Horse Park on the way down. Of course we got a stuffed horse for her at the gift shop. The next day we stopped at the Museum of Appalachia. It was nice but it bored two 6-year-olds. […]
Growing Problem
I got registered mail today. I never get registered mail. The mail carrier delivered a post-it note to me indicating I should come to the post office to pick up the letter. Even before I picked up the letter, Chris knew who it was from. Other parents of children from Fuling Social Welfare Institute were […]
Did you try the NORMAL way?
Well, this is my life. Every paragraph hits home. Chris does buy a lot of Chinese books and trinkets. We do try very hard to expose them to their culture, but most of the Chinese people we expose them to are fellow adoptees. So much for authentic culture. Because of that, for the longest time […]
Fear Factor, home edition
My youngest daughter is from Fuling, China. The city is famous for Zhacai, a pickled mustard tuber. Evidently many Chinese know the local manufacturer’s commercial jingle. While we were at the orphanage this past March, the director gave us a gift box of the delicacy. The box was quite decorative–it looked like a box for […]
The voice of the birthmother
“Words on the Night Breeze” was a 1990s Chinese radio call-in show for women. The radio personality, Xinran, moved to London in 1997 and now writes occasionally for The Guardian. Last month she wrote an article describing her “encounter” with a birthmother who had abandoned her child. I now have enough anecdotal supporting evidence that […]
Ready, set, marry!
On China’s National Day, the Chinese government repealed a decade’s old marriage law. Prior to 5:00am today, you had to get your employer’s permission to marry. Not surprisingly the number of marriage registrations jumped dramatically after the law was repealed, with lines going around the blocks of government offices even with extended hours. Wedding halls […]