Sichuan Earthquake

I haven't written about the Sichuan earthquake, mostly because I don't know what to say. It is heartbreaking. If you are wondering how you can help and be assured that your donation directly benefits the victims of this disaster, there are some good pointers here (click on "here").

The stories on the news are incredible - large families living under a sheet of plastic because their home was destroyed, people without food or clean drinking water. People who have lost loved ones. Families who have lost their children. Very, very sad.

Amazing China

First of all, have you seen the new National Geographic?? It's a special issue about China (click on the magazine title above to link to their site). I bought two print copies at Borders this afternoon - one to read and one to save for Nora.

I haven't read the whole magazine yet, but I've read enough to be inspired to do the "About China" page for Nora's lifebook as this week's digi-scrapping homework (topic was recoloring an element - I recolored the filmstrip and the dragon sticker)

Paper - Confucius Says by Heather Roselli for Sweet Shoppe Designs

Photostrip Element - Adapted from Amy Teets Birthday Mini Elements

Dragon Element - Adapted from Maria LaFrance Journeys of the Heart

Fonts - 1001 Free Fonts Chinese Takeaway and Font Garden Astrid

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

From Wikipedia: The Rat (Chinese:鼠) was welcomed in ancient times as a protector and bringer of material prosperity. It is the first of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. Rat is associated with aggression, wealth, charm, and order, yet also associated with death, war, the occult, pestilence, and atrocities. The Year of the Rat is associated with the earthly branch symbol 子.

Have a happy and prosperous New Year!

China weather crisis

I'm sure you've all heard about the weather conditions in China in the news. It is a terrible, terrible situation where many people are without water, heat, warm clothing and the supplies they need to stay warm and safe. The weather has also had a disastrous effect on many orphanages.

Jenny Bowen from Half the Sky has been sending email updates on the status of their orphanages and I thought I'd post a few excerpts here to give a sense of the situation.

Changzhou, Jiangsu – suffered the largest snowfall in Jiangsu Province. Several buildings have collapsed. But the institution rushed to prepare for the cold and the children are fine.

Chenzhou, Hunan – still facing the most difficulties of the orphanages we’ve reached. They’ve had no electricity or running water for 8 days and there is almost no possibility that power will be restored before New Year’s Eve (the 6th of February.) Because of the blackout, the hospital is closed. 20 children are ill and being cared for by institution staff as well as they can. The banks are closed so staff is contributing personal funds to buy food, coal and diapers. Prices are skyrocketing as all roads to Chenzhou remain impassable.

Guilin, Guangxi - has two broken HTS heater/air conditioners in the Infant Nurture rooms and they’ve asked us to replace. The rooms are very,very cold. They ask for more soft matting for the floors and also snow boots for our HTS nannies who’ve been slipping and falling in the ice and snow as they come to work.

Jiujiang, Jiangxi – had another heavy snow storm last night. Pipes have burst and the five boilers are broken. They are unable to bathe the children and are having trouble keeping them warm. They need quilts, bedding, warm shoes and space heaters. They need medicine for infant coughs and colds.

Yibin, Sichuan – It’s a snowy day but it feels like the weather may be getting better. They’re not sure. They feel the county-level institutions are worse off than they are so the ask us to consider helping others before them. They keep the children warm in the bright rooms that HTS created and they say everyone is well so far.

There are many, many more mentioned in Jenny's email (and these are just the HTS orphanages which you would expect to be better equipped than most). Obviously I don't know where Nora is living now, but it breaks my heart that she could be cold and hungry.

If there is any way that you can help, Half the Sky has established the "Little Mouse Emergency Fund" to help provide relief for children living in SWIs affected by the storm. You can donate through their site at http://www.halfthesky.org/

Ornament Swap - Thank you Michelle!

Thank you, Michelle, for the beautiful cloisonne Christmas ornament and candle snuffer! We didn't have any cloissnne and I actually didn't even know until I read the card with the snuffer that cloisonne was a Chinese art. Both the ornament and the snuffer are really pretty - the snuffer you can see looks perfect on our sideboard. Hmm, probably I should get some candles!

Thanks again -- and Merry Christmas to you and your family!!

An unusual number of activities...

... and overload in the first two weeks of November.

In the past week I have signed us up for an unusual number of activities. First there was the baby CPR class on 11/10. It was the same day as the baby sign language refresher class, so we opted to do CPR this time (more important anyway, right?) and I'll work on some other way to get a baby signs refresher, perhaps a do-it-yourself sign of the day thing at home. Next I signed up for a transracial parenting class recommended by C at work - this is on 11/03. Then, as I was considering purchasing tickets for the Minhua chorus concert (also 11/10), I remembered that the Twelve Girls Band is coming to town in November (11/3) - I know this because of the public television fundraiser a couple of weeks ago.

I asked Rob which he'd rather go to - Minhua chorus or the Twelve Girls Band - and, no surprise he chose the Twelve Girls band (because who wouldn't choose the more expensive ticket? - kidding, actually I don't blame him, I'd rather see the Twelve Girls Band also).

For the uninitiated, here they are:

Chinese music concert

Rob received this at work today. It looks very good and tickets are only $15. We're going to try to go, I think. It will be a busy day for us - we're also hoping to take an infant CPR class earlier in the day.

Minhua Chorus will proudly perform a concert titled "Western Impression of China" at the O'Shaughnessy Auditorium at the St. Catherine. St. Paul, MN. Nov. 10th 2007.

China is a multi-ethnic nation composed of 56 ethnic groups. The vast variety of cultures from these ethnic groups has brought amazing richness and vigor to Chinese music which is strongly rooted in ethnic music. This concert will feature some of the most significant and popular classical Chinese folk songs, music, dances, and costumes from ethnic groups in western China. The concert with its poetic western Chinese theme will promise the audience lively visual and audio enjoyment.

If interested, please visit the website or call the phone number listed below for ticket info.

Western Impression

7:30pm, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2007

O'Shaughnessy Auditorium

St. Catherine College

2004 Randolph Avenue

St. Paul, MN 55105

Ticket & Info:

651-736-9853, 651-246-5735

http://www.minhuachorus.org/

Jia Baoyu and the lock of jade

Something else I learned about from Rob's friend Jasper:

Another tradition in China is to put a necklace with a traditional Chineselock on the baby, and bracelets are also popular in the same way. Thistradition can also be rooted from a long time ago. The locks are usuallymade by silver, gold or jade, and silver prefered, with words on them. It'ssaid that these materials have special rays that can scare monsters away,and the words can bless the baby with best luck and happiness. Jia Baoyu,the main character in one of the most famous Chinese literature novel, wasborn with such a lock of jade in his mouth.

Attached are some pictures of such locks and bracelets. The patterns on thelocks could be the the Chinese Zodiac of the baby, and the text could be"长命百岁" (live as long as a hundred years if translated directly) orother good wishes for the baby.

If you're interested in learning more about Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, here's a link.

Nora's quilt - update

I don't think that I've mentioned before my apprehension about the quilt project (at least not on this blog, if you know me you've probably heard it!). When we first started this process, I threw myself whole-heartedly into the experience. Anything that I heard we should do, I did because I didn't want Nora to miss out on anything. After a while though, I came to suspect that some of these supposed Chinese traditions were less rooted in Chinese culture and more a creation of the adoption community.

The quilt I regard a little bit differently - I think it's a great idea and I love having a little reminder of all the friends and family who care about Nora and are wishing her well. Some of them, like my Uncle Buck and Rob's Grandma Violet, have already passed on, so those are extra-special mementos of people that Nora will never know. I always intended to complete this project, but I didn't want to tell Nora that it was Chinese custom unless it really was. So, I braced myself for the cold, hard truth about the quilt and sent the question to a friend of Rob's who is Chinese by both birth and residence. Guess what? It's REAL! Here's his response:

I have consulted some classmates and some aged people in China, "Bai jiabei" (百家被 in Chinese) is something used to be popular in some areas in China, and maybe still popular in some places. The word "Bai jia" (百家)means a hundred families, "bei" means quilt, it was usually made by every family in the village when a baby was given to birth, and later it's simplified to be just several women in the village to make such thing.Another saying about this is that this thing was made by pieces of cloth that come from every family in the village. Whatever, people can express their love in this kind of ways to the baby...

And, more good quilt news ... tonight I finished my last block! I still need to assemble the squares, finish the last partial rows on the bottom and side and add my borders, but you can get a really good feel for how it's going to look. This will be a twin size quilt. I've decided to have it quilted at the shop we visited up at the North Shore, so I need to have it ready to go before our Fall vacation.

Next post I'll tell you more about another Chinese tradition that Jasper told me about.

Some random thoughts...

I'm sorry, this post is not going to be coherent. I have a lot on my mind.

(1) As many of you I'm sure know, a horrible story of a disrupted adoption surfaced this week. Here's a link. It is at once heartbreaking and eye opening for those of us in wait. If you're a worrier, you should probably not read this (Mom - this means you!), but if you are a waiting parent and are not already following Jen's blog, I would encourage you to catch up with the story. I'm sure this sort of thing does not happen often, but it does happen and we all need to educate ourselves and be as prepared as possible.

(2) AmFam wrote a hysterical post this week. First I laughed Diet Coke out my nose. Then I dwelled over our robbing Nora of her culture. I posted the following comment on AmFam's blog:

Comment from Jennifer Time: April 22, 2007, 11:14 pm
Great post - made me laugh Diet Coke out my nose!
I share many of your feelings about the FCC. It’s disturbing. Here’s my dilemma. DH and I neither are Chinese. We are concerned about robbing our daughter of her culture, but nothing we do is going to be really authentic. Thankfully we have a few friends who are Chinese (some live here, some in China). We will travel to China - I love it there. But… that’s an every couple of years kind of thing. In between, though, what can we do that’s not… well… creepy?

This is such a difficult position to be in. At once we are robbing our child of her culture and pretending to be Chinese. How on Earth do you ever do the right thing?? I want to be the best parent possible. I want Nora to be proud of who she is. I will not dress her up in silk brocade and I will also not wrap her in an American flag. If any of you ever see me do either, please give me a good whack, ok?? Wait -what about the red couch photo??* Should we ditch that? Please advise.

(3) I ordered that book, Learning the Dance of Attachment: An Adoptive Parent's Guide to Fostering Healthy Development, that I wrote about last week. It came yesterday and I started reading it this afternoon. I'm also reading Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew for the Adoption Network book club at work. I'm sure I will have thoughts to share about both.

(4) Holy Cow -- I almost forgot the best event of the week! We received our new I-171H on Wednesday. This one is good through 10/26/2008. I sure hope that we have Nora home by then and are on our way to Carys. Carys will be Nora's Mei Mei (little sister) ... I hope!

*The "red couch photo" is a Chinese adoption tradition. Every travel group has a photo taken of the babies dressed in Chinese clothing on a red couch in the White Swan Hotel.

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Happy Chinese New Year!!

The photo above is a picture of the CNY greeting cards that I ordered from our local FCC group. If my secret pal is seeing this, it will probably give away who I am, but oh well, there was only one month left anyway!

Our original plan was to make a Chinese dinner and watch A Chinese Tall Story on dvd. Unfortunately, Maddie came down with a stomach bug on Friday night and threw a bit of a wrench in our weekend plans. Poor thing threw up at least 10 times between 10:30 pm and 3:30 am. We took her to the vet the first thing Saturday, then spent the rest of the day watching her and trying to get her to drink Pedialyte. She's better today, so we spent the afternoon doing all the things we didn't get done yesterday. We'll probably still watch the movie, but Chinese food isn't going to happen unless it's take out.

Happy (Chinese) Valentine's Day!

Chinese Valentine’s Day is on the Seventh Day of the Seventh Month on the Chinese calendar, which falls on July 30 in North America this year (July 31 in China). Legend has it that the seventh daughter of the Emperor of Heaven, a weaving maid, fell in love and married a cowherd. They were so much in love that they forgot everything else in their lives and didn't complete their farming and weaving duties, which angered the Jade Emperor.

He exiled them to opposite banks of the Silver River (Milky Way), and only allows them to meet each other once a year on the night of the seventh day of the seventh month.

This legend has been handed down for nearly two millennia. The Chinese people believe that the star, Vega, east of the Milky Way, is Zhi Nu, and that Altair, on the western side of the Milky Way is Niu Lang waiting for his wife.

The seventh day of the seventh lunar month is the only Chinese festival devoted to love in the lunar calendar.

Children's Culture Connection

Ok, so I'm not exactly sure how I heard about this. I think it might have been from the FCC-Midwest newsletter. In any case, there is a really great organization called Children's Culture Connection that is dedicated to helping children gain an appreciation for other cultures. They've just started a series of stories about the world travels of four internationally adopted sisters

The current (and I *think* first) episode is called The Adventures of Ming Yao in Destination: Hong Kong. Here's the description from the site:

Meet Ming Yao-- adopted from China as a toddler, she’s now an all-American teenager who never shies away from an adventure in her native land. Fearless, fun and very fashionable, this plucky heroine charms people wherever she goes. In this episode she accompanies her mom to Hong Kong--where East meets West in a high energy city filled with color & contrast. Whether she’s on a shopping spree in a designer boutique, practicing tai chi in the park, or joining in on a back-alley mahjong game, Ming Yao blazes her own trail, taking young readers off the beaten path to explore the real Hong Kong ---on an adventure they will never forget!

Our copy just came in the mail today and, although it will be a while before Nora is old enough to read it, I'm really happy to have it. The book is written diary style and is printed in a font that resembles a young girl's handwriting. It reads very much like a travel journal, including pictures, sketches and swatches of fabric.

Ordering information is available on their site at Children's Cultural Connection. You can also sign up to receive notification of future events.

An extra plus is that half of the US $15 purchase price is donated to charity! I chose to have mine donated to Half the Sky Foundation. This organization will be familiar to those of you who received our Christmas card last year or who have seen the poster in my office. They do great work, please consider them when you plan your giving!

Dragon Festival

It is a beautiful summer day today. A perfect day for dragon boat races!

According to the Dragon Festival website, "Dragon Boat Racing originated in China in the third century, but is now a cross cultural sport with events throughout the world both at the local and international level. It's popularity merits its consideration as a demonstration sport at the Olympics and at the commonwealth Games. While Western dragons are fierce beasts to be slain by a hero like Saint George, Chinese dragons are entirely benevolent creatures with powers."

Mostly it was just a really nice day to spend outside at the park. It will be even more fun next year when Nora is here to go with us. I am so happy that we live in an area with an active Asian community. I think that will be very important for Nora as she grows up.

Gifts from China

Rob just returned from a business trip to Shanghai. I sent a whole shopping list and he came back with, well, some of it. To his credit, though, he did get the important stuff - a Chinese zodiac papercut for Nora's lifebook and some children's cds. Our Chinese isn't good enough to make any sense of the cds, but we did ask Nicole, our Chinese instructor, about them. She said that one is famous Chinese poems (that's the one with the man in the robe) and the other one is children's songs about Beijing. The interesting thing is that none of the children in the cartoons appear to be Asian, maybe they are visiting Beijing?