I'm bumping this old thread for a few reasons.
Lately, there's been increasing coverage of adoptions in China.
There's this piece in Newsweek on domestic adoptions. Apparently, as China starts getting an actual middle class, there's been a growing change in attitudes around adoption there. This is Very Good News.
Then, the LA Times ran this piece about the informal system -- a piece on one of the ordinary folks who just take in kids. It's pretty amazing.
Excerpt: Today, the sturdy 82-year-old with deep lines on his sun-baked face still makes a living as a scavenger in this remote Chinese town of 460,000 people on the edge of the Gobi Desert. And he is still bringing home children — 42 in all, at last count.
Many were abandoned because they had been born with some form of physical disability. Over the years, Chen has developed such a reputation as a keeper of castaway kids that even the local officials send them his way. They know Chen would not reject any youngster, no matter what imperfections the child had.
"Nobody else wants them because they are afraid of trouble," said Chen's 81-year-old wife, Zhang Lanying. "They think these children are dirty. But I pity them. They are human beings."
Obviously, it's backing up a kind of "savior" discourse that I feel *really weird* about. But, still, the dude's a hero and the story is beautiful.
And also, I should probably announce in a public way that I'm going back and doing it again. Sophia's going to have a sibling what looks like she does.
We've left ourselves open for a boy this time, since they seem to get overlooked a lot at the orphanages -- everyone automatically assumes China=girls, when there are lots of reasons people can't keep children that may or may not be related to the One Child Policy (young women from the countryside, moving to the big cities to work the factories, living in dorms...).
So, there. Doing it again. |
