Bean looks eerily similar to my husband. If anyone possibly harbors doubts about Bean's paternity, Angry Driver's predilection for coordinating father/son outfits should quickly put those doubts to rest.
I guess Bean looks a little bit like me. At least, he doesn't look unlike me. Our little nuclear family could pass for one of those stock photos that come in a picture frame sold at Target or Kohls:
You know, come to think of it, I guess all three of us like to dress in coordinating outfits.
When we first made the decision to adopt a child from China, I don't think we ever really thought about how physically dissimilar our adopted child will be from the rest of us. Naturally, we figured that people will ask if she's adopted. I'm guessing just about every adopted parent thinks long and hard about how he or she will respond to acquaintances or strangers who are curious, ignorant, or just plain rude, and who feel the need to ask about our child as though it is their right to know the answer.
To that end, I imagined myself responding to nosy fellow shoppers or curious bystanders with "What's it to you?" This would be completely in keeping with my personality. Knowing what I know about Angry Driver's sense of humor, his response to questions about our adopted child's parentage would probably have been a tongue-in-cheek "What?! She told me it was my baby!"
As much as those responses would give us an emotional payoff, we can't just think about our immediate gratification. Angry Driver and I have cultural identities. We have solid roles in our family and in our society. Although he is still a child, even Bean has a solid foundation in his world. He has spent his whole life with us as parents. He looks at us and can see bits of himself in our faces. We have yet to meet our adopted daughter, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that she too has an identity in her world. And we are about to turn that world upside down in order to push her into our lives. In China, she is an orphan and she has special medical needs, but she is Chinese among Chinese people. Her caregivers are Chinese. The children around her are Chinese. Once our family comes together, our identities will all shift, but her shift will be the most profound. She will become:
Adopted
Chinese
American
Daughter
Little Sister
Different
And probably a lot of other roles that I can't even imagine yet.
Fortunately, our pre-adoption training made it clear that questions about our adopted daughter will probably come up quite often, particularly since we live in the largely homogeneous American Midwest town of Blahtown. We used Adoption Learning Partners for our required Hague training, and I think the courses are excellent. The training forced us to turn a critical eye on our family, our neighborhood, our city, our nation - all the facets of our known world. And, whether well-intentioned or not, people are going to ask questions. In all likelihood, our daughter will ask questions. Even if she never struggles to find her own identity (a nice fantasy, since I'm reasonably sure just about everyone struggles at some point with his or her place in the world), she will bear witness to how her family responds to the people who ask about her. Glib responses might be tempting for people like Angry Driver and me who generally adore sarcasm, but we certainly don't want our daughter to think that she is some kind of punchline. Angry or hostile responses might give me satisfaction in the moment, being as I can't punch rude people in their rude faces without going to jail, but I don't ever want my daughter to associate her place in our family with negativity. Completing the "Conspicuous Families" training lesson and a lot of online reading (mainly adoption blogs, forums, and agency website information) led me to conclude that my responses to people's questions will depend on the person who asks the question and the situation, but the words that come out of my mouth will always matter because they will tell my children what I think of my family and what I think of them as human beings.
So, let's practice.
Question: "Is she adopted?"
Response: "We are an adoptive family."
* Of all the possible responses I've read about or thought about using, I like this one best. It takes the spotlight off of one family member and puts us all in one boat, so to speak.
Question: "She's not your real child, is she?"
Response: "Why do you ask?"
* I like this one because it is passive aggressive, but subtly so. Anyone who isn't completely clueless should immediately realize that he or she is being incredibly rude with that question and back off.
Question: "How much did you have to pay to get her?"
Response: "Why? Are you interested in adopting?"
* Again, perhaps a bit passive aggressive. Seriously, though, what a horrible thing to ask someone.
The other major lesson I learned from our pre-adoption training was that Angry Driver and I needed to shift our paradigm. We are as Caucasian as Caucasian gets. When we go to the beach, I never lose sight of my family because we are the palest people there. We have a multicultural group of friends, but when we looked at our circle, we quickly realized that very few of our friends are of Chinese descent. I have an aunt who is from Japan, and cousins who are half-Japanese, but that's about it for Asian influences in our lives. We leaped into the notion of adoption from China without really thinking about how little we actually know about Chinese history, culture, food (real food; not the Panda Express version), and language. Granted, our daughter will more than likely be ethnically Chinese without being culturally Chinese just by the very fact that she will be adopted into an American, Caucasian, Midwest family at a young age. Be that as it may, we want to at least give her some link to the culture of her birth, if that's possible.
One of the ways that our adoption agency helps us prepare for the arrival of our child is through the creation of a "Family Care Plan". The idea is that we identify resources that are available to assist us after our daughter comes home. We find healthcare providers - a primary care provider, medical specialists, dentists, physical therapists, etc. We identify educational resources, mentor families, and cultural resources. While researching local resources, I came upon the website for the local Chinese School. I e-mailed the principal and, to my surprise, she quickly responded with a warm invitation to tour the school and attend a potluck dinner.
The school meets once weekly on Sunday afternoons. Most of the families have at least one parent of Chinese heritage. In fact, the schools are known as "heritage Chinese schools". This particular school teaches traditional characters, which I learned are used in Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong. Since our particular child will be from a part of mainland China where simplified characters are taught, she would be unlikely to encounter traditional characters in the local education system if she remained in China. There is another Chinese school close to Blahtown that teaches the simplified characters. However, Angry Driver and I were impressed by the warm response of the principal to my e-mail, and we decided that a tour of the school and a potluck would be a great way to learn more about Chinese culture and meet some Chinese families who are trying to balance an appreciation and understanding of Chinese heritage with a Midwest American lifestyle.
English word: "Mother"
Traditional Chinese characters: 母親
Simplified Chinese characters: 母亲
Pinyin (phonetic): Mǔqīn
See? Similar characters, but different.
And so it was that we found ourselves driving 30 minutes on Mother's Day to join about 20 families in the fellowship hall of a Congregational Church to learn more about Chinese culture. There were a few Caucasian parents, but most of the adults were Chinese professionals and entrepreneurs. A few of the children seemed enthusiastic about their foray into Chinese linguistics and culture, but most of the kids looked like any children anywhere who find themselves "enjoying" an extra day of school on a weekend.
Since it was the last session of the school year, the kids put on a show for their families and the guests. It was a strange sensation to be watching a production and not understand a single word, but a few of the teachers helpfully explained some of the high points. A few of the idioms were beyond my grasp, but, with their help, I was at least able to appreciate the essence of the story line.
The potluck was awesome. Bean devoured a plate of food and a bowl of soup that looked a bit too exotic for my plebeian tastes. To my credit, I did sample a very tasty dessert that, under usual dining circumstances, I would have left on the buffet: glutinous rice with red beans and sugar wrapped in a banana leaf:
Here is a representative picture of a similar product:
Photo courtesy of Serious Eats
I did show my naiveté (like it hadn't been readily apparent anyway) when I verified prior to taking my first bite that one does not, in fact, consume the banana leaf.
All in all, a great experience. Will we enroll our daughter in Chinese School? The jury is still out. I think the final decision will be made once we know her - her personality, her temperament, her ability to sit still long enough to learn, etc.
For what it's worth, Bean begged us to let him learn Mandarin. So there is that.
No, none of our best friends are Chinese, but at least we are making inroads. Our world view is shifting slowly but surely.
My mind must continue to expand, so that it can catch up to my heart. After all, a piece of my heart has already leaped the ocean and is waiting for me in China.
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