Adventures in Asia

“Oh, China! My sibling/friend/acquaintance adopted from China!” While this isn’t exactly a FAQ, it is a Frequently Stated Observation (FSO?) when my life-in-China comes up in conversation with people back home. For many, the only personal connection they have with the exotic Far East is adoption . (And mine, too, until I got into English teaching. And Asian TV shows .) There are several fascinating reasons why adoption from China to the U.S. exploded back in the day, and why it’s steadily decreasing now. Random picture of blossoms in spring~ Why did so many people I know adopt from China? Americans began adopting children internationally in the 1940s [read this article by PBS] , and the U.S. continues to be the highest receiving nation of children in the world. This article by CNN goes so far as to say that “the story of international adoption is an American story,” and “The United States adopts more children internationally, but also domestically, than the rest of ...

Lately I’ve been thinking about media, why I like the music and shows that I do, and the censorship (or lack thereof) that governments impose on it. There are countries like China, where censorship is so strict that creativity is stifled and/or stamped out. No one outside of China really watches Chinese media (that I know of), despite the country being large and developed enough to potentially produce some good stuff. (I mean, Korea’s Man From the Stars took over China for a reason. China didn’t have a show that could compete with it.) I consider consuming Chinese media for linguistic benefits, because I need to learn Mandarin in order to live here – not because it’s anything new or interesting. Then there are countries like the U.S. with no censorship, where the media is always selling you something, always feeding some primal need, creatively finding new ways to dumb down content to a single common denominator that will reach the biggest audience and generat...