China’s Children International Serendipity 缘分 The official newsletter of China’s Children International Summer 2012
Contact info
Happy one-year anniversary!
Email: chinachildreninternation al@gmail.com
Dear CCI-ers,
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We can't believe it has been a year since CCI was established. The connections we have made with CCI members from discovering personal adoption stories to sharing common interests are beyond what we ever imagined for this community. As CCI continues to grow as a universal community for Chinese adoptees, we would like to thank all of our current members for being there for us and cannot wait to meet all of our future members. Happy anniversary CCI! Let’s keep on adding oil! (加油
Blog:
anyone?)
Website: www.chinaschildreninte rnational.org Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.c om/groups/20643245273
http://ccichinaschildren.blogspot. com/
-Laney, Charlotte, Maia, Jessie
Announcements Hey CCI members! We’ve been really busy lately, between getting ready to celebrate our one-year anniversary soon and finally meeting together in person! Yes, the four CCI board members have met in Wisconsin! Four adoptees working together at once = productivity. So we have some fun stuff to announce to you all!
Adoptee Chats
What’s in this newsletter? One Year Letter…1
First off, we’re regularizing our adoptee chats! From now on, they will be at 9:00 PM EST on the first Friday of every month, starting on Friday, August 3. We will conduct chats on facebook through our “friend” China Children to join the chat, friend China Children, simply log on at 9:00 EST and send us a message, and we will add you! Can’t wait to see you there!
Announcements…2 Why Serendipity?...5 Summer recipe…6 Adoptees in action…7 Adopted the Movie Review (Maia S.)… 11 ADOPTEE ESSAYS
Adoptees in Action – Share what you love Another cool thing that we’re doing is launching a program called “Adoptees in Action,” which highlights members’ accomplishments. We want to know what your unique passion is. Whether it be skiing, painting, or even tight-rope walking, we want to hear about what you’ve been up to! Why keep it to yourself? Share what you love! (More information on page 5)
Just What I needed (Annie N.)…12 China Exchange (Jessie L.)…14 Roots (Catie Boardman)…15
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Announcements Continued PROVINCE PRIDE Yet another one of our new programs set to debut sometime in July! Keep your eyes out for more info on this. Bimonthly, CCI will feature one of the many provinces in China that our members are from. Through Province Pride we hope to raise awareness and pride for our specific regions of birth as well as learn about China’s diverse people. Province Pride will include statistical information such as general population, as well as the number of CCI members from that particular province. We also hope to include some fun facts about the featured province. Fun facts will include: information about delicacies (one recipe included), major cities and their claims to fame, and what famous people are from the province.
WEBSITE CCI would like to announce that we are revamping the website! We are aiming to make the website more accessible, relevant, and interesting for our adoptees, especially in the arena of more helpful resources. Check it out!
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Announcements Continued CASTING CALL While this information does not specifically pertain to adoptees, we recently got an email for the casting call of the movie The Sisterhood of Night from the scriptwriter Marilyn Fu. Even though we probably won’t audition, this is a cool project from an Asian American woman scriptwriter. In her own words: The Sisterhood of Night is an ensemble piece that puts a modern spin on the Salem Witch trials, produced by Lydia Dean Pilcher (The Namesake, The Darjeeling Limited) and based on a short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steven Millhauser. One of the reasons I created an Asian American character (there isn't one in the original short story) was to see more teen girls on screen who looked like me when I was a teen. We invite actors to submit their photo/headshot and resume/bio to: sisterhoodfilm@gmail.com. We will consider first-time actors. Character Breakdown: CATHERINE HUANG - FEMALE LEAD – (13-16 years old). A Taiwanese-American teen girl who is quietly confident and expresses herself through fashion. She lives in a household of men with her father, grandfather and younger brother while her mom is in the hospital with cancer. Her absence makes Catherine resentful and cling to her friends even more, even as she finds herself at the center of the school scandal. Preferably understands Mandarin or Taiwanese but not necessary. You can find out more about the movie here: www.facebook.com/thesisterhoodofnight www.twitter.com/SisterhoodMovie www.thesisterhoodofnight-movie.com
CCI’s Future: What’s in store for you? As we move into our second year, our goal is to see more of what our members want. Tell us what you want CCI to be!
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Why Serendipity? The name of the official newsletter of China’s Children International is Serendipity or 缘分 (yuanfen)。 Why is it called Serendipity? Where did that name come from? Check out the meaning of the name here.
Charlotte C. In Chinese, the concept of yuanfen (缘分) is difficult to explain. It loosely translates to fate or serendipity. The concept behind it has to do with situations that one cannot seem to find an answer or an explanation for; they are just there. And the way that it turns out, the ambiguity is the beauty of it all. For adopted children from China, I think it is fate that we ended up where are right now. Our birth parents gave us up, but somehow we seemed to find a life that was perfect for us. We cannot say how we ended up where we are, but we did. I think this is definitely yuanfen. And to build on that, we have created an organization for adopted Children. We may not have anything else in common, but there is something intangible in being all adopted from China that pulls us together. In the future, I believe that we can work wonders for our birth country and America too if we so want. It’s that luckiness that came with the circumstances of our birth that gives us the power to change the world. This must be yuanfen.
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Try CCI’s summer recipe!
Cool Cucumbers This dish is so good, my family makes it all the time in the summer! - Maia S. Cucumber Salad with Spicy (Liangpanhuanggua 凉盘黄瓜)
Dressing
2 medium cucumbers 2 teaspoons soy sauce 2 teaspoons rice vinegar 2 tablespoons sugar 4 teaspoons sesame-seed oil ½ teaspoon Tabasco 1 teaspoon salt
Peel the cucumbers and cut them lengthwise in two. With a small spoon, scrape the seeds out of each half, leaving hollow boat like shells. Cut the cucumbers crosswise into ½-inch slices. In a small glass jar, combine soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, sesame-seed oil, Tabasco and salt, and shake well. Pour the mixture over the cucumbers, coating each slice thoroughly. Let chill for at least 1 hour.
-adapted from “Recipes: The Cooking of China” by Time-Life Books 1968.
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Adoptees in Action
CCI’s newest program makes its debut… Share what you love
What is Adoptees in Action? Adoptees in Action aims to highlight members’
For a couple of examples, see the next couple pages…
accomplishments. Stemming from the idea that all adoptees have different paths, CCI wants to recognize its members’ individuality and passions. Interested in sharing your accomplishments? It can
Email us your Adoptees in Action!
be any personal success, whether it be in school, in the
chinachildreninternati onal@gmail.com
playing field, in the arts, music, or even community
Post on Facebook!
service. You may do so through emailing CCI or posting on Facebook at any time with a submission of a small write up (and picture if you would like) about your activity that will be featured on the website and in CCI’s future newsletters. Adoptees in Action will be published bi-monthly on the CCI website’s "spotlight" tab, so first names only please!
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Adoptees in Action What do I do? Well, I love visual art! Whether drawing from a still-life or from nature, there is nothing I find more relaxing than creatively expressing the real world. I present here a few works that I feel represent my body of work, and also me as a person. I have found that I can explore myself and my Chinese heritage through my art in ways I have otherwise struggled to grasp. I hope you enjoy them! -Maia S.
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Adoptees in Action Hmm…. Well, to be honest, my passion is learning Chinese. I had zero interest in learning Chinese at the beginning. I thought, just because I was born in China doesn’t mean I’ll like Chinese… But after learning seven years, I’ve fallen in love with the Chinese language. I liked it first independently of being an adoptee, but now it has helped me connect with my heritage and culture. I’ve become who I am today because of all of the opportunities and riches that came with learning Chinese. (Oh, and one of my secret obsessions is Chinese pop music…) Here I am in a Chinese speech competition in Chongqing back in 2009.
But I also love volunteering and that feeling of making a difference, especially in working with children. I’ve helped out at a couple local literacy programs, and I’ve tutored Chinese to three wonderful adoptee girls in my community. They are just too cute! Lastly, I’ve taught English over Skype to children in underserved areas. It is too fun!
-Charlotte C.
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Adoptees in Action I'm Jessie Lutz, committee member of CCI. My two favorite passions are cross country running and swimming. I swam year-round a few years back, and I also swim and run for my high school teams. Swimming and running are great ways to get exercise and make fantastic friends! In cross- country we run a 5k. In swimming my favorite thing to swim is the 500 yard freestyle.
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Reviews Maia S. April 19, 2012 This semester, I’ve been studying the psychological effects of adoption, and specifically, the psychological challenges faced by transracial adoptees. In keeping with my course of study, I got this movie, expecting it to be a way of “relaxing” from reading studies and academic books. Did I ever miscalculate! The documentary, filmed in 2009 by Barb Lee, was heart-wrenching - it made me cry at points both from sadness and from joy. It chronicles two families at two separate points on the same adoptive “journey”. The first, the Fero family, has an adult adopted daughter, Jennifer, from Korea. The second, the Trainer family, is preparing to adopt a little girl. In the Fero family, Jennifer has been raised as a “white”, with little attention paid to her Korean heritage. In the film, she begins to open discussion in her adoptive family about her feelings related to her adoption and upbringing. This push for understanding is partly due to the fact that Jennifer’s mother has been diagnosed with brain cancer and has only a few months to live. Jennifer offers the adult adoptees perspective in the film, providing contrast to Trainers’ adopted daughter from China, who is still a little girl. The film opens with an idyllic scene from Jennifer Fero’s American life in Washington – she digs for clams with her family a cloudy beach. We learn, however, that her life has not been so idyllic. Jennifer was abandoned at a police station in Korea, and was then “claimed” by her adoptive family. Unlike the Trainers, who actively try to bring Chinese culture into their home, even at their little girl’s young age, Jennifer grew up with parents who wanted to integrate her into their world and help her fit in with the white society around her, and the only non-white in her town. This approach was
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following the dominant ideology at the time, that if adoptive parents integrated their minority children into the parents’ own cultural group, the children would not feel bad about being different. As a grown woman, Jennifer still faces difficulties that result from the way her parents handled her birth culture. She was raised in a society where everyone around her, her friends, and her family were all Caucasian and couldn’t understand her difficulties related to race and stereotypes. Feeling so alone, Jennifer felt empty - so she turned to substance abuse. I could not help but be moved by Jennifer’s story. The journey she embarked on herself to try and understand and accept her adoption was inspiring. Even as an adult, she was trying to make sense of her status as an Asian in her society, and in her very family! It makes me realize that, like Jennifer, I am on a journey. This path that all adoptees must travel is inexorably intertwined with our birth cultures. The film requires a mature audience capable of considering sensitive issues, and the tough questions that the film raises. Parents should probably watch it before they show it to younger children – It may not be appropriate until later. For parents, I think the main lesson this film teaches is that adoptees’ issues, if unacknowledged, will fester and develop in adulthood. Problems don’t just go disappear when you sweep them under the doormat.
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Adoptee Essays
Annie N. I make up one of the more than 57,715 Chinese adoptees in our world today. My adoption from Hefei, Anhui, China at the age of five and a half months has always and will always be a part of me. Although from a young age, my mother always impressed upon me the importance of being familiar with my birth country, it wasn’t until I met Emily Yu the summer before my second year of high school that I felt the personal push to master Mandarin. Emily moved to my small town of Maplewood from the bustling city of Beijing with her mother, to live with her mother’s boyfriend, who just happened to attend the same church as my family. During our first encounter, we exchanged a series of fractured conversations; me trying to use the one year of Chinese I knew, and her trying to use the 7 years of English she had learned in school. When we talked about our age, we realized we were born only 6 days apart. To me, this had profound meaning. This meant that her parents had lived through the same One Child Policy just as my own had, but hers had the fortune and prosperity to be able to keep their daughter while mine did not. As I further got to spend time with Emily and her mother, I got to see the Chinese language used more than I ever had before. Finding native Mandarin speakers in my town is as hard as finding the needle in the haystack. Something so simple as just witnessing the dynamics of a Chinese conversation between mother and daughter made me think of conversations I could have had with my own birth mother. Seeing an example of a girl who had stayed with her
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Adoptee Essays Continued
birth parents made me wonder what my own life would have been if that had been me. I realized that if I didn’t choose to learn Chinese, there would always be a part missing from me. I already wasn’t experiencing life in China, but I wasn’t going to miss the chance to experience the language of the country that gave me life. When her mother suggested a language study in China, I leaped at the thought. One of my biggest challenges in learning Chinese is being able to master and be able to recall the Chinese characters. Since my class is taught through the computer, all of our homework is typed and then submitted. It is through my own discipline and desire to learn that I am able to write characters. It wasn’t until this year, my third year of learning, that even reading Chinese characters was required. Up to then I was relying on reading and writing PinYin. In fact, my first exposure to actually being required to read and comprehend Hanzi was when I went to Beijing last summer with China Institute on a Language Immersion Program. All my other classmates had the ability to read them and I didn’t. At first it was a struggle for me to catch up with my classmates in their abilities, but after only a week I was up to where they were in character knowledge. If I hadn’t gone I don’t think I would have been able to master them as quickly as I did and be where I am today. The amount of knowledge I acquired in just one month is just mind-boggling. But I look forward to the fact that this is just the beginning for me. This summer I hope to have the chance to return to China and continue my adventure of mastering the language. From my past experience in China, I have learned that the best way to become fluent in a language is to immerse myself in the language; so that’s what I will do. I will interact with people, learn the culture and speak the language. Anything to be able to become fluent in the language of the country that gave me life. 13
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Adoptee Essays Continued
Jessie L.
These past two weeks I have had an experience of a lifetime. I had an incredibly opportunity to stay with a Chinese host family in Beijing. Words cannot describe how fantastic the trip was. The simplicity of my host family's lifestyle was humbling and I came back to the States with a bigger appreciation of the simple things we take for granted here. I now appreciate things like potable water, air conditioning, bath towels, and all the modern appliances we have here such as a dishwashers and washers and dryers. Living in America, I am proud to be an American and I sometimes I forget how proud I am to be a Chinese-American. As we visited awe-inspiring sites such as the Great- Wall I swelled with pride and my passion for China began to bubble inside once more. This sounds clichĂŠ, but I was so proud that my ancestors were the ones to create such rich and beautiful masterpieces, masterpieces that people from all around the world eagerly flock to. Overall I loved the spirit, genuine happiness, and warm hospitality of the Chinese people. I loved my host family dearly, and I can't wait to visit China again some day!
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