News

Kung-fu monks seek help from law: The warrior monks of China's Shaolin temple have applied to trademark their name in more than 80 countries. The monks, famed for their martial arts skills, want to stop their image being used to sell products across the world.

Local Stories

Adoptive parents who bonded in China reunite: Two-year-old Cara Keller had a birthday party Saturday. In a private room at the Shedd Aquarium, she and 11 of her closest girlfriends romped around in matching T-shirts. They made fish necklaces and magnets at a crafts table. They giggled at someone dressed as a giant otter. They ate pizza and drank soda and played ring-around-the-rosy. Typical kid stuff but for the fact that these kids were adopted last year from two orphanages in China by families from across the United States.

China Related TV Guide

China Sprout posts a much-appreciated weekly guide for China Related TV listings.

Chinese Nature Symbols

I found this Chinese Nature Symbols stamp set on the bargain table at Barnes and Noble for $5.95 (retail is $19.95). It contains 30 wooden-backed rubber stamps. If you can't find these locally, a number of new sets are avaiable at Amazon.com in the New and Used section for under $10.

The Chinese language is rich in nature imagery. The stamps in this kit combine Chinese characters for words like rain, moon, fire, and flower with lovely pictorial renderings of the same words. The enclosed booklet describes the importance of nature in Chinese art, culture, and language.

Beautiful China

Featured Webpage

Check out the Lowther Family webpage.

It all started with an expectant mother, perhaps not in the conventional sense, but with marvelous expections, nonetheless. After a visit to a meeting with Chinese Children Adoption International, we started a mountain of paperwork that eventually led us, along with eleven other individuals and families to the city of Nanning in southern China just north of Vietnam.

eBay Store

DTC Dreaming is an eBay store that sells a number of items that may be of interest to families with a connection to China.

Hello! We are Mary & Tony and we have set up this store to raise funds to adopt a little girl from China. We are avid Disney fans so, we combined the 2 passions in our life to create this store. I have tried to collect some unique items geared towards adoption as well as some items just for fun!!

New Book

China's Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead

The end of communist rule in China will be one of the most momentous events of the twenty-first century, sounding the death knell for the Marxist-Leninist experiment and offering freedom to a fifth of mankind. This book provides a detailed account of how that is likely to happen.

In more than half a century of rule, the Chinese Communist Party has turned a poor and benighted China into a moderately well-off and increasingly influential nation. Yet the Party has failed to keep pace with change since stepping aside from daily life in the late-1970s. After nearly a hundred years of frustrating attempts to create a workable political system following the overthrow of the last dynasty, the prospects for democracy in China are better than ever, according to Bruce Gilley.

Gilley predicts an elite-led transformation rather than a popular-led overthrow. He profiles the key actors and looks at the response of excluded elites, such as the military, as well as interested parties such as Taiwan and Tibet. He explains how democracy in China will be very "Chinese," even as it will also embody fundamental universal liberal features. He deals with competing interests—regional, sectoral, and class—of China's economy and society under democracy, addressing the pressing concerns of world business. Finally he considers the implications for Asia as well as for the United States.

China's Lost Girls to be released on DVD!

Because of the overwhelming response to China's Lost Girls, National Geographic Television & Film is releasing it on DVD. You can place an order by calling 1-800-627-5162 or emailing ngvideo@cust-serv.com. The DVD will ship in 2.5 weeks after production is complete. The cost of the video is $19.95 plus $3.95 shipping.

News

Rainstorms Kill 23 in Hunan: Severe storms have hit 30 counties in central China's Hunan Province over the past six days, killing at least 23 people and leaving 24 others missing.

'Sea turtles' losing the job race: Since her childhood, Zhang Qian has been eager to excel. After graduating from university in July 1996, she got a job in the finance department of a five-star hotel in Beijing, with a monthly salary of 4,000 yuan (US$483).

Beijing officials misused $16m Olympic funds: China's sports authorities have since 1999 misused Rmb131m ($16m) of government funds earmarked for the 2008 Olympic Games, China's National Audit Office said on Thursday in its annual report.

Attack on China Workers Said Not Terrorism: The slaying of 11 Chinese workers and the bombing of an international peacekeepers' vehicle in a northern province this month were "not terrorism," the interior minister said. Police believe the attacks were linked, but think they were motivated by other factors, possibly including competition between rival companies. [NYT, reg. req.]

San Francisco's Chinatown

You are ever in San Franscisco, be sure to check out Chinatown! You can register for walking tours at this website.

(Thanks Beatrix from APC!)

Local Stories

Foreign adoptions in U.S. on rise : At the DeFrese home, a Chinese baby girl points to a flashcard with a banana on it and quickly identifies it as, "nana," to the delight of her mother, Lauren DeFrese, who cheers.

News

Shanghai Workers to Get Injury Compensation: Shanghai took another step toward establishing a comprehensive social security system with the release Wednesday of a regulation to provide workers with compensation insurance in event of a job-related injury.

China uncovers Olympic corruption: China's auditor general has found that money for Olympic projects has been siphoned off from China's 2003 budget.

Vatican condemns Chinese arrests: The Vatican has strongly protested to China over the arrest of three Roman Catholic bishops—one of them 84 years old—in the past month.

Special Edition DVD

The Special Edition Mulan DVD will be released on October 26, 2004, and can be pre-oredered from Amazon.com.

Bonus Features include: Never-before-seen deleted scenes including alternate openings, never-before-heard-song "Keep 'Em Guessing", Music videos featuring Jackie Chan, Raven, 98 deg. and Stevie Wonder, and Christina Aguilera; and lots of other features.

(Thanks Kim from APC!)

News

Dragon Boat Festival—Past and Present: The Chinese Dragon Boat Festival (the Duanwu Festival) is a significant holiday celebrated in China, and the one with the longest history.

Alarm sounded for Yangtze River: A new report by the Worldwide Fund for Nature says China's Yangtze River faces a greater environmental threat from dam building than any other river.

Local Stories

Town official will travel to China to pick bring adopted daughter home: This year, town Finance Director Tom Bruce is getting a belated Father's Day present. But this dad must first fly by airplane for more than 25 hours over 7,000 miles on a two-week excursion to bring his gift—14-month-old baby Sophie—home.

T-Shirts

My name is Taylor and I was born in China. Our adoption agency, FTIA, was having a picnic for all the families they helped to create through international adoptions.

My dad designed a shirt for us to wear to the picnic. It was a big hit and everyone wanted one. So he is making them available to you on eBay.

News

Ancient Beijing Temple Damaged in Fire: Some buildings on the west side of the 720-year-old Huguo Temple in Beijing were damaged or destroyed in a fire that broke out early Sunday morning. No injuries were reported.

Death penalty for baby smuggler: The leader of a gang involved in buying and selling 120 baby girls has been sentenced to death by a court in China.

Deadly SARS virus found in tear of patients: Researchers have discovered the SARS virus in patients' tears, which may be an indication of how the SARS virus is spread and could be detected, according to a study in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.

China Related TV Guide

China Sprout posts a much-appreciated weekly guide for China Related TV listings.

Happy Father's Day!

Local Stories

International adoption offers hope for parents, children: Sometimes fatherhood is found thousands of miles away, with help from strangers.

The language of adoption: Here are phrases common in the Chinese adoptive community.

Beautiful China

News

Timeline—Mongolia

US slaps tariffs on Chinese beds: The US Commerce Department has slapped anti-dumping duties on imports of wooden furniture from China after ruling they are unfairly cheap.

WWII bombs unearthed in China: A team of Chinese and Japanese experts have found a cache of some 500 bombs from World War II buried in north-eastern China.

China issues more Internet regulations: China's Internet police stepped up an ongoing campaign to control the web by issuing new measures to crackdown on "unhealthy" Internet content, state press said.

On DVD

Big Bird in China is available on DVD! (Should we have a contest to see who owns the "most worn out" VHS copy?)

China's Lost Girls

China's Lost Girls airs June 20, Sunday, 8 p.m. ET on MSNBC.

In "China's Lost Girls," National Geographic Ultimate Explorer host Lisa Ling examines the consequences of China's two-decade-old, one-child policy, as it is commonly called. To curb the country's exploding population, China limits most families to one child, or in certain circumstances, two children. Due to cultural, social and economic factors, traditional preference leans toward boys, so girls are often hidden, aborted or abandoned. As a result, tens of thousands of girls end up in orphanages across China.

Celebrate the Child

Celebrate the Child has adoption-related books, videos, music, and cultural items for China, Cambodia, Korea, Latin America, Russia, and Vietnam.

China Coins and Stamp

Sun Fei Coins and Stamps has lots of, well, coins and stamps!

(Thanks Carol from PAC!)

News

Cloud Seeding Fails to Ease Drought: Instead of flushing liters of fresh water down the toilet, 26-year-old Beijing resident Tie Yingbin now saves used water from her kitchen and uses it in the toilet.

China home to 236,000 millionaires: The number of Chinese citizens with at least US$ 1 million in financial assets, excluding the value of home real estate, increased by 12 percent year-on-year in 2003, pushing the total to 236,000.

Restaurants Closed for Opium Soup, Stews: The soup wasn't just good. It was downright addictive. Narcotics police in southwestern China shuttered 215 restaurants found to be mixing opium poppy into their soups and hot pot stews. [NYT, reg. req.]

One Year Blog-iversary

One year ago today I posted my first entry in this blog!

New Book

Meeting Sophie: A Memoir of Adoption, by Nancy McCabe, is available at Amazon.com.

If you live in the Wichita area, you can attend a reading and book signing on June 30, 2004, at Watermark Books, 4701 E. Douglas, Wichita, KS, 7 p.m.

My daughter Sophie will be accompanying me and we love to meet other families with children from China, and others who are thinking about adoption!

Services for Adoptive Parents of Chinese Children

BlessedKids.com offers services such as Document Translation, Contacting Chinese Orphanages, Letter Writing, Name Translation (free!), Travel Aids, etc.

Referral Stats

Ralph Stirling's China Adoption Referral and Age Statistics provides "tables and graphs of referral waiting time and child's age at referral statistics."

If you have received a referral for a child in China or have completed an adoption from China, please take a few seconds to enter your information in our database to help other families know what to expect in referral waiting time and child's age. Your data will be kept entirely confidential, and only statistical summaries and graphs of the database will ever be published.

Art

Target.com offers this beautiful Angel In Adoption Framed Print for $39.99.

This beautifully framed artwork is a print of Angel in Adoption, an original Doug Patt, Jr. painting commissioned by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI). The print features a stylish frame with gold-colored accents and a marbled, parchment-like mat with a beaded interior border. Every sale of this print benefits and supports the CCAI, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about the millions of orphans worldwide.

(Thanks Jennifer from APC!)

Music

Last year during the SARS crisis, we, along with many other families, were delayed in our quests to adopt our children from China. The delay was quite agonizing. During that time, my wife and I composed a song called The Red Thread in an attempt to convey our certainty that despite the delay caused by SARS, we were confident that this daughter of ours would ultimately find her way home. And of course she did. The CD with our song The Red Thread is finally complete.

If you would like to sample the song for free, click on the first link below. If then you would like to order the CD online, click on the second link. Proceeds from the CD will benefit a number of non-profit causes.

Find Costco Queen, Red Thread and other Baggerz songs here.

Buy "Paper or Plastic?" here.

Read about band history here.

News

Bosten Lake, paradise for water birds: As China's largest inland freshwater lake formed of melting snow of the Tianshan Mountain, the Bosten Lake is a paradise for water birds including egret, hern, red-billed gull and widgeon.

China opposes US support of Taiwan to join WHO: China strongly opposes the United States' support of Taiwan to participate in the World Health Organization, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue here Tuesday.

US accuses China of weapons trade: A new report from the US Congress has accused China of passing nuclear technology to Iran in exchange for oil.

Jackie Chan Dives In to Rough Up Jules Verne: ometimes nonsense makes good sense. The latest remake of Jules Verne's 1873 globe-trotting fantasy, "Around the World in 80 Days," is a deliriously silly caper that goes out of its way to thumb its nose at logic. [NYT, reg. req.]

Of Asian-American Interest

Asian leaders decry blocking of Lee honors: Nearly 100 Asian leaders from across California joined Monday in blaming "racist, right-wing zealots" for cancellation of Assembly honors for former accused spy Wen Ho Lee. (Related article here.)

(Thanks asa from APC.)

Results from Friday's Survey

T-Shirts, etc.

The Canddprod.com Online Store has "a Man's t-shirt with the Chinese character for 'Daddy' and Woman's fitted t-shirt with the Chinese character for 'Mommy' and a onsie with the Chinese character for 'Daughter.' Right now we have a free store, but we want to add both Grandfathers and both Grandmothers in addition to adding Son and Daughter in infant and kids' shirts."

The a-China DNA Project

The a-China DNA Project

Many of us who have adopted from China hope that one day our children will at least have the option of knowing their biological families. Left without even the slightest hint of their biological parents' identities, DNA matching would seem to provide the best possibility for the first step in their reunions.

Importantly, we don't need to wait for years down the road to begin gathering an a-China DNA database for their later use. In fact, given the large number of samples required to establish a reliable statistical power, the sooner we begin this project the better. In addition, if and when China does offer this possibility to biological families, we will have a voluminous database available for our grown children to begin their search if they so choose.

There is one more reason to begin gathering our children's DNA samples today . . . the very real possibility that they may have a younger or older biological sibling or cousin who was adopted internationally as well.

They have a survey available to gauge interest in this issue.

Cute as a Button

Show off that long-awaited referral photo on a photo button from Cute as a Button Designs. Buttons are 3 inches and full color with your child's name, DTC group, province or almost anything else you'd like on the rim. Also available in magnet style, perfect for Grandma's fridge.

News

Guangzhou Moots Fund for One-child Parents: A 1980 law says one-child parents should be compensated after retirement. Many of those parents are now retired or approaching retirement age, which means that cities across the country are seeing one-child compensation payments rise. Some officials in Guangzhou believe a fund is the only way for the city to uphold its obligations under the one-child policy.

Taiwan star silenced by China row: A Taiwanese pop singer has cancelled a concert in China after a protest accusing her of supporting independence for the island, Taiwan media reports.

China recalls toxic baby milk: Health authorities in the Chinese city of Guiyang have said they are recalling more than 9,000 bags of highly toxic milk powder. More than 150 children in the south-western province of Guizhou were poisoned earlier this month by drinking the formula.

Zimbabwe reveals China arms deal: Zimbabwe's opposition has condemned a government decision to order fighter aircraft from China and other military equipment worth an estimated $200m. The defence ministry confirmed it was buying defence equipment from China.

China readying 1st female astronauts: hina plans to recruit women as astronauts, and hopes to send its first female astronaut into space by 2010. The female astronauts would conduct research on the planned Chinese space station.

China Related TV Guide

China Sprout posts a much-appreciated weekly guide for China Related TV listings.

Beautiful China

Local Stories

Making a house a home: The voice on the other end of the phone sent chills down Tamara Hueston's spine. In a few days, she and her husband, Tony, would receive a FedEx package containing a photo, medical records and a detailed history of a toddler from China, the caller said.

Chinese Utensils = WiFi Technology

Here is a link that shows you how to "make 2.4GHz parabolic mesh dishes from cheap but sturdy Chinese cookware scoops & a USB WiFi adaptor!"

(Via J-Walk)

News

Heat Wave Sweeps Northern Areas: In the midst of the nation's first long heat wave for the summer, visiting a location in China's north sounds likes the ideal solution—but just make sure that place is not Beijing. Sweltering weather prevailed over the country's capital again on Friday with a top of 38 Celsius [100 deg. F], even higher than cities further south and inland which are noted for their hot temperatures.

China creates web vigilante site: The Chinese authorities have begun a new website for people to report on what officials describe as illegal or unhealthy information on the internet.

Taleban denies attack on Chinese: The Taleban has denied killing 11 Chinese construction workers in an attack in north-east Afghanistan. Taleban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said it did not target Chinese as there were no Chinese troops in the country.

Family Fears China SARS Hero Faces Subversion Charge: The daughter of the military doctor who blew the whistle on China's SARS cover-up last year fears her father's disappearance is no temporary muzzling but that he has been detained and is about to be charged.

China had first complex machines: Craftsmen in ancient China were using complex machines to work jewellery long before such devices are traditionally thought to have been invented.

A bit unrelated . . .

This really has nothing to do with Adoption or China, but I thought I'd share something that was circulating on the adoption lists yesterday . . . . . . Matrix Ping Pong!

Comments

You can now add comments to entries on this blog. Click on the "comments" link at the bottom of the page to add your two cents!

What do YOU think?

There has been a lot of debate over the white couple removed from a flight when someone questioned whether or not their Chinese daughter was abducted. (You can read the article here.) I thought I would test out my new poll account with this volatile issue. What do YOU think?

Were the airport authorities were justified in pulling the Feiocks from their flight?
	Definitely!
	I think so
	Not sure
	No
	HELL NO!
Free polls from Pollhost.com

News

Wild Panda Numbers Up, But Danger Persists: A recently concluded survey, begun in 1999, indicates that the number of giant pandas living in the wild has increased from 1,100 in the last survey (1985–1988) to over 1,590. The count does not include pandas under 18 months of age.

Baby Dies of Milk Malnutrition in China: One baby died and 20 were hospitalized with severe malnutrition in eastern China after drinking low-quality milk powder, a state newspaper said Wednesday, two months after a nationwide crackdown on fake infant formula. [Yahoo]

Private school for China's youngest: A small but growing number of China's emerging middle class are putting children as young as two in boarding kindergartens. Parents say they are too busy to look after them, or keen for them to get ahead. [BBC]

Chinese Man Sentenced for Internet Essays: A former Chinese civil servant was convicted Friday of subversion for posting political essays on the Internet, but the court imposed an unusually mild penalty of three years in prison and postponed the sentence for four years. [NYT]

Only 30% criminal cases solved in China last year: About 1.84 million criminal cases were solved by Chinese policemen last year, or 41.8 percent of the total 4.89 million filed criminal cases, said a senior official with the Ministry of Public Security on Thursday.

Local Stories

Whitley's Adopt Second Daughter: Roxie Whitley writes of she and her husband's second adopted daughter. She and Jim traveled to China for this precious little girl. "We left April 1st and received our daughter on April 5th in Hefei City, China. Her name is Elizabeth James. She was welcomed home by many family members and friends."

Child labor—Adoption is as easy as learning Chinese: Like learning Mandarin, adopting a child from China has been more complicated than my wife and I anticipated. We adopted our first daughter in the U.S., and when we started on the second I'd been led to believe the Chinese route was easier. Yet it's been two years of mind-numbing paperwork, meetings, home studies, medical tests and background checks. Also bank checks. Lots of those.

Who will take care of Bethany?: Bethany had been left on an orphanage doorstep in the Jiangxi province in southeastern China shortly after her birth on Nov. 3, 1996. She was almost 2 when Sandra Scudder, a Loves Park postal worker, went to China in 1998 to adopt her.

Couple gets 'flower' of their dreams: Some flowers take time to bloom. For Jay and Bekki Zornes, waiting on their "beautiful" Lilly was an agonizing two years, but their smiles alone prove it was worth the wait.

Time to start posting again . . .

Sorry for the long delay. I have really missed keeping up with the blog.