Beautiful China

Designs from the Heart

Designs from the Heart has Christmas cards, ornaments, and lots of other items.

Welcome to Designs From The Heart! You will find that I offer many multicultural items for adoptive families, support groups, and culture camps. I hope that you find items that provide a cultural connection for you and your family.

News

Large swathes of China in grip of worst drought in 50 years: A prolonged dry spell has ravaged southern and eastern provinces, including Guangdong, Hainan, Jiangxi and Anhui provinces and Guangxi autonomous region. In Jiangxi alone, drinking water to 620,000 people and 260,000 livestock is threatened.

Pets bring pleasure, problems to urbanites: The number of pet dogs in China's major cities is on the rise, bringing both happiness to their owners and some potential headaches to others. As individual incomes rise, China's city dwellers are developing a liking for pets.

Nutritional Imbalance Plagues People: Irrational diets, deficiencies in micro-nutrients such as iodine, iron and vitamins have become a nationwide problem and a vast number of people suffer from sub-standard health.

Frescos Found in Fujian: Dozens of color frescos from the time of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties have been found in Hua’an County of Fujian Province. Specialists say they epitomize traditional folk painting around the upper reaches of Jiulong River.

Iris Chang's Book

With the sad news about Iris Chang, there has been a lot of discussion about her latest book. Members on various adoption lists have highly recommended it. This is a repeat of a post I put on the blog when the book came out.

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Iris Chang, author of the acclaimed The Rape of Nanking, has a new book about the struggles and achievements of the Chinese in America. Her new book, The Chinese In America: A Narrative History has received excellent customer reviews at Amazon.com.

The book was recently reviewed in the Far Eastern Economic Review. Some excerpts:

Chang has written the first comprehensive account of the Chinese-American experience. Other nonfiction books examining Chinese-Americans tend to focus on limited aspects of the immigrant experience, while Chang tackles the entire history, breaking it down into three main waves, starting with the gold seekers and migrant labourers from China's coastal cities in the 1800s. The Chinese were active in the California Gold Rush in the 1850s and worked on the American transcontinental railway in the late 1860s. The story of Chinese professionals of the mid-20th century forms the book's middle and, finally, Chang writes about the wave of immigrants entering the U.S. in the last two decades of the 20th century.

At 500 pages, Chan's book is a comprehensive account that relates experiences and incidents in an engaging and thought-provoking way. At times, she tends to belabour the ill-treatment of the Chinese, when her facts and anecdotes garnered from impeccable research can tell the story fully on their own. The final result is an important book that fills a gaping hole in Asian-American studies.

Free Adoption Blogs

RainbowKids.com has just opened a sister-site, RKBlogs.com, which provides free weblog hosting.

This new, and completely free, website will allow individuals and families to keep in touch through the adoption journey & after the child arrives home. Features include:

• AUDIO posts (post from anywhere in the world using the telephone)
• Type posts, standard posting
• Custom backgrounds and formats
• Unlimited photo uploading
• Link Insertion

Here is an example.

Christmas Stockings and More

Red Thread Creations is a work-in-progress site that includes Asian character Christmas Stockings.

Front features beautiful red brocade Chinese fabric (100% rayon) with a wintery poem written by the famous Tang poet Li Bai in gold-colored Chinese calligraphy. Li Bai is one of the most renowned and admired poets in China. He is considered as the foremost romantic poet in the Tang Dynasty.

News

Life as one of China's stolen babies: Dozens of Chinese babies are believed to be taken from or sold by their families each year, as part of a grim human trade. BBC World Service's Outlook programme spoke to 21-year-old Huang Xiuxiu, who was stolen from her family when she was just three.

China's Christians suffer for their faith: "They hung me up across an iron gate, then they yanked open the gate and my whole body lifted until my chest nearly split in two. I hung like that for four hours."

China's dirty energy takes its toll: With his thick smudged glasses and faltering gait, 77-year-old Liu Hongkui makes an unlikely protest leader. [He lives near] a coke plant, which belches out noxious fumes day and night. The residents are convinced it is poisoning them, causing respiratory disorders, heart disease and cancer.

Guangzhou to build world's highest tower: It is learned recently from the construction headquarters of the new Guangzhou Television Center that the design options for the new 580 to 600-meter-high Guangzhou Television Tower, the highest of its kind in the world, have been chosen preliminarily and have been handed over to the Guangzhou municipal government for approval.

Local Story

Chinese girls fills couple's empty nest: David and Mary Orr look at the daughters they've adopted from China, Bailey and Lily, and they no longer see their nationality. To them, their daughters are just like them.

Iris Chang -- Sad News

Acclaimed author, 36, apparent suicide: Iris Chang, a best-selling author who chronicled the Japanese occupation of China and the history of Chinese immigrants in the United States, was found dead in her car of a self-inflicted gunshot, authorities said Wednesday. She was 36.

Christmas Cards

A new 2004 Christmas card is now available from Half the Sky.

This delightful card is printed in full color on fine art stock and is available in packets of 12 with 13 envelopes.

Inside, the greeting, in both English and Chinese says "Joy!" Below that, the optional inscription reads, "A generous donation has been made in your honor to Half the Sky Foundation."