Shanghai Daily article on adoption
Adoption can help blend different cultures
LOVE is boundless. This is again forcefully evidenced by the fact that an increasing number of foreign families are enthusiastic about adopting Chinese children.
According to Peng Keyu, Consul General of the People's Republic of China in San Francisco, more than 50,000 Chinese children have been adopted by foreign families over the past ten years. And 80 percent of the families are from the United States.
LOVE is boundless. This is again forcefully evidenced by the fact that an increasing number of foreign families are enthusiastic about adopting Chinese children.
According to Peng Keyu, Consul General of the People's Republic of China in San Francisco, more than 50,000 Chinese children have been adopted by foreign families over the past ten years. And 80 percent of the families are from the United States.
posted by Ray at 7:09 PM
6 Comments:
Hi Ray,
First, check out the address of your child's orphanage. This can be found at:
http://www.blessedkids.com/BKSite/orphAddr/jiangxi_shanggao.htm
That would be my first source of information.
Then what you do is you contact some local business around the area, or a local school, such as
http://jllrubbertrack.en.alibaba.com/aboutus.html
Inevitably there will be a student or a person who will be happy to correspond with you in English, and help to direct you to the right source
You can also contact someone who received the finding ad directly from the orphanage, like the following folks:
http://www.gurrad.com/china/shanggao.htm
Usually they can direct you to the proper newspaper.
Or you can start with the Jiangxi county newspaper:
http://www.manta.com/comsite5/bin/pddnb_company.pl?pdlanding=1&referid=3810&id=xtfmvc&pub_code=0194IBIR&item_id=0194-IBIR
It is also good to find a sister city nearby, and this can be done by contacting the Beijing offices:
http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/Jobs/Media&Interview/t39606.htm
They can help you find someone in America who is from this area.
Local Virginia Chinese associations can also do this for you. Those folks have ALWAYS helped me (for free, I might add).
Do you want more help?
I'll only charge you $34.50! That's cheaper than Brian's biz!Whattabargain!
or do you want to be babyfed whatever "truth" Brian hands you?
I don't blame you, after all, who has the time to actually WORK for the truth these days?
I'm an American! I want it NOW!
Ok, I'm handing out some jabs, sorry about that.
But I'll tell you that you'll be much more closer to the "truth" doing it this way, than relying on someone else to do it for you.
Thanks. I send that check to the Florida Community College in Jacksonville, right? Who do I make it out to?
uhhh...sure, you can send it there....
but I would suggest enclosing it in a SASE with the following address:
764 Gilman Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
USA
please label it, "for the children"
ya see, I know the real meaning of Truth.
let me know if I can be of any more help!
Half The Sky Foundation is a very worthwhile organization. But do women really hold up half the sky? I think an investigation is in order.
I completely agree, and you're JUST the guy to do it.
But here's the big question:
When you find your answers, will you share them with everyone on this blog, or will you charge everyone $35 for your DVD?
To me, this makes all the difference in the world.
I was talking to my friend about all this yesterday, and my friend said to me, "[me], this Brian guy is just covering his expenses. What's wrong with that".
The answer is, "absolutely nothing at all.... God Bless America."
But I explained to my friend that I am approaching the situation from a completely moral stance.
(which I realize is a bit trivial matter to bother with via posting, but hey, it's a blog, and nobody really takes those seriously anyway)
My point is that who is Brian to event COMMENT on the issues of adoption and abandonment in China, when it can successfully be argued that he is actually FEEDING into the problem?
It's the same argument that people can successfully claim that China is actually selling babies to the west.
It's the same argument that baby-traffickers can say that they really aren't baby trafficking.
It's the same argument that drug pushers can say that they're not to blame for the drug problem.
Brian is a great source of information.
But then again, so are you.
But the minute you start collecting money for your information, you are tainted.
My answer? -- win the lottery and do all this for free.
Likelihood of that happening? -- slim.
But am I going to call you to the mat when you start pontificating about the moral, philosophical, and ethical issues of adoption and abandonment, while you charge people $35 for your DVD? -- you betcha.
When you find your answers, will you share them with everyone on this blog, or will you charge everyone $35 for your DVD?
To me, this makes all the difference in the world.
Let me explain the difference: Suppose I were to embark on a research project to determine if women really hold up half the sky, or, perhaps something more tangible, like whether composite aluminum cryoconductors experience resistivity degradation under cyclic strain. Now, I could go off and do that on my own nickel and publish my findings for the world to see. But if someone has an interest in my research, they could pay me to do it. This was in fact the case when I was a graduate student. A client wanted testing done and I was hired to do it and present them with the results. I was paid for my time and even got a degree out of it. In other words, I provided a service and, in capitalist societies, a paying customer compensates for services. It’s called business.
In the same way, Brian provides a service. He has customers who are willing to hire him to track down finding ads, make DVDs, take pictures, etc. For whatever reason, these customers think Brian does a good job and are willing to pay him. Are these customers able to do the same thing Brian does? Probably so. I don’t think it’s as simple as sending a few e-mails and visiting web sites, though, and, let’s face it, some people really aren’t that good at this internet thing. Brian obviously has experience that’s worth something.
I liken it to a private investigator who finds information that his customer could probably find on her own but, for whatever reason, chooses to pay someone else to do it.
Let me state for the record that I am not a client of Brian’s and I don’t know if I’ll ever use his services. But I have no problem with what he’s doing, the same way I don’t have a problem with all the shops around the White Swan that cater to adoptive parents, or the adoption agencies that charge much more than $35 for their work. You say that Brian is feeding into the problem. Are these agencies and businesses also feeding into the problem? The problem is a combination of China’s one child policy and a historically patriarchal, agrarian society that values boys over girls. Brian is doing nothing to exacerbate that.
You say that you approach the situation from a completely moral stance, yet you haven’t demonstrated anything immoral about what Brian does, unless you feel that every service should be provided to you free of charge. After spending upwards of $15,000 for an international adoption, I don’t think $25-$35 for a DVD or a few pictures is all that unreasonable. If Brian is simply covering his expenses, then he’s not really profiting from his enterprise, is he? I don’t see any moral dilemma.
My point is that who is Brian to event COMMENT on the issues of adoption and abandonment in China, when it can successfully be argued that he is actually FEEDING into the problem?
If your position is that Brian is taking advantage of the child abandonment problem in China by running a business that profits (however modestly) from it, then you need to apply that standard to adoption agencies as well, who pay social workers and lawyers out of the fees they charge their clients.
I don’t wish to continue this discussion with you in the comments section of this blog. If you wish to continue via private e-mail, I’m willing to do that. I assure you, any discussion will remain confidential.
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