BlogHer - China - Comments

Blogging while adopting

LizzieH — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:29:06 -0600

Congrats to your brother and sister-in-law! I am also in the process of adopting from Ethiopia, hoping to get my referral and travel there by the end of 2009. One of the unexpected benefits of blogging during the process has been the incredible community of support that I have tapped into, from people at all different stages of the process from already home with their kids, to further along in the waiting game than I am, to people just coming into the process. At this point, I don't know what I would do without my adoption blogging community! But, I have already decided that I'm not going to try to blog or email or even phone home when I am in Ethiopia, because I want to focus completely on absorbing what I can of the country and bonding with my new child. I'm in a different situation than your brother, I don't have other kids at home that I will want to be in touch with, and I will be bringing my mother with me to Ethiopia for her support. I will definitely take a ton of pictures and maybe even keep a journal while I'm there so I can blog about the experience later, but I'm going to unplug myself from the blogosphere for that time.

--Liz

I blog about creating a life worth living (and adopting!) at: http://inventingliz.blogspot.com

Amen, sister!

Suzanne Reisman — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:37:27 -0500

I know it is just women's "health," but it will still be nice to have the powers that be care about it. My fingers are crossed.

Suzanne Reisman, Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants

The Bush policy is obscene,

shelleyp — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:40:16 -0500

The Bush policy is obscene, and the fact that McCain/Palin support it shows that this pair is no friend to women, anywhere.

Hopefully in a few months we'll have sanity back in the White House.

human rights in china

kimbatch — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 02:04:25 -0500

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Is anyone going to hold China
to account on the promises it made that hosting the Olympics would improve
human rights in China?

China’s
officials must let people practice whatever religion or spiritual practice they
choose. Just like they must let journalists go about their business without
censorship, and let peaceful human rights defenders campaign on whatever issues
they like, and just like they must let ethnic minorities to express their
culture.

http://uncensor.com.au

Thanks for your comments, and

BackyardConservative — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:19:14 -0500

for sharing your stories.

I agree every country has its issues.

I do think natural disasters, and food contamination are a problem, but deliberate government negligence is much worse, as is much more often the case in China. It's more the rule than the exception. And deliberately adding poisonous chemicals to food--apparently widespread (pet food, toothpaste) as was done in China I think has no comparison here.

And I don't think we do the good people of China any favors by drawing an equivalence between our democracy and their country, where they don't get to choose their leaders (as we do, like them or not:)

And where bloggers like us could be put in jail very easily.

Plenty of contamination to go around

PunditMom — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:15:20 -0500

Spinach? Tomatoes? Salsa? I think there's plenty of contamination blame to go around here as well as China.

As for the "dying rooms," as a mother of a daughter adopted from China, can we let that one go already?? Most of the orphanages in China aren't like that and pretty much everyone has acknowledged that. China isn't evil. Most people in China aren't bad. They've got a bad government. So do we.

PunditMom

Sadly, the US is not immune from such things

Tacomamama — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:06:02 -0500

although I agree the cover ups are certainly much worse in China.

Just this morning, I was reading Julie Pippert's concerns about the toxic wake of Ike, about which you hear next to nothing in our main stream media.

My own children's school terrifies me, a large section that is used for the arts program is constructed of unreinforced masonry. We do live in an earthquake zone and it's frustrating to see nothing done for want of a bond levy. Fortunately, we do still have a fairly open society and I can complain to the school board and get something done. (hopefully)

Our food inspection system has definite cracks, and we need to be vigilant and supportive of food regulation to prevent tragedies like the one playing out in China.

In this country, we might not have fear of a repressive government, but we definitely seem to have fear of offending large corporations, or asking the tax payer for more money. Either way, people suffer.

Tacoma Mama

Watching China

Praise and Coffee — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 08:03:32 -0500

I agree, they are one to watch. After being there to adopt our daughter, we were saddened by the people so firmly entreched in their belief -almost worship- of their government. But in secret they wanted to know about America...they had heard how we walk on streets of gold.
Interesting.

Precious people under an evil government.

Sue

www.praiseandcoffee.com

Too true

fortyfide — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:43:45 -0500

Yes, the events could be: torture methods, secret prisoner transfers, team to fabricate best evidence of weapons of mass destruction, etc. See my blog today: "Pray for China?" The man should have had a sign that said "pray for us all..." thus my suprise at his sign...

Donna

http://fortyfide.blogspot.com

http://therecoveringlawyer.blogspot.com

A fascinating place to visit

Audrey — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:22:09 -0500

My husband and I weren't planning to go to China, but we kept meeting travelers coming from China who told us to go now as the
country is changing so quickly and some historic areas
are getting bulldozed or renovated beyond recognition. We're very glad we changed our itinerary and spent almost three months there last year (November-December) and this June. It's hard to understand the development and pace of change unless you see it for yourself.

We managed to get our tourist visas before the regulations changed (supposedly because of the problems in Europe with the torch relay, the gov't wanted more control over foreign tourists), so we had no problems not having an itinerary or hotel reservations. I've heard that visa requirements may go back to "normal" in October 2008, but who knows...

We did not find it that difficult to travel around independently. True, spoken English is a rarity outside of Beijing and Shanghai, but people REALLY want to help foreigners, sometimes to a fault (an unwanted visit to the Qingdao police comes to mind). Just make sure you have a dictionary and have your hotel write down where you need to go written in Mandarin characters. Trains and buses are a dream (new, efficient, speedy) compared with India and most other Asian countries. Just keep a sense of humor.

Pam, when you do visit, your best experiences will probably be at your in-laws and just poking around their neighborhood and local markets. We found ourselves underwhelmed by the traditional tourist sites - the Great
Wall at Jinshanling excluded - while our best memories are from doing charades to communicate at a street side dumpling stand or walking through a weekly market in a village in Guizhou province.

Thanks for mentioning Uncornered Market. We've got a lot more writing ground to cover for China - food, more on Beijing, Yunnan and Guizhou - so check back on that link later this summer for more articles and photos.

Audrey

www.uncorneredmarket.com - measuring the Earth with our feet...

I found this interesting

chickable — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:50:06 -0500

A few of my co-workers cannot say enough about their experiences while traveling to China but did indicate that you are expected to tip and tip and tip. Some locals depend on tourism thus even if you snap a scenic photo, demand a payment. I realize China is not alone in their dependency on tourist dollars to support the locals but the extent is interesting. I hope to visit some day as the great wall seems so enticing while watching the Olympics on NBC!

Chickable

Are You Chickable?

Would love to go again!

Kalyn Denny — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:53:24 -0500

I'm very interested in going to China again, anywhere but especially Beijing or Shanghai. I was interested in what you said about problems getting visas, because in 2001 I went to Hong Kong not even planning to go to Beijing and when the opportunity arose to go there, my brother and I were both able to get a visa in a few days. Also didn't have the "tipping" experience described above. I do agree with the first commenter about women feeling very safe alone; I walked several places in the city alone, only worrying about getting lost and not being able to communicate, but never feeling unsafe.

Kalyn Denny
Kalyn's Kitchen

Hi Pam, Thank you for

Wendy-Escape From New York — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:02:28 -0500

Hi Pam,

Thank you for mentioning Escape From New York. I can't wait to return to China hopefuly sooner rather than later. And this time I will bring an alarm clock home! How lucky you are to have family from China. There is no better way to see a country than with those who are from it.

Want to go to

Blondie In Brazil — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:02:13 -0500

I'm really looking forward to traveling there some day. My husband has been twice to Bejing on business and loved it. One thing that struck him was that he felt safe and he recognized that women feel safe as well. Many were out walking alone at night. Something I would never do at home and definitely not in Brazil.

The reason for this might be negative, but it is reassuring to someone wanting to travel alone, I guess.

Blondie in Brazil

Blog about my adventures living in Brazil: www.blondieinbrazil.blogspot.com

My thoughts as a Nutritionist at www.fakefoodfree.com

Chinese Perspective

chinaSMACK — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:02:49 -0500

double reply