The other day there was a meeting at Chinese school for adoptive families to discuss the difficulties that kids who don’t speak chinese at home were having in the language classes. I heard about it and inquired as to whether or not it would be appropriate for us to attend, since we haven’t adopted yet. I mentioned that we don’t speak Chinese at home and our daughter attends classes there. We were encouraged to come to the meeting.
When we walked in, A asked if we were in the right place for the meeting. A white adoptive parent took one look at A and said:
“Yes, but the meeting is for people who don’t speak Chinese. Why are you here? You’re Chinese!”
We looked at that parent and just blinked a little. “I was born here. I don’t speak or read much Chinese.” A said.
Heh. You would think that parents of Chinese kids would know better than to assume that everyone with a Chinese face can speak Chinese.
Good Lord. Sometimes the massive idiocy of other people astounds me. Oy.
Gretchen
Whenever my colleagues and I went out for Dim Sum in SF China town, the waiteress stopped next to our brazillian colleague of Chinese decent…
…oh naturally I have to speak grammatically perfect English, just because I am Caucasian, even if I only came here 13 years ago!
They actually said that OUT LOUD? Seriously?
I agree with Gretchen.
I’m in total agreement about the idiocy of some people, but this comment has completely selfish motives, i’m afraid. I’m wondering– now that you’re at home with M., what does the anatomy of a day look like for you guys? I imagine nothing is really set in stone since the whole daily schedule could change any time, depending on #2, but—as I continue to teeter on the precipice of deciding to have kids, i’m just curious. BTW, that post you put up last year about how your life has changed since you’ve had M was amazing. I’ve been meaning to mention that for a long time!
It`s amazing what people assume, when they see a face. When we go to Chinese restaurants here sometimes, waitresses sometimes try to speak to my (Japanese) husband in Chinese.
Oh, jeez. People are so ridiculous.
“You would think that parents of Chinese kids would know better than to assume that everyone with a Chinese face can speak Chinese.”
But why not? Contrary to rumor and wishful thinking, parents of children adopted from China are no more enlightened than anyone else and can be awfully good at making outrageous assumptions–at times, even better than the average person. And yet, despite the stupidity of such comments, these same people will not get that race is an issue and that their child will most likely at some point, have to deal with these types of issues.
final caution: Given that A is Chinese and the only son in his family, you could end up with the referral of a boy which would entitle you to hearing even more craziness. Those of us parenting boys adopted from China get all manner of stupid comments. Unfortunately, my experience is not a unique experience.
A couple years ago I stopped reading one of the big A-Parent lists because of a thread that began when a prospective parent complained that her social worker had asked how she and her husband felt about interracial dating. According to the parent, the SW had said that their future daughter would be statistically more likely to date or marry interracially.
The board lit up with outrage from other parents who wanted to know just where that statistic came from and how could anyone know since the China adoption program was so relatively new and that social worker was just trying to incite emotion and get them all riled up and … blah, blah, blah.
No one said, “God, I hope MY daughter never dates someone of another race.”
No one said, “My girl will only date boys who are as white as her parents, mark my word.”
No one said, “Interracial? Does that mean she’ll date black guys? Would white count as interracial for her? I’m confused.”
But all those things seemed to be there in the subtext, just below the “Who does that social worker think she is???” ire.
So no, adopting a child doesn’t give a person automatic insight. I wish it did. I’m sure there are times when I could have used a dose of that insight myself.
ooooooh.
ick.
Hi Amber,
My family has been going to Chinese Language school
now for the past 5 years.
A few observations that I have made over these years
are:
There are plenty of families just like yours where Mandarin
or Cantonese are not spoken at home. Also, the phonetic alphabet was taught in Taiwan, not Mainland China, so many parents don’t know any more than you do, if that method is used.
There are two schools where we attend, one is immersion
the other uses both Engish and Mandarin. A lot of people
assume incorrectly that the kids attending the immersion
understand what is being taught, but the truth is a lot
of those kids are not meeting the requirements to pass the
class either.
My oldest daughter is now concentrating in a conversation
class and she just loves it. If that is available I think it
is the best way to start. My youngest daughter is now
studying the phonetic alphabet and she is doing just fine.
However, she spent years as a toddler in a playgroup
and is very close to a family who speak to her in
Cantonese & Mandarin.
I hate giving advice, so I won’t. But I will tell you that
I would not join any adoptive family group at a Chinese
Language School. There are lots of reasons for this,
but the biggest one is my concern for my children’s
privacy and need to fit in and not feel different.
There is a time for adoptive family groups but this
isn’t one of those times,imo. I am sure other may
disagree, but as children mature, they really don’t
want all that focus on adoption everywhere they
go.
Oy. Reminds me of the time my Japanese American husband and I went to an adoption seminar on domestic adoption. Some white chick said to my husband, “Excuse me, but the INTERNATIONAL adoption session is down the hall.”
I can’t believe any adopted culture will ask their Chinese child to date “white only”. If that’s true, oh my gosh, what a horrible fate await those unfortunate children.
I can just see this new wave of adopted Chinese girls becoming just as confused as the adopted Korean kids of a previous generation. The potential for self-hate is so strong here, especially great majority of them are female. Let’s just hope that they will a discover Asian cultures by themselves when they’re old enough to use the internet. I hope they would all have the fortitue to escape from white culture long enougg to discover their dignity and even sanity. I will be praying for these poor girls. May they reject the white mainstream long enough to discover a world where an Asian face is the hallmark of beauty, and Asian males are object of desires.
As the white dominance of popular culture crumbles, I have better hope for the future.
[...] posts plugin, but if you are interested here they are: Chinese school year one posts: one, two, three, four, five and six. Chinese school year two posts: one, [...]