I Am the Lucky One

Emma and I accidentally came across this man's TV show on PBS.   What a delightful Chinese man and what an amazing culture.  Let me rephrase that:  What a delightful man who just happens to be Chinese and what an amazing culture.  ;D

Emma is so excited to go to China and keeps exclaiming "China! We're going to China!"  You should also hear her pronounce Beijing - perfectly.   I keep redirecting her back to Vietnam, telling her that is where she is from and it is an equally wonderful place.

I wanted to post this video here on my blog because we always hear how "lucky" our kids are to have been adopted and to be in the U.S.  Yes, I guess, they are "lucky" in that they didn't have to grow up in an orphanage and that they will have opportunities with our family and in our country that they may not have had otherwise.  But they are NOT "lucky" to be living in the U.S. as opposed to living in China, as opposed to living in Vietnam.  They are most certainly not "lucky" to have lost their first family. 

Don't get me wrong - it is such a joyous time when you adopt a child in need of a home and a family (yours especially!).  :D  However, that joy is tempered by the deep sadness I feel for Noelle and Emma at taking them out of their respective lands, their beautiful countries full of culture and their lives that should have been lived amongst their own people.

I am sure my eyes will fill with tears as that plane lifts off the tarmac in Hong Kong, flying Noelle back to the U.S. with us, her new family, as I know part of Noelle's heart and soul will always be in The People's Republic of China, just as I will leave a piece of my heart there.  I know this will be so, because it will be deja vu  - just as it was when we left Vietnam with Emma. 

Believe it or not, there are those who theorize we should NEVER take a child out of their culture by adoption.  That is something I just truly do not understand.  They think growing up in an orphanage without a family is better than to be adopted and to grow up like a "fish out of water" in a totally different culture.  How mind boggling is that?

Our born and raised in Vietnam new friend/"daughter" (who is going to university in the States) said it best when I told her about this school of thought:  She said so wisely, "A child needs a family more than he/she needs a country."