A new life together

The last few days in China we spent in Guangzhou, formerly called Canton, getting the final approval from the US government to bring Laura home. The American consulate in Guangzhou processes most China adoption and has become the fourth-busiest U.S. consulate in the world.

The area around the hotel where all the families stay, The White Swan Hotel, is now geared almost exclusively toward this ever-growing influx of new parents, with shops selling baby items and offering strollers.

On July 21, we walked to the consulate to get Laura’s AMERICAN VISA. Only 10 days after meeting her new parents, Laura was getting a visa that would make her upon arrival in Los Angeles the next day, a U.S. citizen.

When Stacey, I and the rest of the families were asked to raise our hands and swear that all the adoption documents were true, in effect it was Laura’s citizenship swearing-in ceremony. While China is Laura’s birth country, and we’ll always appreciate that, it is also a country where citizens enjoy no constitutional rights. While no cameras were allowed in the consulate for security purposes, none were needed. I will always recall the moment Laura became free.

We are a happy family. But Stacey and I also understand that we look different than Laura and that she will have to put up with what Alec (the elder son) calls the “stupid” people who feel the need to emphasize the differences in people, when, as he also says, “We are the same inside, Dad.”

We will do our best to instill in her a confidence that will help her deal with hurtful remarks or impersonations borne of ignorance. We also understand that when she’s older she’ll have questions about her background, and we’ll do our best to explain to her how she came to Topeka from Hengshan, China.

And when we do so, I’ll do my best to try to explain to her the look on her and her mother’s faces when they first met. Although I won’t be able to fully explain that look, I think Laura will know.

(Bob Beatty is an assistant professor

in the political science department at Washburn University, Kansas)

After Reading Activities

Activity I: Mastering Vocabulary

1.From the article Lost No More make up a list of words and phrases which belongs to this type of family category.

2.Explain what the underlined phrases mean.

1. However, the problem is not so much the one-child policy as the gender of the

one child.

2. In a country where parents go to live with their son’s family when they retire, if

you’re going to only have one child, most people prefer boys.

3. The result is orphanages filled to the walls with baby girls.

4. To its credit, the one-party dictatorship government of China has recognized this

problem and works to facilitate international adoption of these “lost children”.

5. Once our decision was made we did some research and settled on an adoption agency based in Austin, Texas, called Great Wall China Adoption.

6.Great Wall has placed more than 3,000 abandoned children with families – 700 in 2004 alone.

3. Give the derivatives where possible.

Verb	Noun	Adjective/Participle	Adverb
adopt
	orphanage
institute
	retirement
		preferred
		lost
			amazingly
		licensed
care
	relative
	abandonment

4. Fill in the blanks with the necessary word from the table.

1. Persons in cultures with poor social welfare systems who are not financially capable of taking care of a child are more likely to … him/her.

2. An … child is called a founding.

3. Societies with strong social structures and liberal … laws tend to have lower rates of child abandonment

4. Since they had no children of their own they decided to … a little girl.

5. A number of well known authors have written books featuring … orphans including Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Roald Dahl and J.K. Rowling as well as some less well known authors of famous orphans like Little Orphan Annie and the Baudelaire siblings of the Series of Unfortunate Events.

6.Child … is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring with the intent of never again resuming or reasserting it.

Activity II: Answering the Questions

1. Why did Bob Beatty and his family decide to adopt a child from China?

2. Could they have adopted a boy not a girl? Why?

3. Was it a complicated process for theBeattys to adopt the child from China?

4. Did it take them a lot of efforts to prove their fitness to be parents? Why?

5. What was her orphan story? Why does Bob Beatty think that Laura’s mother who

left her in the box cared for her?

6. Why the information about Laura was published in the Chinese local newspaper

when Bob Beatty came to China to take her home to the US?

7. What is a “gotcha day”, and how special was it for all parents who decided to adopt children from China?

8. What did Bob and Stacey feel when the stamp was put on the adoption certificate?

9. What would have happened to Laura if she had not been able to be adopted?

10. What did Alec mean when he said, “We are the same inside, Dad?”

11. Can we call the Beattys a happy family? Why or why not?

Activity III: Summarizing

Summarize the text.

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