The other day we had Boti and Marime, two of my dh's cousins over for dinner and some good conversation, and one of the things we were talking about was about how often, children who are adopted, are not interested in learning much about the culture or language of their birth countries when they are young. The latter because they do not want to feel any more different. Then they reach a certain age when they might regret their decision and try to remedy the situation. Well, this got us thinking, and one thing we believe is that if you want your child to learn their birth country language, you really should make it a whole family learning process. Heck, why should Mei Ling Mercedes in our case be the only who needs to learn Chinese, and not Sebastián. After all, it would be good for both, and making the difference would only punctuate for Mei Ling that she IS different from Sebastián, which is something that we do not want. Therefore, I am going to get that Chinese language book out again... And one day we will make it a family thing, not a Mei Ling thing, for example. The same thing needs to happen if you want your child to learn about the culture of their birth country.
Anyway, I found this reference to a video in You Tube, by 10 year old girls living in Sweden. I still have not looked at it, but it looked interesting, and I did not want to risk losing the reference, so here it goes. Enjoy.
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Growing up surrounded by blond, blue-eyed children in Sweden, Chinese adoptees Alice, Mimmi, Nanna and Linnéa always felt different. The girls were adopted on the same day from the same orphanage but – having moved abroad as babies – they don’t speak Mandarin and have no concept of their native country. Now ten years old, they are returning to China for the first time. What will they make of their homeland? A moving look at identity ..."
As far as I can tell, this would be a useful video for any adopted child to sit and watch when they start to ask questions that we adoptive parents just cannot answer. The DVD was only released in Feb of 2007 so it is quite new.To watch the first 10 mins of the DVD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnHN6bTDsns
