I have been reading about how proud the Chinese Government is about the lack of controversy and protest, however. I read one official said after the opening ceremony that the only other country who could have pulled that off was North Korea because they are the only other country with as much “social order.” Imagine how they must view the chaos we have here. Also, a physician I work with came into my office and told me how appalled she was by the lack of compassion shown by the government when the Minnesota tourist was killed by a deranged citizen. She is from that state and I guess they are a very prominent family. She said they have a web site about their ordeal and no one on the local news in Beijing reported anything about it. It shows the irrelevance of individuals. I realize however that with over 1 billion people, a country has to think differently to meet all the needs. But, if your ideal is North Korea, well…’nuff said.

But Beijing.. it’s bad. I sometimes wash our shirts out in the sink and when I do the water is black. And to think we breathe that in when we are there.

RK gets a sinus infection within a few days of entering China, every single time. I can’t imagine trying to compete in that. I know they’ve got the pollution to a minimum right now, and there has been a good bit of rain which should have cleaned the atmosphere up some as well. Good thing.

It’s no wonder there is so much spitting on the sidewalks. Seriously. To live there full time, I can’t imagine what that would do to your respiratory system.

Stephanie Plum talks about how living in New Jersey is kind of a survival of the fittest, you have to be tough to live there. They embrace the pollution, it makes them stronger. Sometimes I think of China when I read her talking about it like that.

This helps me understand what may have happened with the NSN wait.

GD

I also have to say that the Olympics have given us serious pause about adopting from China. One of the major reasons we went with China in the first place was because it was reliable and trustworthy. Now it doesn’t seem to be either of those things. Seeing the extent of the lying and covering up by the Chinese government has been pretty upsetting. And if they’re going to lie about something that gets as much international news as the Olympics, what’s to stop them from fudging some health reports on International Adoptions? Instead of one or two “repaired SN” kids mixed in the NSN line, why not five or six or sixty? I don’t mean to fall into a slippery slope fallacy here, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. For the first time, we’re thinking we might really be able to tear our hearts away from the little girl in China and hope that we can trust one American birth mother to be honest about our child’s prenatal environment. It seems easier to trust one person rather than an entire corrupt government. And yet, it’s so hard… I think only people going through adoption can know how hard it is to change to another adoption program when you’ve envisioned one thing for so long.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26305623/

I do have to admit we are now anxious to see what happens after the Olympics — our LID is 3.14.06.

Yeah, I don’t think I was surprised by the censorship. Traditions and rules are deeply embedded in this country. There’s a lot of beauty and alot of positive things but there are also alot of not so nice things going on.

Thanks for your thoughts.

The don’t have to look very far.

China4