If you're soon to be traveling to adopt a young Chinese person - or if you're just the type to be interested in other people's trips - you could do worse than to cast your eyes over Randy Cassingham's travel blog.

If you haven't heard of Cassingham, he's one of the godfathers of internet publishing. He's been running a for-profit e-mail newsletter, This is True, since the mid-90s. It collects news stories from the world press - focusing on the bizarre, idiotic and just plain unbelievable... more

I have been a bad adoptive parent. I'm beginning to get the idea that parenthood is really one long negotiation involving equal parts frustration (because they never do what you want them to do) and guilt (because you never wind up doing what you should be doing). One of the things I feel like I should be doing - one of the Big Important Things for internationally adopted kids - is signing Daughter up for Mandarin lessons.

She's four, she's brilliant, and she's taking ballet.

She likes ballet. She does well at it. But when she's 24, I wonder if she'll... more

Because traveling families (and other people with a connection to China, like, uh, people who've adopted from China) need to know what's going on, here's just a few headlines from the Middle Kingdom:

The Dalai Lama just got a medal from America's government, and boy, is the Chinese legislature ticked off. That official statement is as good a way as any to learn China's version of Tibetan history. It also ends dramatically:

No force can stop the progress of Tibet in the great family of the Chinese nation. All attempts to interfere in China's internal affairs and undermine... more

One day, the Leader of the School called all his pupils and declared, "Life and death are serious things. You pupils waste your time making offerings, seeking worldly blessings and not even trying to break out of the cycle of life and death! If you give yourself over to delusions, how can blessings save you? Go to your rooms and think for yourselves!

"Those who have true wisdom, use it! Each of you has to write a verse for me. For the student who best sums up the basic ideas taught by the Buddha, I will hand over my robes, naming that person the next Leader... more

So, we're teetering closer than ever to a diplomatic something between the United States and China - something that could, one way or another, have a direct effect on paperwork and people traveling between the two countries. Including, of course, those of us involved in the business of international adoption.

Today is the day that the Dalai Lama is supposed to get a Congressional Gold Medal. He's already been buddying around with Dubya at the White House, and joining Al Gore in the limelight from getting the Nobel Peace Prize. ... more

If you're planning on going to China for any reason and doing any kind of business there - or simply interacting with people on any level ("More tea, please!" "Why yes, I think the document you need is right here."), then it's a good idea to know something about Chinese etiquette. There are guides aplenty that define important concepts like guangxi (personal connection) mianzi ("face" or reputation) and keqi (modest propriety), or that give pointers on ... more

So Ni Hao, Kai-Lan, the cartoon we've all been waiting for with the Chinese-American family and the adopted Chinese vocal star... well, we'll have to keep waiting. It won't be airing until February now. I'm hoping this doesn't bode ill for the project. And I hope... more

As someone interested in 1. news that affects China and 2. news that affects people traveling to China, you might have heard something about the recent trouble in the country we call Burma, but that its own government calls Myanmar. It's the bit that borders Yunnan province and a tiny piece of Tibet.

People are protesting, and protestors are being rounded up for interrogation:

relative of three released women said those being interrogated... more

So, our Autumn Moon festival was a bit of a dud this year, waylaid by cold germs and dismal, tropical rain. In other places, there were other observances, though. There were bigger Autumn Moon festivals for adoptive families in Pittsford, New York, and Bayside, California, separated by the continent but linked by similar situations - families eager to create a sense of "Chineseness" for their kids. These things always seem paradoxical to me (but the descriptions of food make me hungry... more

So, for those of us who care about the kind of world our kids come from and will be left in after we're gone (and who doesn't?), there are a couple of developments in the Big Summer Stories.

Toxic product recalls: Remember the lethal Chinese toothpaste sweetened with antifreeze story? Did you ever wonder exactly how the diethylene glycol was discovered to begin with? It wasn't an imports inspector. It wasn't a curious doctor. It was a Kuna Indian dude from Panama - a civil servant who doesn't even own a car - who ... more