China and Europe have connections that go back further than you'd think. So what *does* a "Chinese" person look like anyway?

National Geographic brings news of a fellow named Yu Hong found in a 1,400-year-old Chinese tomb.

He was buried there with "a woman of East Asian descent" (my guess, and theirs, would be his wife), but his DNA is different.... more

Here is a traveling dream come true: A man named Joff Summerfield is bicycling around the world. Over the past year, he's traveled from London across Europe, into the Middle East, through Australia and New Zealand and has just entered China. On a penny farthing bicycle.

He's also wearing a pith helmet, because... more

"lingyang"="adopt"

My fellow Floridian Dave Thomas seemed like an interesting guy, as far as CEOs of fast-food giants go (no, not this Floridian Dave Thomas, but the one with the daughter named Wendy). His was the first burger joint to offer a salad bar. And he was the founder of the Dave... more

Mao's famously big face is looking a little bit darker thanks to vandalism (or at least it was before the cleaning crews got finished).

A guy down on his luck threw "something flaming" at the giant portrait overlooking Tiananmen Square. The painting didn't catch fire, but it got a little sooty.

(The Dalai Lama, that notorious anti-Mao "splittist," probably wasn't responsible - he's just announced... more

Review: My Mei Mei by Ed Young.

Ed Young is both Chinese born and an American adoptive parent of Chinese children. He's got stacks of Caldecotts.

This book tells the story of how Antonia, his daughter, got her little sister in China. It's a true story, as near as I can tell. We were sort of hoping to sling this... more

I'm sort of breaking a promise to myself by writing this, since all the talk about the recent unpleasantness at that school in Virginia is really part of the problem.

But, predictably enough (at least for those with blackened, cynical hearts), the Asian-American community is the target of new social pressures. Which is a clinically detached way of saying that things like this are going to be more common, at least for a while: a Chinese-American student (apparently,... more

One of the Big Things about adoption - especially with kids from Social Welfare Institutes in China - is the need to promote attachment. They call it "bonding," which has a nice, solid construction/oath-taking sound to it. And one of the best ways to do this is to leave behind the bulky old stroller and tote a new tot around in a sling.

Bonding, you see, is fun. Slings are a great invention, because they let you hug little children for long periods of time while still leaving your arms free... more

As Mo recently pointed out, adoption never ends. The paperwork gets finished, and one day the kids grow up and leave home, but the process is never done. It'll last long after the parents are gone.

This endless process - the fitting in, the explaining, the looking for a place -- was the subject of a recent ... more

Everybody knows Dora the Explorer, right? That Nickelodeon character who has earned bajillions by endearing her animated self to pre-schoolers and coaxed them into using a few words of Spanish as well as English?

She's big in our house, you know. She's big *everywhere*. She's not just on television.

Maybe by this time next year (or the year after), everybody will know ... more

I'm still thinking about heritage, and still (as ever) reading the news.

There's that iconic figure that pops up in writings on transracial adoption -- the rainbow. It's a symbol of differences (racial, cultural, ethnic, whatever) coming together seamlessly. My anxiety, of course, is that it's nothing more than sunlight passing through... more