China Adoption, Chinese Infant Adoption - Considerations for travel (and after).

04/11/06

Posted by : grant in China Adoption Blog at 09:56 am , 392 words, 62 views
Categories: Adoption Process, Irrelevancies, Chinese Red Tape, How To...

Things I've had to consider lately:

If you're hoping to have a close friend tag along for part of your journey and you happen to work for the media, it's probably a good idea not to refer to him as your "chronicler" (no matter how fun and/or accurate it sounds), or else the rumor mill might magically transform him into a photographer from the National Enquirer, causing waves of panic among official agency people, and strange evening phone calls perilously close to the departure date. He's not able to come anyway (things happening too quickly), and has nothing to do with the media (unless writing books on video editing software with old pictures of yours truly in them as examples counts). But, you know, more excitement than I needed right now. Maybe I should have stuck with "sidekick" after all....

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When choosing books for the long, long flight to China, it's tempting to bring actual books by actual Chinese authors, but is important to bear in mind that some books bring trouble and trouble, we don't need. Not that commentaries on Communism would be high up on my airplane reading list, but Ma Jian (as previously mentioned on here) might be. Except for trouble. Book banning is something my family has experience with; my father's goddaughter spent a night in jail in the apartheid years for re-entering South Africa with a copy of I think it was The Communist Manifesto (which she had for school, if I remember correctly).
The list of books banned in America is probably not quite as dangerous here as their analogues would be in other countries -- best to avoid anything risky, recent progress in Chinese journalism (as mentioned in an earlier entry) notwithstanding. Which reminds me, I should really write something about gadfly Gao Zhisheng... watch this space.

Sometimes, when planning a trip, wishes for a low-profile, minimum impact, casual view of the culture -- the Lonely Planet backpacker approach, maybe -- has to take a back seat to the inevitable. Yes, I'm supposed to be on that boat. I sort of grew up in a canoe on the Intracoastal waterway, shaking my fist at neon-clad tourist juggernauts. Oh, look at me now. Consideration: go with the flow.