One of the things that people seem concerned about with transnational adoption is the idea of respecting a child's birth culture, or incorporating elements of that culture into your family. This is, of course, important (witness that category just off to the right of these words labeled "Chinese culture"), but I tend to follow the reasoning of Cheri Register when she talks about international adoption creating a culture in and of itself. Neither entirely here nor there.

What's interesting to me (or at least the way I like to look at things) is that with the sheer number of kids being adopted from China these days, this other-culture seems ready to take a life of its own, outside the boundaries of the family.

Things like the "Returning Swallows" program run by the Tiger Balm dude, the blossoming of various Chinese heritage summer camps and the recent reports on an adopted kids "reunion" (in, of all places, Branson, Missouri) are just the beginning.

(That last seems like half-marketing ploy - it's a reunion hosted by The New Shanghai Theatre, a facility that hopes to become the center for Chinese culture in the United States, which is quite the ambition. In the Branson RecPlex.)

But witness also the formation of Chinese Adoptee Links International. This is the next step, I suppose. It's a thing organized by a young woman adopted from Taipei (and now a Berkeley Ph.D. student with a Harvard email address, so you know she's smart) for other kids adopted from China to get to know each other. For now, it's just a pen-pal system, linking kids in America with kids in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Next, she's planning to spread it to countries where they speak Spanish and French at home.

And in a few years, who knows where it'll go. Just wait 'til they get their first message board set up... and start planning trips to visit each other.