Be careful with the Chinese language

I'm so lucky to have intelligent and fun coworkers. Another bonus is that two of them, Yung-Chen and Wei, speak Chinese, and they allow me to practice what I've learned in Chinese Mandarin language class on them. Sometimes I get blank stares after talking in Chinese to them, sometimes I am provided with corrections, and always there are smiles.

In class last night, when I was talking in Chinese about a young man in the room, instead of saying, "He eats sandwiches" I said, "He is a sandwich." Oh sure, the teacher and class roared with laughter. And I now am keen to the difference between the pronunciation and tone for the verb "eat" (chi1) and "to be" (shi4). What's in parantheses is a romanization of Chinese; it's called pinyin, and the numbers represent one of five tones.

To hear the difference between chi1 (eat) and shi4 (to be), click on the link below, type one of the words above -including the number which represents the tone- into the Search box, select Pinyin from the next drop-down box, and click on Look It Up! You'll be presented with a table that will link you to hearing the word pronounced.

http://www.mandarintools.com/worddict.html

Adoption Stories on Discovery Health channel

Time to fess up. We record and watch the TV show "Adoption Stories" on the Discovery Health channel (http://health.discovery.com/), and we watch it with tears in our eyes. Each 1/2 hour episode tells adoptive parents' journey through adoption. The show covers both international adoptions and domestic/U.S. foster care-to-adoptions. Wahhhhh, so sweet!

Are there, or are there not a lot of orphans in China?

Many of you have heard that China plans on using stricter guidelines in approving people who want to adopt from China. From what I've heard, the China Center of Adoption Affairs has so many dossiers and only a limited number of "available/paper-ready" children.

And then you may have also heard that there's been a decline in the number of children adopted from China in 2006. So, what gives?

Adoption from any country is a complicated process. In China today, it's a process that appears to be influenced by the number of orphans who are "available/paper-ready" (those in orphanages that have been approved for international adoption) as well as the number of people who are applying or have been approved to adopt and how fast CCAA staff can work through all the complicated pieces of the complicated process.

Check out this NY Times article link on the subject:
www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/opinion/23russell.html