Michael.H.Prosser

“Adoption: Growing in Your Mother’s Heart Instead of Her Tummy,” and “Similarities between Different National Youth,” Helen, Junior Student at Ocean University of China, May 2011, Guest Contributor 13 [Post 247]

In both of the two chapters, 3 “Creating Our Own Cultural Stories” and 7 “Contemporary Youth” in Communicating Interculturally, we have an interesting dialogue as the beginning.
Since the theme of chapter 3 is “creating our own culture story,” its dialogue is more personalized. It mainly relates to families. The topic “adoption” interests me a lot. Although I know adoption is common in the USA, I feel shocked when I know that Michael is an adopted child. Funny thing is if you ask Chinese “what did your mother say about where did you come from in your childhood?” I bet most of them will tell you “Adopted from garbage heap!” My mother told me like that also. But I never believed her. I never know a person who is adopted in real life. Adoption is too rare to happen on me. Because Chinese traditional culture attaches a lot importance to blood relationships, besides, a husband could have several wives in early China, it reduced the infertility probability. Many Chinese hold a concept that they should “bring up sons to provide for my old age. if an adopted child leaves them after he has grown up, what should they do? So if Chinese adopt unacquainted children, they often won’t tell them the truth. Adopting children overseas is unimaginable. The most common adoption in China is called “Guo Ji” which means adopingt nephews (whose parents usually can raise them) if a foster father needs but has no son. Because of the boy-only mindset, girls are rarer to be adopted.

Another reason that lets me believe I’m not adopted is that my mother loves me very much, so she can’t be an evil-minded stepmother just like fairy tales such as “Snow White,” or “Cinderella” described. Certainly, with my age increased I knew where and how I came from. I also learned that a stepmother is not equal to malicious. This should be owed to some films about dedicated stepmothers. A short story I’ve read in a magazine also helped a lot which I still remember. It turns out to be this: “Teacher Debbie Moon’s first-graders were discussing a picture of a family. One little boy in the picture had different color hair than the other family members. One child suggested that he was adopted, and a little girl named Jocelyn said, ‘I know all about adoptions because I’m adopted.’ ‘What does it mean to be adopted?’ asked another child. ‘It means,’ said Jocelynn, ‘that you grew in your mother’s heart instead of her tummy.’” How cute and lovely it is!

By contrast, the Dialogue in Chapter 7 refers to the topics that were primarily interesting to youth, such as love. I notice there are two Chinese boys who said they never had a girlfriend. I think it’s real. Although people are more open-minded now, most Chinese youth are still shy. Not only boys but also a lot of girls I know have never been in a romance. Except for prudency, conservative tradition and the heavy burden of study plays important roles. In addition, it’s a good design to give several youths [in Chapter 7] different nationalities. It’s interesting and helpful for getting a general idea about each nation and its culture. It provides readers a chance to see the difference between youths from different countries through their discussion of the same question. But there is a little pity that this kind of discussion is not much. I though the French speaking guy would say something about his experiences or view of love, but he just appeared at the very beginning of the conversation.
The biggest difference between the main body of Chapter 3 and Chapter 7 is that the former essays are personalized stories while the latter are general narrations [about youth in different nations]. The cultural stories mainly refer to family members or histories, personal study or travel experiences. They are vivid, interesting and unique but we can glance at the social culture and history behind them, such as the Cultural Revolution background in William Zhu’s cultural story and religious tradition in Michael’s story. Most story authors are not young and have international experience which make their stories more colorful, international but special. Relatively speaking, essays in Chapter 7 drew more typical pictures about people and culture of different countries. Unexpected, there is a story told by Joanna in Chapter 3 which made a glimpse of the life of contemporary Chinese women. She divided Chinese women into three groups by their ages: grandmothers, mothers and daughters. As a woman, I think, each of their characters have been summarized exactly. Only one thing I’m a little uncertain about is the Women’s Federation. I don’t think it’s so important and helpful as she said. At least women around me never turn to the Women’s Federation. I never met the local Women’s Federation officers. But maybe that is because my home is in an armory.

After reading the essays about youth of different countries in Chapter 7, I was shocked by the similarity between Chinese youth and Egyptian youth. Both of us “have a sense of community, respect of elders, independence, thrive on technology, expert in using video streaming and uploading to different blogs and face book networks to rally public support on different issues as well as to expose corruption, more bold than before, more trusting in their own opinion, and more daring in the way we are expressing ourselves, feeling more connected to the outside world and keep sizing ourselves up against other nations’ youth.” Both of our societies have great gaps between the rich and the poor. As Egypt is a developing Muslim country, I have never thought that we could have so many similarities. Youth in modern Russia are also similar in valuing education and family. Aggressive, independent and international are common characteristics of youth all around the world.

Stories in Chapter 3 are youths writing their own stories which show their understanding about themselves, families, histories and culture while the authors of Chapter 7 are standing in an objective perspective to write articles which represent social evaluation of youths. We can find many similarities between them; some experiences mentioned in stories of Chapter 3 even can be illustrations of youth characteristics mentioned in Chapter 7. Surely we can also find some differences between them. For example: In Professor Li Mengyu’s essay, the post 1980’s generation is a little “self-interested and self-centered” while William Zhu think that he himself is “independent” and “considers that friendship is more important”. These differences come out because they stand on the different spots. The distinction between general and specific leads to it as well.

This has let me understand global culture more deeply and roundly.
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michael  Sep 26 Essays