Just remember that I've written an article that's related to this topic. Maybe it'll add to the discusion: http://blog.creaders.net/dreamweaver/user_blog_diary.php?did=12506
The topic by 多虑了 is true to some point. You can\'t compare the weakness of some Chinese to the good side of the very few Americans who are willing to adopt Chinese children. There is a Chinese adoption community both in the US and China and they are just as willing to adopt as the American adoptive parents. You can\'t simply compare the good American adoptive parents to some Chinese parents based on perception. The orphanage where we adopted our daughter has a waiting list of more than 200 local Chinese families who are waiting to adopt. The waiting time for international adoption in China is getting very long now, over 3 years for healthy babies. In general, Chinese orphan babies are healthy and smart with less neural and mental issues. Plus, Chinese government has a very central and standardized adoption procedure which makes the international adoption very streamlined and easy to follow. Please don\'t make any judgments based on some isolated cases.
Julie: It's great you and your husband opened your heart to this little girl and made her a part of your family! I only hope there are more Chinese couples like you! I apologize if you were offended by my comments above. When I said "Chinese care more about blood relationship", I was talking about "most Chinese", not all of them. On an aggregated level, it is true that Americans are much more willing to adopt kids, especially when it comes to kids from different race and cultural backgrounds (how many Chinese will feel comfortable adopting a African kid?).I think it has to do with different cultural values, and that's why I was curious whether Europeans are the same when it comes to adopting from China - after all, they share similar cultural values with the Americans, plus it is closer to China distance wise:)!
There might be other reasons why Americans especially like to adopt from China instead of from nearby countries like Mexico, Puerto Rico, etc. I don't know if it's really that much easier to adopt from China nowadays, since I've heard that Chinese government has tightened the requirement and lenghthend the procedure. Maybe the distance made it harder for the kids to find and re-connect with their biological parents? Or because there are less likelihood that they may have health problems like drug related issues like some orphans in Latin American countries where those problems are common. Of course I am using "xiao ren zhi xin" here, and I hope these are not factors involved, because I do believe most adopting families do so because they really truly unconditionally love these kids.
Compared to many Americans, Chinese parents seem to be more "utilitarian" (myself include). Like the postdoc parent Duo Lu Le mentioned in the article - we are more likely to treat our kids as our "possessions", and if they don't measure up to our standards or earn us "face", we might treat them differently.
Sorry for the long comment, Duo Lu Le and the English typing. I only have a few moments before work, and typing English is much faster:). Forgive my over eagerness to share my two cents.
American has no pressure to 养孩子. Rather, they will have lots of benefits and fun by adopting children. If they have pressure to have their children to be scientists, doctors, professors etc as many Chinese Moms expect, it will be different.
