Because I enjoyed Tess Hudson’s Double Down so well, I wanted to read this one. If you remember, Double Down was a romance about a young woman overcoming her addiction to gambling. There were some darker images in it involving uncovering a mystery about drugging a football player (her new romance) in order to predict a game.

I don’t know what I expected from Invisible Girl. Perhaps it was something psychological about a teen? It was not what I expected.

Invisible Girl’s prologue starts in the middle of the story. It unfolds in flashbacks to Vietnam and the Vietnam War, not chronological, superimposed on present day. It is very well written. I finished it pretty much in one sitting. I couldn’t put it down.

I think Hudson captures the time of the war, as well as the feeling that there are a lot of things we will never know about or that are deliberately hidden from us. She tells us that she was befriended by a Vietnam-era veteran who taught her about writing, art, and faith and showed her a side of the war she hadn’t glimpsed in the news broadcasts from her childhood.

She uses that to good advantage here. I cannot check her facts, but I can attest that she captures the feel of that time of war perfectly. And the feel of many of the returning soldiers.

She moves effortlessly from the battlefield to deep love; from rape to the babylift; from the soldiers to the highest echelons of politics and a powerful family; from the family of soldiers to the family of one of them; from the harshest of betrayals to the depths of trust and love. Along the way she mingles Catholicism and Buddhism, as Maggie’s mother covers all the bases to protect her family. She succeeds in a way not foreseen, including her own death and the solving of a puzzle from the past wherein only bits of the puzzle are held by individuals in order to afford protection to her children.

I find myself thinking if only, if only she had taken others into her confidence, others that loved her, she would be alive and reunited with her daughter.

For those who are touched by the Vietnam babylift, this book offers a small insight into the pain corruption adds to adoption. At the same time, the woman who was adopted as a baby was deeply loved by her adoptive mother (and loved her too.) There is also reunion of the half-siblings.

Additionally, it was interesting to me how the young Vietnamese woman who gave birth after being raped by an American soldier named her daughter Tam, which means heart. She felt that when she prayed to Buddha, he conceived this child through her heart on her own, not through rape. I don’t know how realistic this is, but it was very touching to me. Having biological (and adopted) children of my own, I know how deep is the mother love, and how it is very often our heart.

I give it a 5.

Karin

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Juno was recommended to me by a friend. I was told I’d like it, but I had my doubts.

First, the subject of adoption, birth mothers, birth fathers, birth family, and desire for a child are close to my heart. I have two bio children and two children adopted from China. I anticipated that the handling of the story would be superficial and would be hurtful to someone in the triad. I wasn’t sure I was up for it.

Then another adoptive mom friend recommended it as a movie I would like.

I was pleasantly surprised. Many moments are comical. Others are very touching.

Juno is played to perfection by Ellen Page. She is sweet, cocky, tender-hearted, kind. She has a best friend; an oddball, loving family; and a boy, Bleeker, played quite adorably, who loves her as she does him.

And so she finds she is pregnant.

Her step-mother is the kind of step-mother you’d like to have if you had one, especially in a situation like this. Played by Allison Janney, she is also perfection. It is worth the price of the movie to see her explode at the ultra-sound tech (who also plays her part to perfection.)

Her dad, played by J.K. Simmons is the (hoped for) typical dad in this sort of situation. Not quite connected to it all, loves his daughter, wants the best for her (vs. a dad who rails at his daughter — like, yeah, it takes two, duh!) His counsel to her, when she asks, about what she should look for in a potential partner is good advice, to find someone who loves her just as she is, who will stick with her through everything and think she is beautiful even if she isn’t in a particular moment.

I wonder that neither one of them bring up the option of keeping and raising her child by herself, with their support.

The family she finds to adopt her child are yuppies, far more wealthy than her family, and by chance (design of Diablo Cody) what she hoped for (someone who is a musician.) And yes, occasionally a potential adoptive parent (PAP) is chosen almost the first week they decide they’d like to adopt, but it is far more likely that it is a lengthier process with false hopes (as Jennifer Garner mentions at one point, that they were disappointed once.)

Jennifer Garner shows the sorrow, the desire, the love and the fear in the process. I was glad she didn’t have a spirit of entitlement.

I did not like Bleeker’s mom. I even wondered if she knew that he had fathered a child. Contrast her attitude to Juno’s step-mother’s whose longing, then happiness, radiates from her face at the end of the movie.

I did not like the sleaze ball yuppie husband. I was glad it didn’t go where I thought it might.

And yes, marriages break up over the desire for a child or adoption. That part is true.

I’m not sure closed adoption (vs. open) is the right way to go (or vice versa.) Which is better for the child? And it wasn’t really true to life that a birth mother would know the address of the potential aparents. Generally, they would meet in a neutral location. How could the adoption be closed when everyone knows where the aparent lives? and when the birth mother has visited numerous times prior to birth?

I know some adoptees are hurt to be adoptees. I likely would have been. You can’t tie up all the loose ends of familial emotions in a movie. This movie is the start of the story. I’d like to see where it goes in the future. I’d like to know how the child turns out, if he misses his birth family (maybe less likely than a girl? I don’t know the percentages.) I think it would be very difficult to raise a boy without a father/father figure. Will the adoption stay closed?

The hospital scene is funny, touching, endearing, and heart wrenching. The movie ends with a different scene.

Have you seen it? I give it a 3.

Karin

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For those of us who wonder what it might be like if our Chinese child were still in China in their first family, here is an interesting article.

I also thought it was interesting that his parents chose the English name for him of: Seven Eleven (not Jack, for example.)

Some of our adopted Chinese children came with what sounded to us like odd names. Others of us were lucky enough to have someone tell us that the name occurs in a famous ancient poem, perhaps, one that is not commonly known to the modern scholar.

Karin

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This quote came across my computer this morning, and it got me to thinking about how we keep score(s) in life.

Money is a way of keeping score in life, says T. Boone Pickens. But that is just for those who like playing the game. The real goal is to live with grace and dignity. You can do that with a small amount of money…or not do it with a fortune.
– Bill Bonner, financial journalist

How do we keep score? or, perhaps, how do we rate ourselves? I never really thought about it much. I tend not to want to play that game. Someone else always seems to be the winner!

If we think about raising children, keeping score starts as early as meeting in the parks, where moms share, bragging, about how early their kids learn the ABCs or can count to 10.

If we are keeping score in adoptions, people one-up themselves by what country they chose to adopt from.

Do we keep score by awards?

Do we only count if we win awards?

I hope not, for the great majority of folks are never up for any awards.

I loved the idea in this quote of having the goal of expressing grace and dignity no matter our circumstances. It’s an honest assessment of knowing we sometimes fall short.

I recently witnessed someone with a great deal of grace and dignity in a score keeping moment. I commented on it to the person, because it warmed my heart.

Moments of grace or dignity, when impossible to do on our own, are divine.

Have you witnessed such moments or been the one expressing them? What do you think about keeping score in life? Do you do it or know someone who does?

Karin

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Trying to resurrect this conversation:

Just prior to having Chinese New Year dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, our 10 year old said something to the effect:

I’m Chinese, right? [Yes.]

Then she remarked that kids say, That’s your mother?

And I said: And they are surprised that I’m not Chinese, right? [Yes.]

And I asked: And that bothers you, right? [Yes.]

And she said: That really offends me. [I forget the word tonight that she used. It was our 12 year old who remembered. When I asked the 10 year old tonight, she thought she would say: That really hurts me.]

I can understand that, can’t you? [OTOH, the 12 yo, at least tonight, says she doesn't feel that way.]

>>>>>>>

This child is a sweetheart of a kid. You couldn’t ask for a better kid. I’m thankful every day that we are together.

Today I looked at her and she had multiple bracelets on. Somedays she chooses to wear a lot of rubber bands as bracelets. I had to laugh, because I am the bracelet queen.

I got a birthday card from my son and daughter-in-law one time that had a hand and arm on the front cover, with the arm covered in bracelets (I brought the style back in again, LOL) — 15 to be exact, all the way up to the elbow (I’m not quite this exotic), but the caption reads: Who’s to say how many bracelets are ‘too many’?

So I said to her, you are certainly my daughter, when you look at your bracelets. (And we both laughed.) I told her the next time someone wonders if I’m her mother, she should just tell them to look at our bracelets, not to mention our hearts.

I wonder if her other mother wears so many bracelets. Likely not. But their hearts match too.

Karin

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This quote came across my computer today:

“I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.” Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt 1767-1835, German Statesman

I have to say I don’t totally agree with this. If we took it to the nth, it would kill compassion for those going through difficult times. Mobilized compassion has done wonders for individuals and areas.

Right now there are huge snow storms in China affecting many areas and people. Orphanages have been asking for what is needed to help the children. And in at least one case, an orphanage has asked that other harder-hit orphanages be helped first, as they are making-do.

Yes, how we handle or think about what happens to us is important, but when some unthinkable occurs, grace has to enter into it, or how would we survive it or get through? There has to be help outside of ourselves if the issue is big enough. (I think even small issues.)

Maybe we have to throw into the equation asking for what we need when it is possible. And in situations where it is seemingly impossible to ask a person for help, to reach out to God for the help we need. Then trust that our needs will be met. And that we will live long enough to see it. We won’t give up.

Easy to say from the comfort of a lounge chair. But I have been there, done that on a few occasions. And I have watched others do it in far more difficult situations than mine.

How about you? What do you think of this quote?

Karin

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This article is very articulate about the problem.

This is a problem not just for China, but for the world.

As a dear Chinese friend of mine said to me many years ago, China is making a mistake sending its best and brightest. I have two Chinese daughters and I wondered at the time how they would feel being born into this time frame. Just a small difference one side or the other and they might have been with their first families. OTOH, Korea is still exporting children 50 years later. Using the word ‘exporting’ is not my word originally, but one spoken by adult adoptees.

Karin

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…these issues are issues I deal with as an adult adoptee…issues do not stop with childhood/adolescence, no matter what researchers or adoptive parents might think. Because part of opening myself to this list [IAT] is helping adoptive parents to see the ways that adoption shapes/touches/influences even those parts of our lives that seem separate…and to say that the hurt inside of me created first when I was abandoned and continued during my entire life no matter how much I mature… that hurt is part of my identity. For good and for bad. It gives me empathy, it gives me a need to love, and it gives me tenderness…but it also gives me a terrible vulnerability.

I open up that vulnerability to be of service to others because it is the only way for me to make meaning of this terrible loss, this unresolvable grief.

It is who I am. boamseng at IAT, Korean Adoptee (KAD) with permission

She would be willing to talk with parents who would like to know what she means more concretely. For now, email me and I will forward the messages to her.

Karin

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This is a great story about a Chinese adoptee who was chosen to be the voice of Kai-lan. Don’t miss the rest of the story.

Hearing what her adoptive mother has been through and seeing the IHappy license plate brought tears to my eyes.

Karin

Jade-Lianna Peters steps into an audio recording booth at I V Media in Brookfield. Jade-Lianna Peters, 10, the voice of Kai-lan, rehearses before a recent recording session at I V Media in Brookfield.

Kai-lan and YeYe are among the characters in “Ni Hao, Kai-lan.”

Jade-Lianna Peters , 10 - with her mother, Kathleen “Candy”; sister, Alexis-Mariah, 7; and father, John - began appearing in commercials when she was 2.

Half a continent away, at Nickelodeon Studios, an animation production team marvels at the 10-year-old’s voice, one that is as natural and light-hearted as a songbird’s, with a sandpapery edge that adds just a rasp of mischief. It’s the pitch-perfect tone for Kai-lan, the lead character of “Ni Hao, Kai-lan,” a preschool series coming to Nickelodeon in August. Executives at the children’s network hope the half-hour episodes will be to Mandarin Chinese what “Dora the Explorer” has been to Spanish. Production continues on a first season of 20 episodes, animated and partly designed in Taipei, Taiwan, and Shanghai, China.

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I think it’s important that we think about this and discuss it in some way, even those of us with Chinese children or soon-to-have Chinese children. It’s not unusual for grown Korean adoptees (KADs) to think of themselves as exports…or at least to think of Korean adoption on the whole as an export, and it won’t be unusual for our Chinese children either. It is best we have our eyes and hearts open to the reality at least of the possibility. Our children won’t live in a vacuum and they will hear these things and maybe even experience them.

Adoption has many painful aspects for the adoptee. It is not all rosy. Those of us living with Chinese children can attest that many of the same things told to us by KADs are the same things we live with day to day with our children.

There is a bittersweet aspect to it, even in the happiest of lives, and many unanswered questions of the heart for our children, no matter how deeply we love them or they love us.

I felt from the beginning that there might be a relatively small window for Chinese adoptions and wondered how our children would feel to have been born in that window. OTOH, Korean adoptions have gone on for 50 years.

Karin

>The shame of Korea’s orphan exportation
>
>
>Cho Jeong Lae, writer and Endowed Professor at Dongguk University
>
>There are more than 200 countries on this earth. Among these, the
>Republic of Korea ranks 12th economically. Every Korean knows this,
>and brags or gets haughty about it. And why not? Are we not a poor
>country that had a per capita income of US$80 in the early sixties
>that has since achieved per capita national income of US$20,000?
>
>It would seem, however, that there are few Koreans who know that this
>country they are so proud of is the world’s 4th largest orphan
>exporter. This is because of a social atmosphere in which people ask
>what use there is knowing such things when you’re busy enough as it
>is trying to get ahead in life yourself. That, in turn, may be what
>makes being the 4th largest exporter of orphans more shameful than
>standing naked. Foreign media have begun criticizing this cruel
>apathy. “Now that Korea has become an economic powerhouse, it should
>stop sending adoptees overseas,” they say.
>
>Ahead of this criticism, in Seoul this summer some 600 overseas
>adoptees attended a conference of the International Korean Adoptee
>Associations (IKAA). Some among them held a protest calling for an
>end to Korea’s exportation of adoptees. In their various languages
>they said one thing. “You should be ashamed!”
>
>Something happened to me two years ago. Korea was the guest of honor
>at the 2002 at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and I was one of several
>Korean authors who participated in some of the events. During the
>course of the week we did public readings and newspaper interviews.
>One day I was interviewed by a Swedish literary critic. Somewhere in
>the course of the interview she asked what I thought about the fact
>that Korean adoptees are exported to other countries. I felt like I
>had been hit with a splash of hot water. I worked hard to hide my
>feelings of shame and embarrassment and to give a straight answer. It
>also happened to be something I have always thought a lot about.
>
>The Swede had a follow-up question. “What are you doing as an author
>to solve the problem?” This was how she was openly displaying her
>displeasure with my answer. If felt as miserable as could be, since
>as an author I had done nothing. I admitted that I had done nothing,
>and evaded the question saying I would do anything I could in the
>future. Two years have passed and I’ve done nothing to stop the
>export of orphans.
>
>The exportation of Korean orphans started immediately after the
>Korean War. More than 3 million people died in a war that lasted just
>three years, during which the country was bombed into a wasteland -
>imagine how many children were orphaned in the process! Those poor
>precious things had to be sent overseas instead of being forced to
>starve. It was a heartrending choice but the right one.
>
>However, it is wrong that this practice has continued through today.
>It should have stopped when we put the postwar poverty behind us and
>began to be able to sustain ourselves again, at about the point where
>we achieved a per capita national income of US$5,000. Or we should
>have ended it for sure when we surpassed the US$10,000 mark. Today we
>boast a per capita national income of US$20,000, but we’re still
>sending orphans to other countries.
>
>India has 800 million people and barely earns a per capita income of
>US$1,000, and it sends 320 orphans overseas yearly. Korea has 50
>million people and a per capita income of US$20,000 and yet in one
>year it sends 1,400 orphans overseas. Every Korean government has
>invited international embarrassment because of its carefree
>dereliction of duty, and how firmly have each of us closed our hearts
>while we all obsessed with our individual selves. Thirty years ago
>Japan earned the international nickname “economic animal.” What will
>Korea’s nickname be?
>
>Posted on : Sep.18,2007 09:46 KST
>
>http://en\
glish.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_opinion/237090.html

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