Red Threads vs. RAD, Part One

There is conflict in the international adoption world. Not that that’s news to anyone, but–as someone who is entering this subculture–I’ve been trying to learn about it. I knew (could see, could tell) that some adoption blogs lean to the “sweet” side (talk of nurseries and clothes and ladybugs–the symbol of international adoption–and the legend of the red threads) and some others to the “issues” side of things (discussions of cultural appropriation, the implications of transracial adoption, reactive attachment disorder [RAD] issues, the primal wound theory, etc.). That’s a bit of a reductive assessment since there is some overlap between these two camps in most adoption blogs–but, in general, adoptive parents and parents-to-be choose one of these approaches and stick to it. That didn’t bother me; I enjoyed looking at and reading both sorts of blogs. After all, I have become a recent clothes hound in the 6-18 mos. category, and, yet, I’m someone who doesn’t shy away from serious dialogue. I like to learn by listening to competing ideas.

When it comes to this blog, I have no doubt that it will be an “issues” blog, with photos of clothes and the nursery thrown in for good measure and salivation. Yesterday, I was reading an old post on Grrltravels, discussing the purchase of adoption paraphrenalia that is loaded with racist and/or insensitive innuendoes. Here is her list with her commentary:

Things to Avoid

Images of Buddha–I believe that respecting the culture includes respecting dominant belief systems. For myself, I do not walk around adorned with pictures of Jesus, and would be offended to see someone with a cute-ified Jesus on their chest. (It’s not a word, but you know what I mean.) So why is it ok when it is an image of Buddha? Simple answer: It’s not.

Pseudo-Confucian Sayings–What may seem to be a clever play on words to us might be extremely offensive to those of Chinese ancestry. Confucius was an extremely important figure in Chinese history and his words are studied and honored in China today.

Take-Out Boxes, Chop Sticks, Fortune Cookies, Chinese Stick Fonts, Cone Shaped Hats, Nonsensical and Poorly Written Chinese Characters–I am not a sociologist or an anthropologist, so I am treading lightly here. To many in the US, Chinese-American culture revolves around Chinese restaurants and take-out and certain images traditionally associated with China (like the hats). To quote someone much wiser than I, the items listed above represent cultural commodification. This does not mean that you can’t bring food home in take-out boxes or eat with chop sticks. It does mean that you should think carefully before buying one of those cute take-out purses, wearing chop sticks in your hair, doing anything with a Chinese stick font, using fortune cookies for your adoption announcements, or getting a Chinese character tattooed on your person. When you do these things you are contributing to the stereotyping and misunderstanding of Asian and Asian-American culture that is so prevalent in the US today.More on cultural commodification: Cool Commodities, Pikachu Eats Sushi While Watching Jackie Chan

Cutesy Slanty-Eyed Kids–Perhaps the argument would be that this is a way to embrace physical characteristics belonging to our children. Personally I would stay far, far away from this form of stereotyping. No excuses.

“China Doll”–This has been covered extensively, but must be included in this list. “China doll” is a term that is often offensive to Asian women, demeaning with sexual overtones. It may be cute to call your 1-year-old “my little China doll”, but my guess is that when someone leeringly yells it at your teenage daughter you will feel differently.

T-shirts–There are many, many offensive T-shirts out there. Some are clearly in poor taste (Buddha with a pacifier); some are more subtle (”Made in China”, “Spicy Hunan Girl”, “All American Girl”, “My Parents went to China and all they got was me”); some are steeped in American adoption lure (ladybugs, red thread references). I am AMAZED at how far adoptive parents will go to defend their right to wear a T-shirt that others (especially Asians) may find offensive. It’s a T-shirt—just let it go.

Things to Consider

Pandas–The Chinese consider the panda a national treasure. And pandas are endangered and deserve our ongoing efforts to protect their habitats. So why are pandas on the list? Consider if you will for a moment a European couple who adopts a baby in the US, returns to Europe with their child, and decorates the child’s room with American bald eagles. Does that scenario strike you as strange? An overabundance of pandas perhaps reduces the longest existing civilization in the world to cute bears. In addition, remember that it is isolating to your child to place all of the Chinese stuff in her room. If all of the pandas in your house reside in one room, you may want to rethink the pandas.

Bamboo–Are you buying bamboo tchotchkes to give an Asian flavor to your home? That might be bad and it might not. Consider your motivation. And be careful to think through the message you are sending to visitors to your home.

Ladybugs and Red Threads–While these things aren’t inherently bad, I do think they send a message in the American International Adoption community. For example, these items may signal to other adoptive parents that you are in their camp, with all that implies. Secondly, I haven’t read much about how Asians and Chinese in particular react to the ladybugs and the appropriation of the Red Thread legend, but my gut tells me that is something I’d want to know before moving forward with anything of this ilk. And finally, in my heart I believe that at this point in time the ladybugs and red threads serve to minimize the issues and real challenges inherent in international and transracial adoptions for many people.

Eds. Note: The majority of the items on this list were contained in a message posted on APC a few months back. The author of the list is a member of the Chinese IA community who I respect and admire. The list is uncredited because all of the commentary is mine and mine alone.Posted by grrlTravels at June 22, 2005 04:40 PM

Me again. I was happy to see this list. I only had one emotional hiccup reading through it, when I got to the stuffed panda part: my favorite stuffed animal as a young kid was a panda, although it was strangely colored pale-blue-and-white. I guess I thought it would be around in my kid’s room too. I might have to re-think that.

By and large, I think the list addresses some very real concerns I have about cultural commodification/appropriation/imperialism and the way the west historically plays the role of cultural patriarch to the east (including, by the way, the middle east). This topic can’t be ignored when you’re talking about adopting children from Asia and bringing them back to (largely) white, middle-class America. Because you’re literally parenting them and you exist in a culture that has historically set itself up as the symbolic parent of the “unruly,” “untameable,” “exotic,” Orient. I’m thinking of a whole political history with China, of course, and of the ways we interacted with Chinese immigrants in this country in the 19th-century, creating “China Dolls” out of Chinese women and dismissing Chinese men as effeminate. It’s not good enough to say that was then, this is now, because that is the cultural currency we’ve inherited, although we may be only marginally aware of it. It pops up in adoption blogs in subtle ways, I think, such as the ways American parents describe the food, the markets, the shopping experience, the toilets, etc., in China. I hate to say it, but their attitude is nearly universally negative, dismissive, disdainful, and superior–for instance, that using a squatting toilet is such an inferior choice when they could have western toilets, and so forth. This is how the historical paradigms continue to rear their ugly heads: as Americans, we perpetuate the myth that we know better, are better, and if they would just listen and learn from us–like children must of parents–they would be so much better off.

Let me tell you what someone in India explained to me about traditional squatting toilets when I spent time there in 1998-99: that they are actually considered much cleaner than western toilets. I saw evidence of this first hand when I traveled all over India in the second- and third-class train cars. They were equipped with both kinds of toilets, and, if you didn’t use the western-style toilets within the first half-hour of an overnight train ride, you were in for quite a mess. Let’s just say that there is much more surface area to soil on a western toilet. That whole big porcelain bowl compared to a hole in the ground, in which your waste is instantly out-of-sight, with a mere porcelain rim. That perspective is foreign to most Americans, but it’s true–many Asians think of us as dirtier. And toilet paper, which we hold dear enough to tote around with us when traveling in Asia, is likewise considered a dirty way to go about things. In India, there were water spigots about a foot off the floor with buckets underneath in all the toilet stalls. Water (and your hand) was considered a much more reliable cleaning method than dry, thin pieces of paper that stuck and tore and never did a complete job of removing waste from your bum. Sorry, folks, but that’s the other side of things. It always makes me cringe to hear adoptive parents bemoan the toilet situation in China given this other way of looking at things. Just think: we may, in fact, be doing it all wrong…or, at the very least, we are doing it the way we’ve been taught, which is no more right than their way.

To be continued.