FCC = Faking China for our Children February 18, 2009

My post-Chinese New Year/Spring Festival reflection this year is that while I may not be flunking Culture 101 with Elsie, at best, I’m maintaining a C-.

Areas where I am doing well:

1. Finding other families like ours for Elsie to relate to. OK, I have hit a pretty solid homerun here. Between our travel group, people I met online who have become friends IRL, and others I have encountered along the way, nearly all of Elsie’s non-school friends are internationally adopted children. But this was easy, and it isn’t really central to culture now, is it? 
2. Reading a great deal on race, culture and identity.  And we have solid diversity in our toys, books and videos.
3. Talking about China and the area where she is from with Elsie.

That’s it. A pretty short list of areas that get a B or above.  I gave myself too much of a free pass when Elsie was so little, but it has kept me from developing good habits in this area. 

OK, here are the areas where I am doing very, very poorly.

1. Building relationships or at least frequently interacting with Chinese-American/Asian-American families. With our current circle of friends (see above), Elsie must think all Asian children have white parents. The only in-road we’ve made here is with our former neighbors, who have become friends (they are from the Philippines, they have two children, the youngest is a 5-year-old girl Elsie adores). The mom is a stay-at-home “super mom” type that I struggle to relate to, but she is very kind, so I am trying. 
2. Making a solid plan for incorporating Elsie’s language into her education. According to USNWR, we live in one of the best 100 school districts in the country, and it was a driver in our house purchase 8+ years ago. That’s the good news.  The bad news (to me) is that the elementary school in our neighborhood is French immersion. Sigh.  My husband leans toward having Elsie attend that school so she can have a more typical community school experience (bus stop is nearby, her school friends would live nearby, she would be in school with some of the same kids through high school, etc.). I lean toward the relatively close Chinese immersion school where Elsie can get the exposure to Chinese language and culture that we can only offer second hand at home. (FYI, Elsie is from a Cantonese speaking province, so Mandarin will not be a language she has heard before, but it would obviously benefit her in our return trips to China as a family, as well as any travel to the area she would undertake on her own, not to mention provide another bridge to her heritage.) Since Max and I lean in different directions on this, we keep putting off our decision, which we can only do for roughly another year when Elsie turns four and we need to get her on the list for the Chinese school.
3. Truly incorporating aspects of Chinese culture into our daily lives. Spring Festival made this crystal clear. My lame excuse is that we were all terribly sick at different points of CNY this year. But even if we had been well, I did not have much of a plan. As I read other AP blogs about making noodles and jiaozi, cleaning the house to prepare, attending festivals, and of course distributing hongbao, my heart sank. It’s not as if I turned around in surprise one day to see that Elsie is Chinese. And it shames me that I have fallen into lazy patterns I swore I would resist. This particular issue came to a head for me at our local FCC chapter’s CNY celebration. I have never had a good experience at their events, and yet, I registered for it thinking it was better than nothing. It wasn’t. First, it was held from 1-5 p.m. on the last day of CNY. So, horribly inconvenient for kids who still nap (like mine), and not exactly a rousing kick off to Spring Festival. Second, it was just awful, save for the CAAM dance troupe performances. Now, we did get there late, so perhaps we missed something profound, but looking at the agenda, I think not. Table after table of vendors hawking nasty cliche’ Chinese trinkets (didn’t keep me from buying a cute umbrella and chopstick cheaters), a carnival consisting of dumb games and cheesy prizes, and a dragon dance that started 20 minutes early (so no one was in the right place) with two gawky white teenagers under the dragon who were done long before the music stopped (the kid under the head finally took it off and yelled, “ok, enough with the music, we’re done!”).  And for this, I paid a little over $40. Never again.
4. This last one pains me to write because I have vowed to remedy it for a year, but I still haven’t finished Elsie’s lifebook. I have it about 2/3 finished, and I just can’t seem to commit to finishing it. I know part of it is a fear of getting it wrong, but not doing it at all is certainly no solution.

So, enough hand wringing.  What am I going to DO about all of this?  One immediate (within the next 30-60 days) thing I am going to do is join CAAM and start attending their events rather than FCC events. Maybe even enroll Elsie in their dance classes. Second, I am going to make a calendar of activities we are going to do around Chinese cultural events (other cultures too), some of which will be focused on our immediate family, and some of which will involve outside/sponsored events. Third, Max and I are going to attend a very premature tour of said Chinese school (and talk to a few parents I know who send their kids there) to make a more informed decision. And finally, I will finish the lifebook.  Really.  I will.  Hold me to it, ok?

So, now that I’ve nattered on as usual, what about the rest of you? Where are you doing well in terms of cultural connections for your kids?  Where could you do better?  What resources are out there to provide real help/support?

And is everyone’s FCC chapter as lame as mine?