The Stares (Nov. 22, 2010)

While we were in China we got a lot of stares from the Chinese people. It is so very hard to try to determine what people are thinking as they stare. But we were able to understand what some of them thought.

One college aged young man actually walked alongside us and asked questions about why we had a Chinese boy with us. He asked a few questions about his deformities as well. We were thankful for someone to actually ask questions instead of just staring and never engaging the issues. At least we knew what this young man though about the whole thing as he walked away giving us the thumbs up saying, “Good! Good!”

We asked one of the guys with the agency there about the stares. All the adopted families we were with were getting the looks, but we seemed to be getting more of them since we had a special needs child with us. The guy with the agency told us that special needs children are not seen that often in their culture (he is also Chinese and lives there in Guangzhou). Most special needs children in China are given up to an orphanage and many are aborted before birth if the parents find out ahead of time that they are going to be born with a special need (lest we get too haughty at this point I would love to know the percentage of Americans who decide to abort when they find out that their child will be born with a special need). The few who are born special needs and stay with their biological family are rarely taken out in public. There is such a stigma about this in their culture.

So when most Chinese people see an American couple walking down the street with a Chinese child they will stop and stare out of wonder. Some will smile and give some sort of sign of approval when and if they realize the adoption connection. But when most Chinese people see an American couple walking down the street with a Chinese child with a special need they stop and stare because they don’t often see either an American couple walking with a Chinese child or a special needs child. We were indeed an oddity walking around over the past couple of weeks in China.

I want to be careful not to paint the Chinese people in a bad light in any way. There are many great Chinese people with a heart for the poor and outcast. There are many great Chinese people with a heart for the Lord. I have had the privilege of meeting many Chinese people who are wonderful and amazing people so I in no way want to put them in a bad light. I am simply making observations here about the culture more than anything else.