2 months logged in

It's the eighth of the month, which means we are celebrating two months logged in!



All images licensed under Creative Commons. 1. More cute Chinese kids, 2. Your Number 2, 3. chopsticks, 4. Gongxi facai!, 5. Eyes Wide Open, 6. 2

Foot binding

For about a thousand years in China, ending officially in 1911 through government enforcement (though unofficially the practice continued in some areas for some time), the feet of young girls were bound tightly in bandages in order to make them smaller. The ideal size was 3-inches and a foot that achieved this size was known as a Gold Lotus.

There are diverse opinions on the origins of this brutal practice. You can read about some of them at the Wikipedia entry or this research paper. Another useful reference is this NPR radio report, Painful Memories for China's Footbinding Survivors.

The process was pretty gruesome. It involved breaking toes and folding them down towards the heel. The toes were secured tightly with wet bandages which were replaced every two days, at which time the replacement bandages would be pulled even tighter. Women with bound feet were not able to carry out physical work and often could only hobble, not walk. This guaranteed their fidelity to their husbands and also ensured their inability to participate in politics and other worldly business.


All images licensed under Creative Commons. Images 1, 2 and 4 by johnbullas. Image 3 by plassen.

Run for the hills... or you might get tagged!

Right! That'll teach me for not posting for a while! Monica at Three Dumplings tagged me to post seven interesting facts about me. Hrmm I think I've done this a couple of times before, so I'm going to have to think of seven things yet un-shared.

1. I drink a lot of green tea (and other herbal teas and tisanes).
2. I own a lot of teapots. I just have a thing for nice tea pots. And I use them all.
3. I get cold easily. Everyone else can be wearing short-sleeves and shorts and I will most likely have a cardigan and jeans on - and still be shivering. Aaron reckons my thermostat is broken.
4. I wake up early just about every day. I'm often up and showered and dressed before 6am. On weekends I tend to laze around in bed til after 7am. However, I go to bed at night pretty early - usually asleep by 9 and definitely by 10... so if I have a late night that sometimes warps my waking time the next day.
5. I like word games. Actually I like most board games. Find me on Facebook and challenge me to Twirl, Scramble, WordScraper or the like. I'll take you on!
6. I'm not very good at staying still. Even when I'm sitting down at work or laying in bed at home I will still have a leg shaking or a foot tapping.
7. I'm a super fast reader. I devour books.

Hrm I just re-read those and realised you might mistake me as someone who is 70 years old!

I'm supposed to post the rules - here they are. Notice I'm a rule breaker:
Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules
2. Share 7 random or weird facts about yourself
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and link to them
4. Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

942

That's how many days of dossiers need to be processed before the CCAA gets to our log in date (8th Sept 2008). Nine hundred and forty-two. I was planning to fill a jar with 942 M&Ms and each month when referrals occur I would take out and eat the number of dates they got through. Only thing is, the M&Ms would probably go stale by the time our date rolled around. With the average referral rate about 6 days/month, predictions are that we won't receive our allocation until August 2016. HA! So I need to think of another fun way to mark the referrals each month. Any ideas?

(And for the record, I do not believe it will take eight years to get to our LID... I hold hope that things will improve!)

I spy... something beginning with L!

We have a log-in-date! 8/9/08

Ok, just to confuse half of you, that's the 8th September. Americans would write 9/8/08... which to Aussies would mean the 9th of August. Bah! I have no idea why that is.

I'll be a little clearer.

Our LID is 8th Sept 2008!

After the previous post you would understand my excitement at scoring the number eight in there!

The CCAA have presently referred people logged in up to and including 9th February 2006. Anyone care to figure out how many dates are in front of us?

It's a numbers game!

Last we heard there were eight couples in our batch, but that hasn't been confirmed yet. Apparently the Dept cannot release batch-buddy details to each other until everyone has consented regarding how much info they will share, and there are people who have not done so yet. I hope it is eight couples as it will add to the excitement with eight being a lucky number in Chinese culture.

Yes, here's the Lucky Number Eight post I promised many weeks ago.

When we lived in China we were invited to the opening of an Irish bar at 8pm on the 8th day of the month. We questioned the late opening time and were told that it would bring good luck and prosperity, but we weren't entirely sure why. I asked our mandarin teacher why, and she said it was because the Chinese word for eight - 'ba' - sounds like the Chinese word for wealth - 'fa'. Which doesn't make much sense to me really considering so many words in Chinese sound similar. But the Chinese can be a suspicious bunch, and truthfully I find it quite intriguing.

The impact of the auspiciousness of number eight is quite significant. You may recall the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony kicked off at 8 mins and 8 seconds past 8pm on 08/08/08. My friend at work married her Chinese husband on the same day, along with presumably thousands of others of this heritage around the world. Mobile phone numbers and car license plates can fetch big bucks if they contain the right numbers too.

It's not just the number eight which is significant. You could devote your life to learning about the impact of numbers and number combinations in Chinese culture. The number 4 is unlucky - 'si' because it sounds like the word for death, and 14 is even more unlucky - 'shi si' - because it sounds like want to die. There's only one number I really want to know right now, and that's the date of our Log-In with the CCAA!

Image by KayVeeINC

Dossier to China

Oh, for the longest time I've wanted to be able to say we are DTC... and now we are! Two years and twelve days since lodging our Expression of Interest in being assessed, and 8 months and 15 days since being approved (we do things quickly in Queensland, have you noticed?) our dossier is on a QANTAS plane and making its way to China. I saw a QANTAS plane in the sky on my way home from work tonight and choked up a little.

We are officially Qld batch #1 2008. Don't hold your breath, I doubt there will be any further batches from Qld this year. The China officer advised that in 6-8 weeks she will contact the CCAA (China Centre of Adoption Affairs) and find out our log-in-date.

To say I'm relieved is an understatement.

I know there is a massive wait ahead of us, but I do feel like we have finished one chapter of a book and are starting a new chapter. And that feels good!

Can someone say... slow?

Coming out of hibernation for a quick update. Wish it was better news - looks like our excitement at having an August 2008 (08/08) LID was a pipe dream. Probably was a bit too ambitious to think it could take less than nine months from being approved to being logged in.

*blink*.

Anyway,first update came from the Dept's China officer ten days ago:
'The files were sent to the Notary on 8 August 2008. The files have now been sent back from Notary and I received them this morning. I have now couriered the files to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Once I receive the files back from DFAT I will take them to the Chinese Consulate.'

Then another one two days ago:
'I received the files back from the Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday afternoon, and have now walked the files to the Chinese Consulate this morning.'

With a promise to keep us up to date.

That's all we know! No clue or indication yet how long things will take at the Consulate. I hope to share some DTC (Dossier-to-China) news in the not-too-distant future, followed by LID (log-in-date) news shortly after that.

And I will still update about the auspiciousness of the number 8 soon!

(photo by Randy Son of Robert via Flickr)

We're still checkin' those boxes!

I spoke with the China officer from the Dept today. Good news, eight couples (yah, I know... eight is news to us too!) are ready to be batched and our paperwork is being sent off to be notarised. There is just one document from one dossier that is missing - whoever it is please hurry! We are now required to get some bank drafts in US currency made up to be sent with our dossier to be paid to the CCAA and also to cover translation services.

It's nice to progress a little.

I asked whether everything is on track for the dossiers to leave on the 15th and was told, "I think so". Apparently the Dept is not sure how long the notarisation will take for eight dossiers, as their usual time expectations are based on batches of approximately five.

I am so hopeful that we will get an August log in date. That would mean eight files in our batch in the eighth month of 2008, and eight is a lucky number for the Chinese. I'll do a post about that later this week to explain why.

International Day 2008

Sunday was IAFQ's International Day for 2008. As I wrote last year, International Day is a celebration of our state's adopted childrens' birth cultures.

It was bizarre, while we were waiting for the parade to start we saw a couple we met last year at a dinner for waiting parents where we chatted about having the same social worker and the differences in our experiences with her. This couple were assessed just before us, - and THEY HAVE THEIR BABY ALREADY! It was a mind trip for us. They adopted from Taiwan and received an allocation five months after approval, then travel four months after that. And their little boy looked so young and precious!

Enjoy some International Day 2008 photos:

The China group on parade (my favourite part of the day!)

The gorgeous kiddies from the Philippines and their families

Our Ethiopian munchkins (just love their outfits! and the dancing!)

Hanging around outside

Aaron finishing off his Korean BBQ lunch!

We seem to be pretty lucky with the International Day raffle. Last year we won a DVD player and a Mrs Potato Head. This year we won a TV Game Virtual Pet (I still don't know what it is, but will hopefully work it out soon when it arrives!)

After International Day we headed over to the Coffee and Chocolate Affair, where there were far too many people to make it enjoyable, so we headed home after a while and enjoyed a lazy late afternoon.