International Adoptions to the US Continue to Decline

With President Vladimir Putin’s signing of a new law at the end of last year, as of January 1, US citizens are no longer able to adopt Russian children. For Americans seeking international adoptions, this means one more closed door, in an environment that has seen the number of foreign children adopted by US parents steadily decline since 2004.

Nine years ago, adoptions of foreign children peaked at 22,991. In 2012, that number had dropped to 8,668, representing a decline of 62%. Last year, before Russia’s new law went into effect, that country was the third-largest provider of children for foreign adoptions to Americans, at 748.

There are several reasons for the lower numbers. One is the enforcement by the US, beginning in 2008, of stricter guidelines under the Hague Adoption Convention. The Convention was formed to cut back on child trafficking and other abuses, which is a good thing. But this has also complicated the process for reputable adoptions and has caused some countries to restrict, or eliminate, adoptions to foreign countries, as they try to meet Convention standards. (The State Department maintains a list of global updates and notices concerning adoption, here.)

For some countries, politics is at play, which seems to be the case in Russia, which is widely thought to have passed their ban in response to a US law that targets human-rights violators in Russia.

And in other countries, feelings of nationalism have caused governments to make it harder to adopt out their children in an effort to have more of their own citizens fulfill the adoptions—and take care of the problem without outside help.

In the case of China, numbers have dropped, in part, because more Chinese have become economically able to adopt (China’s one-child policy allows for additional children through adoption) and because the nation has lengthened its list of restrictions limiting which foreigners can adopt. A 2009 article in Time also cites changing attitudes by the Chinese that are increasing in-country adoption of girls, who, at the time, made up 95% of the children in their orphanages.

With international adoption statistics changing so dramatically over the years, it’s hard to keep up with the numbers. Here’s a look at the latest figures from the US Department of State—for fiscal year 2012, ending September 30:

Most Adoptions, by Country of Origin

1. China 2,697
2. Ethiopia 1,568
3. Russia 748
4. Republic of Korea 627
5. Ukraine 395

Most International Adoptions, by State

1. Texas 617
2. California 555
3. New York 492
4. Florida 398
5. Illinois 390

Median Fees for Hague Convention Adoptions (Most Expensive)

1. South Africa $160,217
2. Albania $25,960
3. Hungary $21,685
4. Canada $20,000
5. Armenia $19,825
(For perspective, the median fee for adoptions from China was $15,600)

Median Fees for Hague Convention Adoptions (Least Expensive)

1. Sri Lanka $6,200
2. Ecuador $6,250
++Kenya $6,250
4. Philippines $8,500
5. Brazil $10,413

Average Number of Days to Complete Hague Convention Adoptions (Longest Wait)

1. Mexico 770
2. Dominican Republic 741
3. France 709 (1 adoption)
4. Costa Rica 690
5. Armenia 667
(For perspective, the average wait to complete adoptions from China was 267 days.)

The Both Ends Burning Campaign is concerned with facilitating adoptions and decreasing the time that children spend in orphanages. Their work includes the Both Ends Burning book, an online petition, and the Step Forward for Orphans March, scheduled for May 17 in Washington, D.C. Here’s a trailer for their documentary, Stuck. The full video is available here.

A Note on the Numbers: Stuck gives the average length of time for an international adoption as 896 days, while the State Department figures above list Mexico as the country with the longest average time at 770 days. I’m curious as to why the numbers are so far apart. I’m not doubting the validity of the documentary’s statistics, but I wonder where the difference comes from. Maybe it’s because the State Department left out non-Hague countries or because the two differ on what constitutes the complete adoption “process.”

(Gregory L. White, “Putin Signs Adoption Ban, Putting Pending Cases in Limbo,” The Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2012; Kayla Webley, “Why Americans Are Adopting Fewer Kids from China,” Time, April 28, 2009; “FY 2012 Annual Report on Intercountry Adoption,” Office of Children’s Issues, U.S. Department of State, January 2013)

[photo: “Baby’s Foot,” by Wirawat Lian-udom, used under a Creative Commons license]

10 Lessons for Cross-Cultural Conversations from That Mila Kunis Interview

Have you seen the viral video of actress Mila Kunis and BBC Radio 1’s Chris Stark? Kunis was on the interview circuit for Oz the Great and Powerful, in which she plays the witch Theodora, and sat down with Stark for a segment on the Scott Mills show.

Stark told The Daily Beast‘s Kevin Fallon that Mills, as “a bit of a joke,” didn’t let him know he’d be interviewing Kunis until only around half an hour before they were to meet. Sounding somewhat starstruck, Stark begins the interview with “Seriously, I’m petrified” and “I’ve never done this before,” leading to an informal chat on a range of subjects, including his “boys” at the bar, the local football team, and Nando’s chicken. Kunis calls it “the best interview I’ve had today.”

It strikes me that we can learn a lot from these two about how to have a good cross-cultural conversation. So here’s the “interview”—between a Third-Culture Kid who moved from Ukraine to Los Angeles at the age of 7 and a lad from England—followed by 10 lessons that they can teach us:

Be yourself and don’t put on airs. Talking to someone from another culture can be daunting, but if you admit your limitations, you stand a better chance of having a meaningful and heartfelt conversation. Genuine curiosity trumps preparation. Just jump “in the trenches.”
A conversation, where both people talk and learn is much better than an interrogation (where one person simply rattles off a series of questions) or a speech (where one person simply rattles off a series of facts).
Boilerplate questions and answers can give some useful information, but after you get them out of the way (Where are you from? What’s your job/major? What do you miss most from your home?) It’s obvious that the reason this video is popular isn’t because we learn that Kunis “loved working with James Franco.” Actually, the biggest scoop probably is finding out that she used to be a bartender.
Asking questions that build upon what someone just said is much better than working through a list. It shows you’re interested and that you’re paying attention. And it’s “way more fun.”
You may need to listen to the voice inside your head (or off camera) to get you back on track if you start talking too much about yourself, but it’s even better just to listen to the voice across from you.
Showing an interest in someone else’s story is a great way to put that person at ease, so is finding something you have in common, which is probably easier than you might think.
Realize that words may need defining. Football isn’t always football. And a pie isn’t always a pie.
It’s one thing to invite people into talking about your world. It’s even better to invite them to experience it themselves. Too bad Kunis has that silly movie she’s working on in June.
Understand that there are cultures within cultures, and not everyone represents an entire country or continent. I really don’t think that “dropping trou” at wedding parties is common with all people all across the UK (though I’m open to learning otherwise).
Have gifts on hand. Imagine how much it would have impressed Kunis if Stark had been able to pull out a Watford jersey—even a yellow one.

(Kevin Fallon, “Chris Stark, Man behind BBC’s Hilarious Mila Kunis Interview, Speaks,” The Daily Beast, March 5, 2013)

[photo: “A Watford Football Shirt under the Beavers Uniform,” by Steve Bowbrick, used under a Creative Commons license]

A Little Slice of Germany on a Mountainside in South Korea

As I was finishing up writing about China’s penchant for imitating foreign architecture, I thought I’d end with something like “Not to be left behind, South Korea has its own German village.” But when I looked into the history of that town, I realized it deserved more attention, so . . . here it is:

In the early 1960s, South Korea’s economy was in shambles. Unemployment was high, and per capita annual income was low (only US$87 in 1961). In order to help the desperate situation, in 1962, the government began sending its citizens to work in West Germany. This continued until 1973, when West Germany stopped accepting gastarbeiters, or guest workers. Over that time, more than 8,000 miners and 13,000 nurses made the move, sending most of the money they earned back to family in South Korea. In all, they contributed US$50 million to the Korean economy, and in exchange for the influx of needed workers, West Germany gave South Korea credit at reduced rates.

When President Park Chung-Hee visited West Germany in 1964, he met with about 300 Korean miners and nurses. According to an article in The Chosun Ilbo, Park told the group,

Let’s work for the honor of our country. Even if we can’t achieve it during our lifetime, let’s work hard for the sake of our children so that they can live in prosperity like everyone else.

The president’s speech ended when he choked up with emotion, and the final strains of the Korean national anthem were nearly drowned out by all of the crying.

Years later, South Korea showed its appreciation for the sacrifice of those who went to Germany by inviting them and their families back to take advantage of discounted plots of land. Namhae County, in 2002, even founded Dogil Maeul, or German Village, on a mountainside overlooking the ocean. The community is open to those returnees who spent at least 20 years in Germany and who want to build a subsidized house following a prescribed German style.

Buim Ulmer, from South Korea, and her German husband, Ulrich, moved to German Village in 2006. She told Spiegel Online last year that she came back because she “didn’t want to take [her] homesickness to the grave.” But she still doesn’t feel completely comfortable in Korea. For instance, her Korean, she says, is the Korean from “40 years ago.” And while Ulrich says, “My home is where my wife is,” Buim disagrees: “We have no home, there is always something missing.”

In the Engelfried family, too, the German husband seems more content living in South Korea than his Korean wife. Wilhelm Engelfried has lived in German Village for more than 10 years. “It would hurt me to leave here,” he tells Spiegel Online, but his wife, concerned about issues such as healthcare, wants to move back to Germany: “What should I do here if he gets sick? How should I take care of him?”

In a 2005 New York Times article, former miner Bai Jung-Il says, “I left when I was 26; I’m now 65. I’m more accustomed to the customs in Germany and the people there. When I come here, I feel I’ve come to a foreign country.” During his time in Germany, Bai became a home builder, and back in South Korea, he refused to follow the home designs provided by Namhae County. “The other houses here are German on the outside but on the inside they’re Korean,” he said. “Only my house will be German on the inside and outside.”

Take a look at this trailer for a documentary by Cho Sung-Hyung on German Village. The film is titled Endstation der Sehnsüchte, or Home from Home:

The head of Namhae County, Ha Young-Je, told The New York Times that one problem with the village is that some residents still live in Germany and make their house in Korea a holiday home, traveling back to Europe every nine months to retain their citizenship there.

At the time the article was written, Namhae County was making plans for an American town for returning Korean-American retirees. One difference from its German counterpart is that people who move there would need to give up their foreign citizenship, said Ha, requiring them to live in South Korea full-time.

Since then, American Village has been completed, and you can see photos of it at the blog Daniel’s Rants. (I particularly like the entryway sporting a miniature Statue of Liberty.)

And for Korean Americans looking for a more urban experience to return to, there’s Korean American Village, scheduled to be built in the Songdo International Business District. The Korea Economic Daily reports that the finished multi-structure high-rise project will contain over 3,000 residential units, including apartments, office-residence complexes, and residence hotels.

(“60 Years of the Republic: Koreans Go to Work in West Germany,” The Chosun Ilbo, July 18, 2008; Manfred Ertel, “Weisswurst and Beer: Tourists Flock to South Korea’s ‘German Village,‘” Spiegel Online, July 12, 2012; Norimitsu Onishi, “In a Corner of South Korea, A Taste of German Living,” The New York Times, August 9 2005; “Korean-Americans Flocking to Songdo for Residential Town Development Project,” The Korea Economic Daily, November 16, 2012)

[photo: “More German Houses,” by Ian Burrett, used under a Creative Commons license]

‘Tis the Season for International Photo Awards

Not only is it the month for the Oscars, but February is also a busy time for selecting the prize winners in international photography. The judges have hard work wading through the thousands of photos, but we are the beneficiaries, as we get to browse through the best of the best.

Sony World Photography Awards
On the 6th of this month, the World Photography Organisation announced the shortlist winners for its 2013 Sony World Photography Awards. The finalists, in the professional, open, and youth categories, were selected from 122,000 entries representing 170 countries.

Lens Culture has a high-resolution slideshow of 45 of the shortlisted photos, or you can click through the galleries at the WPO site here. Final winners will be announced in April.

56th World Press Photo Contest
On February 15, World Press Photo announced the winner of its “Photo of the Year” for 2012. It is Paul Hansen’s “Gaza Burial,” an image of men carrying the bodies of a young brother and sister to be buried after the two were killed by an Israeli missile strike.

Galleries containing all the winning photos, selected from the work of 5,666 photographers from 124 countries, are on display here.

Coinciding with the photo contest is World Press Photo’s third annual multimedia competition. The gallery of winners is here, including the following videos covering subjects outside the US (viewer discretion advised):

Into the Shadows, Pep Bonet, dir. (1st prize, Online Short)
Desperate Africans who migrate to Johannesburg face terrible circumstances.

Aleppo Battleground, Clément Saccomani, ed. dir. (3rd prize, Online Short)
A photojournalist joins the Free Syria Army at the front lines.

Too Young to Wed, Jessica Dimmock, dir. (1st prize, Online Feature)
Destaye was 11 when she married a priest in Ethiopia. Now 15, she has a 6-month-old son.

Dreams on Freewheels, Yang Enze, dir. (3rd prize, Online Feature)
The seven members of the China Disabled Track Cycling Team train for the 2012 London Paralympic Games.
(This video not available for embedding.)

Pictures of the Year International
POYi started announcing their latest winners on February 5, with the final group announced today. I figured I’d wait until they were finished to start working my way through the results—it does take a while. And after I’m done, I plan to post again with links to some of their photos that tell stories from around the world.

[photo: “Flickr Photographers : Mauronster,” by Sergio Bertolini, used under a Creative Commons license]

Happiness Is As Happiness Does

What are the happiest countries in the world?

Well, that depends. It depends on how you define happiness and how you figure out if people fit your definition.

Do You Feel Good?
In 2011, the Gallup organization measured “positive emotions” by asking people in 148 countries about their previous day, asking whether they felt well-rested, were treated with respect, smiled or laughed a lot, learned or did something interesting, and experienced enjoyment. The countries with the highest percentage of respondents answering “yes” to all five questions are labeled the “most positive.” They are

Panama
Paraguay
El Salvador
Venezuela
Trinidad and Tobago
Thailand
Guatemala
Philippines
Ecuador
Costa Rica

(Jon Clifton, “Latin Americans Most Positive in the World,” Gallup World, December 29, 2012)

Do You Not Feel Bad?
Gallup also asked people if they had experienced physical pain, worry, sadness, stress, or anger. Those answers produce the following list of places with the least negative emotions:

Somaliland region
Uzbekistan
Thailand
Kyrgyzstan
Kosovo
Turkmenistan
Mali
Singapore
Mongolia
China

(Jon Clifton, “Middle East Leads World in Negative Emotions,” Gallup World, June 6, 2012)

Are You Prosperous?
The Legatum Institute‘s Prosperity Index measures wealth and wellbeing by looking at the eight categories of economy, entrepreneurship and opportunity, governance, education, health, safety and security, personal freedom, and social capital. This gives us the following list of top-ten countries in 2012:

Norway
Denmark
Sweden
Australia
New Zealand
Canada
Finland
Netherlands
Switzerland
Ireland

(The 2012 Legatum Prosperity Index, The Legatum Institute, 2012)

Are You Thriving?
To measure whether people are “thriving,” “struggling,” or “suffering,” Gallup uses the “Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale.” Participants are asked to imagine a ladder, with rungs numbered 0 to 10 from bottom to top, with 0 being the worst and 10 being the best. The poll then asks two questions: “On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?” and “On which step do you think you will stand about five years from now?” Results in 2010 produce the following ranking, showing the ten countries with the highest levels of thriving people:

Denmark
Sweden
Canada
Australia
Finland
Venezuela
Netherlands
Ireland
Panama
United States

(Julie Ray, “Nearly One in Four Worldwide Thriving,” Gallup World, April 10, 2012)

Deeper Analysis, Anyone?
Last year, Columbia University’s Earth Institute published the first World Happiness Report. It contains in-depth evaluations of the hows and whys of measuring happiness around the world, as well as lists based on its own examination of survey responses. One such ranking is the “Average Net Effect by Country,” which combines the averages of the positive and negative emotion results from Gallup (like those shown above). Those results give these top-10 countries:

Iceland
Laos
Ireland
Panama
Somaliland region
Thailand
Taiwan
Austria
Sweden
New Zealand

Another ranking shown in the World Happiness Report is called the “Happy Index.” It uses information from the combined World Values Survey/European Values Survey, asking the question, “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days/nowadays?” putting these countries at the top.

Iceland
New Zealand
Denmark
Netherlands
Northern Ireland
Ireland
Singapore
Malaysia
Norway
Tanzania

(John Helliwell, Richard Layard, and Jeffrey Sachs, eds., World Happiness Report, The Earth Institute, 2012)

Or Would an Anecdotal Approach Make You Feel Better?
And finally, if all this data crunching is not your cup of tea—or if it leaves you somewhat confused—you can do what documentarian Werner Herzog did, and simply recognize happiness where you find it. Even if it’s in the most unlikely places, under the most unlikely circumstances. Even if it’s in the wilderness of Siberia.

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (Werner Herzog and Dmitry Vasyukov, dirs., 2010)

[photo: “A Happy Man,” by Sukanto Debnath, used under a Creative Commons license]

Go Global with Go Daddy . . . but Be Sure to Be First

I’m not a fan of very many Go Daddy commercials. Most aren’t in very good taste. But I was looking at the availability of some domain names at their site today, and I saw an ad that I like. It’s pretty funny, and it’s supposed to air during the Super Bowl.

The commercial is touting registration for .co domains. While .co is the internet country code for Colombia, it’s been open to unrestricted used since 2010.

The ad is aimed at an American audience, but it has a global cast. The internet really has broadened the playing field when it comes to the marketing of ideas, even ones that are “one in a gazillion.”

YourBigIdea.co:

Is This the Africa You Know?

“What do you know about Africa?”

That’s the question that the producers of My Africa Is asked pedestrians on the streets of New York. Not surprisingly, the answers they received showed a lack of knowledge mixed with an abundance of stereotypes. But there was also a desire to learn more about the continent.

To help us all in our education, here are five videos that creatively take on the task of tearing down common misconceptions about Africa and replacing them with a more complete picture:

The first video is from the Kickstarter campaign of My Africa Is, a proposed documentary series. (The campaign ended in July of last year, without reaching its goal.)

My Africa Is Kickstarter Video

“We know what you’ve seen and heard about Africa—what they think is happening, what they think she needs, what they think she is. The four things that come to mind when people think of Africa are population, problems, poverty, and promise unfulfilled . . . but that’s not the whole story.”

The next two come from Mama Hope, part of its video campaign “Stop the Pity. Unlock the Potential.”

African Men. Hollywood Stereotypes

“If people believed only what they saw in movies, they would think we are all warlords who love violence.”

Call Me Hope

“It is only when people are no longer seen through the stereotypes of poverty that we can begin to see we are not so different from each other.”

The following video is from Radi-Aid, inspired by the Live Aid concerts of the mid 1980s.

Africa for Norway

“Imagine if every person in Africa saw the ‘Africa for Norway’-video, and this was the only information they ever got about Norway. What would they think about Norway?”

And finally, here’s a clip from the documentary This Is My Africa, in which interviewees imagine the Africa of the future.

This Is My Africa—Excerpt—Africa 2060

“Created to reveal a more personal vision of the continent by weaving together the personal memories, tastes and experiences of 21 Africans and Africaphiles, This Is My Africa has been described as a 50-minute crash course in African culture.”

Back Home to Papua, 50 Years after Peace Child

Home is an elusive concept for many Third Culture Kids. Paul Richardson, who was born in Papua, Indonesia, is no exception.

“Because I lived so many places in different parts of the world, traveled so much,” he says, “I’d never been able to really say where’s home.”

But this summer, he, along with his father and two brothers, returned to the place where he was “born and raised.” That return is the subject of the 15-minute film Never the Same: Celebrating 50 Years since Peace Child.

Paul is part of a famous family, at least among evangelical Christians and the missionary community. Don and Carol, his parents, moved to Papua in 1962 to take the gospel to the Sawi, a tribe of cannibals and headhunters. Their story is the subject of the book Peace Child: An Unforgettable Story of Primitive Jungle Treachery in the 20th Century, later made into a movie, also called Peace Child.

When missionary historian Ruth Tucker wrote From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions, it was the work of the Richardsons in Papua (formerly Irian Jaya) that made up the final chapter.

Ministering to a warring tribe was not easy, and at one point, Don told the Sawis that if they didn’t stop fighting, he and his family would have to leave. In order to keep the missionaries there, each Sawi village gave an infant boy to its enemies as a sign of peace. This idea of the “peace child” became a door for the message that the Richardsons were trying to tell them, that God, likewise, had given the world a peace gift, his only son.

This experience among the Sawi formed the basis for Don’s belief that every culture has a “redemptive analogy,” a story, practice, or tradition that can be used to help the people understand the gospel of Christ. He expounds on this concept in his book Eternity in Their Hearts: Startling Evidence of Belief in the One True God in Hundreds of Cultures throughout the World.

Fifty years after first arriving in Papua, Don revisited the Sawi tribe, which had not only embraced Christianity but had become a base for reaching out to the tribes around them with the message of Christ. Making the trip with him were his sons: Steve, who was seven months old when his family moved to be with the Sawi, and Paul and Shannon, who were born in Papua.

Steve is now the president of the mission agency Pioneers-USA, and he serves as the narrator for Never the Same, which you can view below. It begins with a short overview of the Richardson’s work with the Sawi people and then shows their reunion with their old friends. This is where Paul talks about returning to the place where he lived as a child:

There’s no electricity except for a little generator, and . . . there’s no emails, there’s no text messages . . . just, you know . . . it’s just quiet here. And it’s beautiful, and . . . and there’s a connection with the people here. And, uh, just waking up in the morning, hearing the sounds of the jungle, and, I don’t know, I slept better last night than I have in years, even though I’m just sleeping on the floor in this village.

So there is something to going back. I . . . Because I lived so many places in different parts of the world, traveled so much, I’d never been able to really say where’s home. But I think this would probably be more than anywhere else . . . is where I was born and raised. So this will always be special for me.

I heard about this video from Brian Stankich at Fulfill. In response to my post on eating insects, he pointed to a scene where Steve is eating some grubs on a stick, given to him by his Sawi hosts. Showing his snack to the camera, he says,

Oh this is um . . . these are grubs. And inside they’re just full of grease, and the heads are really . . . very strange, actually, the more I think about it. But [chewing and clearing his throat] they grow on you.

[photo: “Papua-Indonesia, 2008,” by CIFOR, used under a Creative Commons license]

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: