A friend recently related a conversation she had with another co-worker about the co-worker's recent trip to Vietnam.
It never fails to boggle my mind when when someone travels to a developing country and is shocked by the level of poverty -- not understanding that they could find that poverty right here in their own backyards if they just opened their eyes and their hearts and their minds. My bogglement morphed into annoyance when it was further related to me that this woman was so upset by the poverty, she sat at the window in her hotel room in Hanoi and wept, not leaving the room for two days, wailing to my friend that people were dying in the street. I do not,by any stretch of the imagination, mean to minimize the very real, heart wrenching poverty that exists in Vietnam. Still, I find it hard to believe, knowing where she stayed, that she saw people dying in the streets.
But just how useless was staying in the room and weeping for two days? Get out in those streets! Meet those people! Buy things from them!
My annoyance turned to real anger, however, when she said "This is why Kathy needs to take Adam back to Vietnam when he's older -- to show him how his life could have been and to make sure he's grateful!" There are just too many things wrong with that sentiment to even begin to enumerate. What is wrong with people anyway?
How Old is Adam?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Oh. My. God.
LOL! Yes, I too have experienced this type of thing. For years, I've heard how "grateful" my daughters should be that I adopted them. Are they crazy? I am grateful to the Chinese government for allowing ME to adopt THEM!
The last time I was in China
(2006), I can honestly say that I think the average person in Hefei (Anna's hometown) is better off than the average person here in Groton, Connecticut! The women were wearing gorgeous Mongolian cashmere sweaters and carrying designer purses. And here, we are shopping at WalMart :-)
You are exactly right...there are entirely too many things wrong with that whole thought(less) process. How would one respond?
People are idiots. Are our kids (my son is from VN as well) better off living here than they would have been in VN? Likely, but grateful? It's one of my greatest hopes that my son grows up to be just as self-centered as any other American kid who takes his parent(s) for granted.
Wow, that story is disturbing on so many levels. The "dying in the streets" thing I think is a little over the top. It certainly wasn't like that in my experience, and since she was looking out her hotel window, it's not very likely. As for the being grateful, I want my son to be as only as grateful as I want my daughter (bio.) to be, the kind of grateful like "hey, thanks for doing my laundry again mom, now that I'm in college and all and should be doing this for myself..."! That's looking into the future, of course. My son doesn't need to be grateful that I adopted him. He's my son, enough said.
Post a Comment