Amused as they were, the summer campers found it really hard to
create the same butterfly patterns that their teacher so easily cut
out.
How does she do it? The young boys and girls asked, joking at
each other's snowflake-shaped folded paper.
"They're like my friends," said 15-year-old Sara of her
teammates. "It's like any other summer camp I've been to."
But it definitely isn't just any ordinary summer camp.
The atmosphere of bonding was a result of their shared
background as adopted children from China. The 30 children were
orphaned in different Chinese provinces and adopted by North
American families between 1991 and 2001.
Today, 29 of them live in 17 US states, including Alaska and
Hawaii, while the other resides in Canada's Saskatchewan
Province.
The 10-day summer camp, themed "Embracing China, Experiencing
Beijing," opened on Wednesday and is the first-ever such activity
organized and hosted by the China Center of Adoption Affairs, Ji
Gang, director of the domestic adoptions department with the
non-profit organization, told China Daily.
It's the first China visit for about half of these children
since their adoption, including Jiangsu-native Alyssa, who was adopted at 10
months old and just celebrated her 14th birthday at Quanjude Roast
Duck Restaurant in Beijing on Friday night, and Sara, adopted at 11
months in 1991 from the same province.
The youngsters have so far visited the Forbidden City, the
Capital Museum and the Temple of Heaven, as well as Baigongfang, a
traditional Chinese art and handicraft museum where they learned
about paper-cutting and kite-painting on Friday morning.
On Friday afternoon, they also experienced a taste of haggling
at the famous Xiushui silk market.
(China Daily August 18, 2007)