I picked up our Travel Visas today! Yay!!!
I had brought all of our documents in last week to file the
application, and was thankful that I had previously researched what the
potential issues could be. I was also
very fortunate that my BFF is resourceful and made sure I had everything I needed
from her! She had sent me a letter of
invitation with tons of details, as well as photos of 3 different parts of her
passport, all of which I needed, but would never have known to ask for.
I was also glad I had been reading posts on a yahoo group about
homeland visits. Through this group, I
became aware that if it is your child’s 1st time returning to China
since his or her arrival to your country, you must send their Chinese passport
along which they cancel and return to you.
I was ok with this, until I collected the Visas today. The fact is that they (rightfully) cancelled
the passport with a huge “CANCELLED” stamp on several pages. This is not really a big deal to most
people. Child is no longer a Chinese citizen,
child’s Chinese passport is cancelled.
Simple enough, right?
Wrong. As I have posted in
the past, by choosing to adopt a child from China, we “chose” to raise a child
while meeting certain conditions, including revoking their Chinese citizenship
and facilitating the process to have the child become a Canadian citizen asap. Having “made the decision” to revoke my child’s
Chinese Citizenship bothers me. I wish
there was a way that we could wait until our child is old enough to make the
decision herself. But that is
impossible, and I understand that.
Nevertheless, when I saw the “cancelled” stamps, I felt like in
the midst of trying to expose J to her birth culture and encouraging her to
embrace it (the Visas were obtained for a homeland visit, after all), one of
the steps in the process has been to take a little bit more of it away from
her. It’s not like we could have ever used
the passport for her to gain entry into the country. But At the same time, there was something
about that passport that remained hers.
In its pristine condition, it was a proof of her heritage and of the
mutual belonging she had with China (mutual, in the sense that she belonged to
China and China belonged to her). For
some reason, I foolishly thought that this would last forever.
Let’s be honest: the cancelled stamp on J’s Chinese passport do
not change anything about who she is or where she comes from. But I can’t help but feel that a little bit
of her past was lost today.
However, instead of letting this get me down, I will use it to propel
the meaning behind our upcoming trip. I
am hoping that our trip will be much more memorable than a passport is. And I will be honest with J. At some point, I will tell her how I feel
about this. And she may share my
feelings. Or she may not. But I am hopeful that this will lead to an
important discussion on identity and cultural belonging-when the time is right.
Back to the Visas: I
actually messed up today… When I filed
the application last week, I was given a slip of paper with a number on it that
I was to return with today. I forgot it… So I had a really hard time getting
them. In the end, a Manager was called
to see what could be done, and thankfully, she was the one who had taken my
application! She remembered me from last
week! Thankfully, she authorized the
release of the Visas (with appropriate pieces of identification for both J and myself and a signed waiver). Lesson learned
for next time!
So this is real…. and coming
soon! We leave 41 days from today!!! ( Oh wait-it's after midnight here-40 days!!!)
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