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Living the American Dream in China

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Philip:
Because I was the first foreigner they had encountered, they expected my wife to give birth to some alien creature. I had to reassure them that the child would be human! ;D
Specifically, they were lining up some expensive blood transfusions to save the baby from my alien blood type. Actually, because there are so few Chinese people with Rhesus negative blood, even the doctors are not trained to deal with it, and have no understanding of the risks associated with it. I tried to explain that seeing as I have Type O negative blood and my wife has Type O positive blood, this represented no risk to the baby, no matter what his blood type was. The reverse situation may have been a problem, but we definitely weren't. The doctors didn't believe my medical info., and insisted I agree to a blood transfer for my wife after the birth. I refused, so they made me sign a disclaimer saying that I had refused to take their advice, which I was happy to do.
If you think of the usual staring at foreigners, that intensifies when you are about to have a mixed baby, and you get some strange questions from medical and non-medical staff alike, ranging from the size of his genitals to whether he would be able to eat Chinese food! After the baby was born, the questions and comments just grew, from how to darken my son's hair to why did he walk so early? The last question was easy to answer, because we let him fall over - there weren't a thousand relatives waiting to catch him.

maxx:
Martin & Phillip I have to deal with the same things when we take the kids to China. We almost blocked the traffic in Zhuhai one day. Because me and two of my boys were standing out front of a drug store. Everybody and there sister and cousins wanted to see the kids. It got so bad there for a while my mother in law wouldn't go with us. If I was going. Or if we were bringing the kids. Because we always bring the croweds. Chinese people are just fixated with mixed race kids. I thought one time a Indian woman and her man were going to run off with the oldest boy.

Phillip I think you will be amazed at how fast the kids learn. Tristan my 6 year old didn't go to pre school. He is now in Kindergarten. Next year he is going to second grade. So he is going to skip the first grade. I had a parent teacher conference with Tristan's teacher, The other day. She said that he was so far ahead of his classmates that. She has nothing left to teach him at the Kindergarten level. He has started bringing home his times tables. To learn them. He has got to Zero to three figured out so far. It wont be long to he figures the rest out.


Conner is in pre school he is also the head of his class. He will do one more year of advanced pre school. Then he will go to kindergarten. And from Kindergarten he will probably skip the first grade and go right into second grade. Conner insisted on starting school when he was three years old.

When your boy reaches about 3 years old get him a abcmouse.com account. It runs me 9.00 U.S dollars a month. Your boy will be the best student in the class. After a couple of weeks. We let Tristan and Conner play on it about 2 hours a day. And they both have just ran to the head of there classes. Also some free sites for kids are starfall, and abcya.

Willy The Londoner:
I looked in at abcmouse.com  that certainly makes learning for kids exciting. 

I think for members here with kids then that is probably one of the best pieces of advice I have read especially for them.

 I have recommended it to our our niece here and even the two year old is fascinated with it and his vocabulary was only a couple of words to date.  I think maybe the free months trial will be extended!

Makes me realise what I have missed in not having kids myself. But in that respect I hope I was doing them a favour by not producing any.  My mother had a gene passed from her father and she passed it to me but now that particular line will end with me.

Willy

Pineau:
Hey Willy.
It must be a horrible gene if you don't want it pass on. I used to think that way. I am short, overweight and prone to heart, liver, digestive and back problems. All inherited traits from mom and dad. But you never know. One of those genes could be the savior of the race someday. Those genes have been around for ages and ages. They make YOU unique and they may have helped your ancestors fight off a virus that had tuned-in on "normal" genes and was laying waste a continent of people with "normal" genetic make up. Everyone has a weird gene or two. It is what helps our species survive the daily onslaught of germs and viruses.

You know that the average life span of someone with sickle cell disease is 42 years. Clearly not a good Gene to have yourself,  but it is the sickle cell that allowed people in the sub tropics to fight and survive malaria. Who knows that gene may come in handy again in the distant future.

There were few survivors of the plague in Europe but there were some. There were some that were infected but recovered. No one knew why until recently. It is a mutant Gene. If both parents have it then you can survive but If only one parent has it, you may or may not survive. Cool right?  Well guess what? They have discovered that the very same gene helps people survive AIDS. If both parents carry it then you will survive.    http://genetics.thetech.org/original_news/news13

So that has been our strategy over the millennium that has helped us survive. Maybe someday we will have drugs to cure everything but till then... Mix our genes, good bad and run of the mill. You'll pass on something that will confuse the germs and viruses that are constantly looking for the secret combination to turn us into their food store. 

So Willy, unless it is a truly horrible gene, maybe you should go freeze your genes in-case we need them in the future.


PS: I am doing my part. I have 5 children, 18 grand children and 3 great grand children. ( I think this is where it goes exponential). I have a load of bad genes but I do have a longevity gene that keeps the folk on moms side kicking until near 100 years. That's worth passing on.

David E:
If you consider the latest "Eve -out-of-Africa" theory that has Geneticists fascinated, it is becoming clear that studies of the female Mitochondrial gene (passed only via the female line, that everybody on the planet has a common ancestor...that is the "Eve" from Africa and she lived about 300,000 years ago. All of our genes are variations on that one Woman !!

Over the miullenia, genes have been recessive (damaging) dominant (beneficial) or just plain non-survival (extinction.)

What has always got me puzzled is the current hysteria over same-sex relationships...is it Nature (genetic) or Nurture (situational/cultural) that leads to Men and women needing same sex partners ??

What nobody from the Gay Scientific Community has ever answered in any satisfactory way is:

If the homosexuality state is Genetic...then how does it ever get passed on ?? because same sex couples can never have a child that is a true genetic mixture of both of them, so if the homosexuality is a natural state (Genetic), then the Gene would be a recesive gene and quickly lead to extinction .............

Arguealbly, a homosexual Man can still Father a child (!!!!!!!!) and pass on his gene...but that rather defeats the definition, doesn't it ??

A homosexiual female couple could never be in a position to pass on the gene except for artificial insemination via donor sperm...and that would also eventually be recessive.

Just me rambling folks...only a little relevance to the OP....but maybe somebody has a view/explanation about all this   ;D ;D ;D

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