Scott Simon and his book, "Baby, We Were Meant For Each Other"

I have lived and worked in China for five years.  Your guest Scott Simon is not being totaly truthful (he may be lying).
1. He made it sound like mothers give up thier babies out of financial need a desire to have them cared for with a better life out of some good place in their heart.  That simply is not true most of the time.  Yes, they violate the One Child policy, but they do so in want of a boy--they see se no value in a girl--when a girl is born they abandon it, sometimes they abort it just becaus its a girl, and sometimes it doesn't end up in an orphanage-its left in a gutter, or pawned off on a relative or friend who then abandons it again.  Ed--you are absolutely right about the special needs boys.  The orphanges are filled with girls and the only boys have special needs or minor derormities like a cleft lip--abandoned because they are not beautiful.  My Chinese girlfriend is a voluteer at SOS and other orphnages and has been friends and a mentor with many of these chioldren for five years.  Many of these kids are abandoned by their families at ripe ages of nine, six, four...
2. The big deception came when he mentioned "unions"--he said they'll all union--in attempt to plug in his fascist union-busting philopsophy--'oh, how terrible the unions.'  Well, they are not Union.  They have little concept of unions in China.  They are not Communist, and generation x and y have no concept of Communism--they dont know what it is.  They don't really know what a union is.  The only "union" they have is family, so nepotism--relationships--guanxi--is common, but there is no union.  Their pay is meagre.  A good entry level salary or even long term salary is 1000-2500 yuen a month for Chinese (outside Beijing and Shanghai).  Thats very little.  A very good salary is 3000-5000 yuen a month and less common (outside of Beijing and shangahia).
These girls who cater to the adopting parents serve as translators, interpretors, hosts, tour guides, personal secretaries, go-to-girls, beuracracy breakers and a family freind--they have a lot to deal with and they are either paid very little or volunteer--it's freelance work, so it is not a regular salary if they even get one.  My girlfriend is freelance and busts her butt for these Americans who do nothing but complain about everything and she gets paid absolutely nothing--it's volunteer, and the adopting parents are expected to tip--thats the only source of income they will get, and most never tip, and if they do--its like ten yuen or a plastic trinket--its very demoralizing an patronizing--she can get a meal in the street if she's lucky--and after all that she did--rushing them around to airports and sights of interest, dealing with cabbies and bus drivers and beuracracy (in an overcrowded overpopulated noisy dirty environment), and the special needs of adopting parents who dont understnd anything, interpreting for everyone they meet and talk to--exhausting in itself, taking them out to meals, rushing around with paperwork, etc. and her English is better than most Americans, and her personality is adorable and charming--(the opinion of foreigners who meet her, not mine), and yet most give almost no tip, or nothing.  She doesn't get paid.  There is no union.  I don't know where he got that outrageous lie from--even party officials are treated as if cogs in a wheel in some fascist corporation.
But the most sinister lie--is when he said he had to pay 350 dollars (because of unionized jobs) for photocopies--thats an outrageous lie. Even 350yuen is exxagerated grossly.  350 yuen is nothing to him, pennies.  The volutneer, a young girl, not paid, does all this for them, and there are countless print shops in the streets, 10-100 on every street--with Xerox machines and computers and other brilliant sign making and poster making machines and software--they got it all--for cheap, and it's far  more convenient and far more accomadating than any fascist Kinkos with all their rules.  I can print out a hundred passports at the shops here if i want to--nobody cares.  You can copy 'War and Peace' and nobody would question it.  They dont question anything.  They just copy it.  .3 mao, .5 mao/jao,a sheet.  100 mao equals 1 yuen.  2.5--3.5 yuen will buy you a Coke in the street. I've printed off thousnads upon thousands of worksheets for students, whole books for 1000 students and paid next to nothing--on average I print out 160 copies of a workheet (sometimes it has 4-10 pages) for 4-6 classes with 40-50 students and rarely pay more than 20, 40, 60 yuen for the reams of paper I use.  It's cheap, and it's NOT monitored, and it's abundant.  There are more paper shops in any Chinese city than churches in the whole world--that's where all the trees are going, the rain-forests and old growth--to Chinese paper shops--photocopies, and its virtually free.  Scott Simon simply lied to disparage unions.  Why?  And the fact is Chinese don't even know what a union is--and most wouldn't want it--almost all obssess with getting rich themselves, and dont want to share and consider wealth and power more imortant than the environment or the needs of others.  You think capitalism under America is bad, under China the earth will perish without any concern or remorse on the part of the rising red dragon.  They are far more capitalist than the fascists we have in America.
4. I'm willing to bet, and he skirted around the reality, rather cleverly, that he and most like him (usually it is Christians--Southern, who come to China to adopt) adopt in China rather than America because most babies in America up for adoption are black, hispanic, or mixed brown, and there is a touch of racism here. They do not want a "black" baby, but yellow people look rather white and, well, he thinks they will be rather smart--doctors and lawyers and scientists.  Another stereotype.  The fact is they don't want a black baby.  It's a shame.  I am white.  My brother was adopted before I was born in the early seventies:  he is black, and beautiful and wicked smart and one of the most compassionate human beings on the planet (not due to his environment--I'm an SOB--and my brother endured our racist step-father who called him super-spook, spear-chucker, and nigger and our cousins referred to brazillian nuts as nigger toes and these days are avid viewers of Fox faux-news; I can only imagine what my brother had to overcome).  I feel for the Chinese babies--abandoned by what I think is a heartless cruel culture and society (as a whole) and it is a good thing they be adopted, but what of the "colored" babies in America who dont have it so easy either?  And are these Christians (maybe not Scott) adopting Chinese as part of some evangelizing agenda--raise up Chinese Christain babies, brain wash them in the Bible and send them back to China to gather more souls?  It may sound funny or ridonkulous but take a look at what they do and say in America--it's all rather ridiculous.  I have met Christain groups over here and I am not far from the truth.  In fact, Christian coalitions, organizations, have cornered the teaching market over here, infilitrated whole universities, and have a lot of sway--money is power.  If you are not a member of their evangelizing Christian group you can't teach in some of the best departments and schools because they have them under thier bankster-wallets.  Something the anti-religious Chinese totalitarian governement will never admit.  It is exactly why the govenemnt is anti-religious--they know how nefarious and unerhanded and undermining religions and Christainity--especially--can be--it is why the debaters of the orignial Consititution seperated church and state.  We have more in commmon with so-called communism than we like to think.  In fact, Chairman Mao and the Party modeled thier government and business after America.
 
Thankyou. More please.