By Karis Tai
The Abstract
Talk doesn't cook rice, but action comes at a cost. This speech discusses my own experience with this cost in moving to China to adopt my sister, an orphan who suffered from Esophageal Atresia prior to her successful operation. It also expresses the importance of action, in spite of this cost.
About Karis
After a family vote, Karis Tai moved to China with her parents and younger brother in the hopes of adopting a baby girl. Karis now enjoys playing with her new little sister, public speaking and APAC Forensics, and working with the Baobei Foundation to visit, babysit, and care for orphans with severe birth defects. Moving to China has paved the way for many more opportunities for action for Karis and her family, and she hopes to continue to take advantage of these.
Six years ago, on a one-month trip to Kun Ming China, my family and I found a baby girl. Born out under five pounds, this girl suffered from Esophageal Atresia, which is a fancy way of saying her mouth didn't connect her stomach. She couldn't eat. She was kept alive only by an IV and oxygen machine. In desperation, her parents left her at a hospital, hoping someone would find her, and someone did. We named her Anastasia, which means new life, and got her quickly to Shanghai for the operations that would save her.
This is Anna at a doctor's checkup after her successful surgery. Now as a 10-year-old, I was far from being instrumental in this process. I got involved at the end of that school year. When my parents called us to vote to decide whether or not to move to China, to adopt her. At the time I was living in Jersey City, New Jersey in a comfortable brownstone, attending a school. Life was close to perfect, but I knew there was still a baby girl on the other side of the world without a home or a family.
Ever since I met Anna, I'd done a lot of talking. I told my friends about her, prayed that she'd become my sister and even wrote my fourth-grade persuasive essay, trying to convince my parents to adopt her. But at 10 years old, even I realized that talk doesn't cook rice. Talking wouldn't put adoption papers in my hand. However, when presented with the jarring option of leaving behind my childhood home, saying goodbye to my friends and moving to a foreign country and pursuit of adoption, I hesitated. I had to pause to think because as easy as it is to talk about doing great things, actually making the sacrifices and doing them is tough. But the truth is all action comes out at a cost.
I encountered that cost from the moment we landed in the Pudong international airport. I was totally lost in the scary unfamiliar world. For my first three years in China, I attended a semi-local school where all of my classmates’ first language was Chinese and the majority of my classes were conducted in Mandarin.
My grades dropped instantaneously. And above all I wrestled with making friends to replace the dear companions I left back in New Jersey. Apart from the vast cultural barrier that separated me from my classmates, language was the big issue. I had to start from square one. And let me tell you, Chinese cannot be made easy. Upon seeing my black hair and dark eyes, my classmates and teachers immediately began speaking to me in rapid Chinese. It took only a few seconds before they realized that as a second generation Asian-American, I spoke only English.
So, they quickly kept their distance. For a year and a half, I had no good friends and felt that no one would ever understand me. I couldn't understand them either. I began to question my decision to move, was really worth it?
Talk doesn't cook rice, but action comes out at a cost. We can attempt to do great things to facilitate radical change in our work without putting anything in. But in reality, you can't cook rice without experiencing the heat. I have heard of the law, the conservation of energy and mass, you can't create things from nothing. Any good thing that has ever happened to the world has required sacrifice. So, in my case, it is culture shock, a new language, and utter loneliness. This is where I live now, but I'm not complaining all of this. Cooking rice in ways that my brownstone house and private school life never could.
I got to watch as Anna grew up, spoke her first words, took her first step. I got to watch as she transformed from a five-pound baby writhing in the hospital bed into a beautiful six-year-old who can now proudly sing almost every song in Frozen. With all this cooking, there was no longer any time for talking.
Every year on July 15th, my family and I celebrate the day, not the day that we got to China, but the day that we left our safe and comfortable lives, the day we chose action. That choice continues to shape how we as a family, confront the world today, moving to China, paved the way for many more opportunities for action. My parents now direct Baobei foundation, which works to save severely disabled orphans, much like my sister, a big part of our entire family's lives. As my siblings and I now sharing the work with our parents taking care of up to 30 babies at any given time.
This is Anna feeding Joy, an orphan who suffered from Spina Bifida and hydrocephalus. She knows most of these babies by name. It's now her turn to help others to cook a little rice of her own.
I now encourage you to choose action. We all have our own brownstone lives. We enjoy good food, cool clothes and beautiful apartments. And there's nothing wrong with that. But we talk about wanting to change the world and that just might take a step outside of our comfort zone.
It may be hot and tiring a lot of time, but that's how you cook rice. Thank you.
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