#5 Returning to Birth Country
Wow this one took me ages. Also i keep wondering if i made the planes to realistic looking =P The main little girl actually looks like me when i was little for i recently was looking through some of my family albums.
Spot the sock bunny =D www.sockbunnies.com
I think the airplanes look great and so is your idea. Sometimes adults have the best intentions, but the child just isn’t ready to understand the importance of what they are trying to do for them. Keep the comics coming :- )
I don’t think the point of the trip is for the child to understand. It’s to give them a memory of their homeland to explore later, when they are older. If adoptive parents wait to do a heritage trip until the child is old enough to completely understand, the child will be a teenager, and in the “everything my parents do and are is lame” stage.
We took our first daughter on the trip to adopt our second, and even though she was 5 at the time, she still rehashes her memories of the trip, finding a new bit of understanding each time.
I adore your strip, and I look forward to more!
My older daughter traveled with us to China when we adopted her sister. At almost 4 she was towed past virtually every cultural icon of Chinese history in Beijing and Xian. What does she recall? Being told that I was going to order the live bugs in a bucket outside a restaurant in Guangzhou for her dinner. BUT her comfort with her past has changed significantly and China is not a fantasy place, but a real place with smells, sounds, sights – and squatty potties, her other favorite highlight of the trip.
I have to say, when i went back to Hong Kong for the first time in ten years last year, the first thing that brought it all back defently was the smell… just the smell of the streets, the food, (sadily) the traffic touched more of my memories than objects or photos ever have. Shame i cant bottle Hong Kong smell =P When i was living in hong kong some public toilets that were more out in the none urbern areas defently still had squatty potties =P they are a nightmare hahahahaha. But on my last visit last year i didnt see a single one in HK… i think i was lucky =P.
When asked what they enjoyed about our return trips to China and Viet Nam, my girls say, “The shopping!” My goal for them was to simply fall in love with where they were born. My oldest, riding next to me in a rickshaw through the Hutongs of Beijing, grabbed my arm and said, “Mommy, I love China.” Now they look forward to returning one day, with their girlfriends also adopted, on their own. Mission accomplished. Great comic.
Just on a visual note, I like these older comics where the material is more ‘real’ – did it just take too long to do? Because I think that’s what I found really visually interesting about your comics, I know you’re dealing with more fundamental issues than appearance!!! I still really enjoy them though!! :D
Hey sweety =). Ah yes, it was around this time i stopped using the photographic textures. I remember debating with myself about it. I ended up thinking that it was starting to get super hard to find new textures to photograph cos as you know my wardrobe is fairly colour limited hahahaha (basically black, purple, grey). I think if i had recurring chrs it would be easier to have photographic texture. So it wasn’t that it was technically hard to implement, but rather that taking photos of clothes textures was time consuming.
But maybe i’ll bring it back in a new comic for fun, never know i might love it again =D. Don’t worry about the fundamentals, sometimes its nice to just think about the art & techniques cos i don’t often get feedback on the artwork, so *hugs*.