Myra

Hi. I Myra and I am 13 years old. I am in the 7th grade. My little sister, Lena, is adopted from China. I am on the swim team and I like to read. I am half Taiwanese and half white.

I have been to China three times. The first time is when my family adopted Lena. The second time was when I was in 2nd grade and we met Lena birth family for the first time. The third time was recently when we went to visit her family again.

When we go to China, I like to see the cultural differences and I like eating the food. When we visited Lena birth family in China, their village was a lot different from a town in America. It was less modern and in the countryside. I have taken Chinese lessons, but I am embarrassed to speak Chinese in China because I am not very fluent and I don speak the right dialect for the village.

I don think it is weird for Lena to have two families. It has always been a part of my life. It is kind of like having a step-family, but instead of being on the mom side or the dad side, it is just on Lena side. Lena little brother is really cute. I can interact with him more than with her sister, because we can just play. Her sister and I are about the same age, so that makes it a little more awkward because we can communicate very well. Lena and her Chinese sister understand each other better.