The Olympics are a perfect time to celebrate your child(ren)’s two cultures. We are excited that all the countries that we currently facilitate adoptions from are participating in Beijing 2008! Here is a list of countries and how many athletes they have competing: Armenia, 25; Bulgaria, 72; China, 639; Guatemala, 12; Haiti, one; Kenya, 56; South Korea, 267; Moldova, 31; Peru, 12; Russia, 467; Ukraine, 254; Vietnam, 21; USA, 596.
Some great ideas that your family could do are: create flags to cheer on the participants, research what events will have an athlete from your child’s birth country and make sure you watch those events, the website for the Olympics has an education section for children, all through the events great pieces of information are given about participating countries as well as special interest stories. The NBC Olympic website also has profiles of athletes and a wealth of information about the games. All these are great tools to have fun, and learn with your family, while watching the world come together.
NBC will air the Opening Ceremony on 08.08.08 (check local listings for time). This day holds special significance for it is considered lucky. The word eight in Chinese sounds similar to the word which means “prosper” or “wealth.” In regional dialects the words for “eight” and “fortune” are also similar. There is also a resemblance between the two digits “88” and the symbol for double happiness. So the Chinese believe that 08.08.08 should bring great things to the Olympics and the participants.