Hello Steemit! My Name is Xiaoqing Cai and I'm Excited to Join the Community

I am very excited to join the Steemit community. My name is Xiaoqing Cai. I lived in China for almost 25 years before I immigrated to the United States in 1988. I live in San Francisco Bay Area with my husband and two children. My daughter Anwen Baumeister just graduated from college and my son Billy Baumeister is starting high school this week. I have been working as an adoption coordinator for an international adoption agency in the Bay Area for the past twenty one years and have helped the placement of over a thousand and four hundred abandoned and orphaned Chinese children into loving homes in the United States. I myself am an adoptive mother. My husband and I adopted our son Billy eight years ago when he was almost seven. I travel back to China at least once a year for my work and for visiting my family back in China.

能够加入到Steemit 网站，我感到非常高兴。我的名字是蔡小庆。我于1988年移民来美国， 在此之前在中国生活了快25年。 我现在和我的丈夫及两个孩子居住在旧金山湾区。我女儿叫安文.鲍麦思特，她刚大学毕业。我的儿子叫比利.鲍麦思特，他这周开始读高中。在过去21年里，我一直为湾区一家国际收养服务机构工作，是中国收养项目的协调人，已经帮助安置了一千四百多名中国的孤残儿童进入有爱心的美国家庭。我本人也是一个收养妈妈。我和我丈夫八年前收养了我们的儿子比利，他当时快七岁了。我每年至少要回中国一次出差和探亲。

As a child, I was fascinated by English. My first word of English was “butterfly”, taught to me by my father. My first English song was “Row Row, Row Your Boat, Gently Down the Stream, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Life is But a Dream”, also taught to me by my father. I still remember how my father told me that the last lyrics “Life is But a Dream” reflected the negative and passive life view of the bourgeoisies, which was not appropriate for us proletarians. To proletarians, life was not a dream. Instead, life was a battle. Despite his warning, I loved the sound of English. Words like “butterfly”, “gently”,“merrily” and “dream” had such romantic connotation and I associated them with beauty. They were like wings that carried my imagination beyond all the political jargons of class struggle which permeated my childhood years. When I passed the college entrance examination in 1980, I chose English language and literation as my major and later completed a master degree in English and American literature.

当我还是一个小孩子时， 我就特别喜欢英文。我学的第一个英文单词是“蝴蝶”，是我爸爸教我的。我学的第一首英文歌是“划阿划，划阿划，划你的船，轻轻顺着小溪向下划，好开心，好开心，好开心，好开心，人生仅仅是一个美梦”。我现在还记得我爸爸当时告诉我，说这首歌最后一句歌词“人生仅仅是一个美梦”反映了消极被动的资产阶级人生观，是不正确的，对我们无产阶级来说，人生是一场战斗。尽管爸爸这样警告我，我仍然忍不住爱上了英文。“蝴蝶”，“轻轻地”，“开心”，“美梦”这些字眼听起来是那么的浪漫和美好。它们就像翅膀，载着我的想象飞越和超越了我童年时代阶级斗争政治口号无处不在的环境。1980年我成功考上大学时，我选择的专业是英美语言文学，后来还获得了英美文学硕士学位。

I love telling stories of my life in China as well as my life in the United States as an immigrant. I also love reading about other people’s stories. I believe the world can be a much more peaceful place if people from different cultures share with each other their life experiences. No matter which cultures we are from, we as humans share so many common values and emotions. Only when the communication is open, compassion is possible. This is why I became very excited when my daughter Anwen told me about Steemit. I believe Steemit is providing a wonderful platform for people to express themselves as well as to learn about other people’s experience in life. I look forward to sharing my life stories here with you.

我非常喜欢与他人分享我在中国生活时以及作为一个移民在美国生活的一些故事。我也喜欢阅读有关别人的人生经历的故事。我相信如果来自不同文化背景的人们开始相互交流他们的人生经历，这个世界将会变得更加和平。无论我们是来自什么样的文化背景， 作为人，我们都有许多共同的价值观和情感。只有公开交流，才有可能相互理解，这就是为什么当我的女儿安文告诉我Steemit 这个网站时，我感到非常兴奋的原因。我相信Steemit 为大家提供了一个很好的平台相互交流人生经历。我期盼着将来在这里与大家分享我的故事。