M15 Gives Stern Warnings to British Citizens and Businesses of Chinese Espionage

Today’s New York Times reports that Chinese intelligence agencies are involved in a wide-ranging computer hacking scheme into British and other foreign businesses.  The recent problems with Google pulling out of China seem to be caused by an extension of the same effort by the Chinese.

The 14-page document, prepared by M15 in 2008 and distributed to British banks and businesses in 2009 warned of sophisticated Chinese cyber attacks aimed toward gaining access to email accounts of individuals in whom they had an interest.  They often gained access by approaching British business people at trade fairs and offering lavish gifts, such as cameras and computer memory sticks which contained Trojan horses which allowed the Chinese to gain entry to the recipients’ computers.  British people were then often blackmailed with evidence of sexual misconduct and other improprieties.  According to M15, the Chinese have hacked British defense, energy, communications and manufacturing companies, as well as public relations companies and international law firms.  British citizens and businesspeople are being warned to beware of  China’s “honey trap” methods of cultivating personal relationships, and lavish hospitality and flattery.  M15 says these devious methods are also used by unscrupulous Chinese abroad.

Chinese hacking attacks through Google have been oriented toward obtaining email access to individuals in the United States working for improvement of human rights in China, according to the New York Times.

Sadly, there are no doubt many hardworking and honest Chinese who will become suspect and tarnished by those involved in these sorts of schemes.

–Mary Mimouna

In What Year Will the Gregorian and Islamic Calendars Coincide?

Pope Gregory XIII

A friend of mine in Morocco posed the question to other friends on Facebook, “There are 11 days less in the Islamic calendar than in the Gregorian calendar.  In how many years will the Gregorian and Islamic calendars have the same year number ?”

A mathemetician friend replied that the two calendars will coincide in  the year 20874.

–Mary Mimouna

Is the U.S. Succeeding in Censoring Arab Countries?

Many Americans are shocked out of their minds  to find out that the United States is often viewed as a “big bully” by people in other countries (it happened to me too, when I first moved abroad).  Jillian York has written a very interesting article on How the U.S. Censors Arabs, which gives a specific example of how the U.S.’s behavior is seen by other countries.  I had heard about Al Jazeera coverage being very restricted in the U.S., and prior to reading this article by Ms. York, did not know why that would be.  This article explains it, even though Al Jazeera is not mentioned.

–Mary Mimouna

Morocco Appreciation – A Gratitude List!

All expats get “down” about their problems from time-to-time.  I wanted to share a strategy to help lift your spirits if you’ve hit a sudden low spot.  Start a “gratitude list,” or “gratitude journal” about what you appreciate about life your foreign location.  Sometimes it’s just a matter of changing your focus in order to change your mood.

I started a brief list about what I appreciate about life in Morocco.

Morocco Appreciation List:

1.)  My city is located outside of the “snow belt.”  I never have to deal with the “mess” of snow.

2.)  Wonderful healthy fresh fruits and vegetables year-round, right from the farmers, at very good prices.  Lemons, oranges, and tangerines growing right in my yard for the picking.

3.)  The feeling of accomplishment obtained from rising to the unique challenges life here presents.

4.)  The chance to be bi-lingual/tri-lingual, and constantly being surrounded by many different languages being spoken.  It’s interesting.

5.)  Having the free time provided by having a maid at an affordable price.  Essentially having “assisted” living.

6.)  Having interesting, international friends, and having the chance to constantly meet people of many varied nationalities.

7.)  Being surrounded by interesting sights, smells, tastes, fashions, and wide variety in ways of living.

8.)  People still have TIME for each other, and for their friends.

9.)  Family values are extremely strong.

10.)  Good health care is available, and both reasonably and affordably priced.

11.)  Being surrounded by beautiful tropical and sub-tropical plants (which I much prefer to temperate-zone plants).

12.)  Family values are extremely strong throughout the society.

13.)  Opportunity to raise a tri-lingual child, with a foot in two cultures.

14.)  Opportunity to learn a lot about how life was in ancient times and the middle ages, before telephones, before refrigeration, before there was indoor heat and/or air conditioning, before there were modern toilets, etc.

In the few minutes it took me to type this list, this is all it took to make me feel again like I’m in Paradise!

–Mary Mimouna

Are You a Third Culture Kid, or the Parent of One?

One of the most useful websites I’ve recently come across is Brice Royer’s TCK Acadamy.

As a parent of a Third Culture Kid (TCK) I found that this fantastic website  helps both young adult and adult TDK’s deal with their feelings of unresolved grief over the people, places, and cultures they’ve lost, as well as feelings of not knowing where they belong.

Brice Royer, founder of TCK Acadamy Website

Brice was a third-culture kid himself, and had the experience of not knowing what was wrong with himself for a long time.  When he finally figured it out, he started this website to help others with the same problems, and his site has quickly become the foremost website for TCK’s in the world.

You can join his website for a $1 free trial, with access to all their teleclasses for one month. However, even if you don’t feel inclined to do that, you can sign up for his mailing list and watch/read/listen to some of their material for free.  You can read the blog HERE.  The free preview on the upper right corner of the linked-to page is just a three-or-four minute clip which discusses how new students who have grown up overseas feel when they go back home to University, and suggests who they should seek out (others who have grown up overseas, whether in military, corporate, or diplomatic situations; oor even foreign students) because those people will help them understand and adjust.  The presenter suggests the best way to find belonging is with other people with similar experiences, as opposed to trying to find it in the place.

On the same page, there are two free (45-minutes each) teleclasses you can download and listen to.

Today’s email-list tip comes from presenter Donna Musil.  You can hear the two-minute clip HERE.  The discussion centers on the problem TDK’s face of feeling like they “don’t fit in” many of the places “back home.”  Donna discovered she felt most at home in places where there are a lot of different types of people, such as San Francisco, or Vancouver.  One of the commenters in the discussion below the the clip agrees that he feels most comfortable in places similar to Donna, although he had never before notiticed that this was the reason!

This website is extremely interesting for parents of middle-school/high-school children, because their children will soon be going back home “alone” to face these sorts of problems.  This is the website’s primary usefulness for me, as a parent of a TDK.

–Mary Mimouna

The REASON Why U.S. Birth Certificates are Changed for Adopted Children and Their Adoptive Families

An L.A. Times reader commented in an article on adoptees from America searching for their birth parents in China that in America, “adoptees are issued altered birth certificates (regardless of either party’s wishes), ant the original certificates are sealed away forever, never even available to adult adoptees.”

As an adoptee myself, I would like to explain WHY this is done. There IS a very good reason, which I discovered for myself a few years ago. It has to do with inheritance laws.

In many cultures (such as Isamic cultures and countries), “true” adoption is not permitted. “Adoptees” are permitted to “live” with the new parents, but they are never allowed to take their new parents’ name, and never allowed to inherit property like a natural-born child. Thus explains many cultures excessive preoccupation (from an American viewpoint) with “blood lines.”

My parents were killed in a car crash in 1960 in which our entire family was involved.  In those days before seat belts, my parents both went through the windshield, and were killed.  My brother and I were in the back seat, and both survived.  I was four, and my brother was a baby of eight months.  Later, we were adopted by my natural mother’s brother and his wife, our aunt and uncle.  When I was in first grade, we went to court, and the judge approved the adoption.  Our names were changed, and our birth certificates were changed.

Many years later, my adoptive mother was killed in the Egypt Air Crash of October 31, 1999, off of New York, when the co-pilot intentionally crashed the plane in a workplace rage incident.  There was life insurance attached to my mother’s airline ticket since she had purchased her ticket in America using her credit card.  My brother and I did receive a settlement from the insurance company for her ticket (which had no beneficiary specifically noted), but in order to do so, we both had to provide our birth certificates showing her as our parent.  We would not have been able to recieve this settlement had it not been for our changed birth certificates of fifty years ago.

This is a requirement of any insurance settlement.  My father told me at that time that this was exactly the sort of reason WHY former birth certificates are sealed away and new birth certificates showing the adoptive parents as natural parents are issued.  If they had not done that years ago, we would never have recieved the payment from the insurance company.  This is done to PROTECT the ADOPTEES under U.S. laws.

This is a requirement of any insurance settlement.  My father told me at that time that this was exactly the sort of reason WHY former birth certificates are sealed away and new birth certificates showing the adoptive parents as natural parents are issued.  If they had not done that years ago, we would not have recieved the payment from the insurance company.  This is done to PROTECT ADOPTEES under U.S. laws.

–Mary Mimouna

elsoar’s comment  in the L.A. Times article 1(2/28/2009 11:15 am):

Thank you for this really interesting article. I just want to highlight two points: “China deems it illegal to abandon a child.” and “But in China, the families often confront an entrenched culture of secrecy that clashes with Americans’ presumed right to know.” These two sentences make it sound like the US is very different and more advanced than China, whereas domestic American adoptees are often facing these same issues. In fact, upon adoption, American adoptees are issued altered birth certificates showing their adoptive parents as the ones who gave birth to them (regardless of either party’s wishes) and their original birth certificates are “sealed” – eg, completely unavailable to anyone, including the adoptee as an adult, the adoptive parents and even the birth parents. Further, we do have legalized abandonment here, under the Safe Haven laws… It would be great to see some forward thinking articles exposing these American adoption practices. I truly believe if more people knew about the inequality imposed by the American adoption laws, we could enact some change such that adoptees would no longer be the only class of American people denied access to their actual birth certificates.

New Bathroom Restrictions on U.S. Airplanes are Totally Unworkable…

U.S. airline passengers will no longer be occupied during the last hour of flight.

Due to the recent terrorist attempt on Christmas Eve, on a plane about to land in Detroit coming from Amsterdam, U.S. planes will no longer allow anyone to leave their seat or have anything on their laps for at least one hour prior to the landing of the plane.

This means that no passengers can leave their seats to go to the bathroom during the last hour of the flight, meaning that even children or adults with medical conditions will not be able to go to the restroom for at least 1 1/2 hours, possibly longer by the time you actually get off the plane and into the terminal.  Whoever made these rules is obviously not a parent or a teacher.  Any parent or teacher knows that inevitably there will be children  who will need to go.  I’m anticipating a lot of crying children and “accidents” (even among adults) because of these rules.  Many adults have IBS (irritible bowel sydrome, which can cause explosive diarrhea–as can returning from a visit to a foreign country).  How will they ever manage?

Furthermore, it’s my understanding that books, magazines, ipods, pillows, jackets, or anything else will not be allowed on passengers’ laps during the last hour of the flight.

I don’t think I will be able to fly in or to the United States under these circumstances.  If I were back living in the United States, I think I’d have to drive or take a train.    I predict this will cause a decline in airline revenues, and turn into a boon for ground transportation.

If I were a terrorist, I’d just do my “stuff” earlier in the flight–no need to wait for the last hour!  My mother was actually killed on the Egypt Air flight of 1999, and that action (ruled pilot suicide, but which the term  “workplace rage” incident better describes) took place the first hour into the flight.

I’m hoping that within a year or two the airlines will see this is unworkable for children, and not important for preventing terrorism,  and lift some of these restrictions.

–Mary Mimouna

Child Maids – Two Sides to Every Issue

Today a friend of mine in Singapore  asked me why here are so many child maids in Morocco, and why they are not going to school. When I first moved to Morocco in 1993, this was one of the issues which really shocked me, and I wondered the same thing.

Today, after living in Morocco for 17 years, I see that there are two sides to every question, and I can now understand why the phenomenon was so wide-spread.  However, since 2001, the situation has really changed, and I would like to take this opportunity to correct the world image on this point.  HERE is a story about how village girls are now going to school, where formerly this would not have been possible.

In the mid-1990’s there were still a lot of child maids. These days, there are very few, thanks to the present king, who is highly dedicated to improving education in Morocco. He has built new schools all over the country, even in rural areas, and at least 85-90 percent of young girls are now going to school. Child maids are now becoming very rare.  (Even adult maids are now getting much harder to find!)

Here is what I have come to understand through my years of living in Morocco.  Usually when children HAVE been put out to work as maids (as young as six years old in cases I have known of personally), it has happened not because their families didn’t love them, but because their families were so POOR that they couldn’t even afford to FEED them (and I’m talking a mainstay diet of bread and tea even being too expensive).

Also, it costs the family money for the children to go to school. School fees are free, but the books and paper are not (although the cost of books is HEAVILY subsidized by the state). Also, in the past, when there were not any schools close by, especially in rural areas, it was not safe for girls to walk long distances to school (fear of rape and the like). This was true even on the outskirts of major cities, where girls might have to walk alone through two miles of deserted areas, one way, to get to school.  This safety aspect is really changing with the construction of more schools, and now more familes are willing to let their girls attend, now that the pathway to school is shorter and safer.

While child maids DO still exist, there are FAR FEWER of them every year. Regarding the abuse question, yes, it’s true that some of them are still abused.  However, this issue is now being addressed regularly on the Moroccan television, in Arabic, with documentaries exposing the abuses. With these documentaries which greatly increase discussion of the issue among the common populace, and the newly increased educational opportunities, both employment of, and abuses of childhood maids are continuing to decline DRAMATICALLY.  Among the people I know, 99.99999% of the population now is against employing child maids, and believes that all children should have an opportunity to get an education.  An example of an article written by a Moroccan (in English) on this very issue can be seen HERE.

I have also seen many families employing child maids in the past who treated them well. (For a girl of 11-12 years old, a typical day might consist of getting up at 6 AM with the mother of the family to make bread and make breakfast for the family; assisting with cleaning and household chores such as cleaning, dishes, and making beds for up to four hours (with a break around 10 AM for coffee and snack).  Lunch is served and eaten with the family around 1 PM.  After lunch dishes, then the girl might have several free hours to nap, watch TV, and socialize with the family, followed by a coffee and snack with the family at 6 pm, and dinner with the family at 9-10 PM.  Then she would help the mother wash up the dinner dishes.

It’s true that these particular maids of ten-fifteen years ago did not have an opportunity to go to school anyway. This is not a simple question. First, their families could not afford the inexpensive books and materials.  Furthermore, many of them cannot survive back home without the small supplementary income that is paid to the family for the child’s services (in addition to her room and board).

Also, the Moroccan schools are quite rigorous, and you are allowed to repeat failed years only two times during your schooling. If you still cannot pass, you are asked to leave school. Many children from rural areas (or city areas) have illiterate parents who never attended school, and no one to help them with their homework or studies. So it is not as simple as saying that, “Now that a child maid has come to the city, the family could put her in school there.” She would already be too far behind to ever be able to do the work at that point (also typical school hours are 8:30 -11:55 AM, and 2:00-6:00PM).

So among kind families (of which there are many), a child maid was able to eat well,  learn household duties, and earn a small salary which is generally sent back to her family to help them survive, as well as relieving them of the burden of feeding her. Many of these maids then marry someone from back home at a young age (now meaning about age 18, but formerly meaning about age 15).

However, as the years go by, there are fewer and fewer child maids.  I have not known one family in the past five-to-eight years who employed a child maid, although I did know many families fifteen years ago who did.  Indeed, even adult maids in general are starting to become too expensive and hard-to-find for many Moroccan families.  (Unfortuantely, life here is not yet set up with modern conveniences — for example, upright vaccuums and mops do not even exist here yet, and few people have dishwashers — and if a woman wishes to have both a career and children, a maid is still a near-necessity.)

–Mary Mimouna

Christmas Dinner Challenges Abroad

The friend I invited arrived a couple hours late because she broke the buttons on her boots, went out to three banks with no money in the cash machines, before she found one that did, and then could not find a taxi to come to my house, and finally walked the whole way.

After she arrived, I was in the middle of cooking, and the electricity went out for about 90 minutes.  After the electricity came back on, the gas bottle on the stove gave out and I had to wait for my husband to come home and change it.   A few other things went wrong, but we finally got the dinner on the table at 8 PM!  (It was originally planned for 1 PM, then moved up to 4 PM, then up to 6 PM, and finally happened at 8 PM.)

The Christmas Dinner menu:  wild rice (last packet I had from America), creamed celery root, sausages cooked up with apples and onions, stuffed artichokes, steak, and red wine.  Appetizers included egg nog, raw vegetables and dip, smoked duck and smoked salmon with cheese and crackers.

Expat Kids Believe in Santa FAR Longer than Kids Back Home!

My daughter believed in Santa (and the tooth fairy) until she was ten.  I found that in most expat families that have “Santa,” all the expat kids continue to believe in him until much older ages than the kids back home.  I have hardly heard of anyone whose children stopped believing in Santa before the ages of eight, or even nine.

The problem that I had was my daughter believed me about Santa because I had alwaysbeen  honest with her about everything else.  So when she finally found out that Santa wasn’t real because some of her expat friends (who were two years younger) told her, and then their mother confirmed it, she came to me REALLY SERIOUSLY demanding to know if Santa was real.

I finally admitted the truth, that I was Santa.  This led to her asking if the Tooth Fairy was real, so I had to admit I was the Tooth Fairy as well.  SHE CRIED FOR HOURS.  Both Santa and the Tooth Fairy had died in one day.

Yes, she did get over it, but she was really hurt, and sad!  These were the only things I had ever lied to her about, and her trust in me was shaken.  But within a few days, she did recover, and admitted I’d done a really good job of being both Santa and the Tooth Fairy (from whom she got gifts under her pillow, as well as money).

So, how did this situation come about, of expat children believing so long?

My daughter went to a Moroccan school for many years, filled with only Muslims.  Even at many American or British schools overseas, in many locales, the majority of the students are not foreigners, but country-nationals.  So to have Santa come at all, elaborate lies have to be constructed, and parents have to be very good at telling them.

These lies include how Santa can arrive when there is no chimney in the house (we said he slid under the crack in the door, where there was no threshhold); or how Santa can arrive for them, but not for any other children in the culture (we said he didn’t come to the Muslim children because they didn’t “believe” in him).  When I was a teacher, and Muslim children said they didn’t believe Santa came to our house, I always answered, “Well, I don’t know what happens in your house, but this is what happens in our house.”  In our house, my husband and I each got a gift from Santa, as well.

Since all the kids claiming Santa is not real come mostly from other religions, while  the other expat kids from “back home” are also mostly claiming that Santa is real, the fiction can be maintained much longer.  I recall finding out the truth about Santa when I was six, in first grade, having heard it from so many older kids, of course.  My mother tried to maintain the fiction but I never believed after that.

What experiences have other expats had with Santa?  How long have your children believed?