Yiyi Pauls: East alumni Yiyi Pauls and her family maintain traditions of her Chinese heritage after her 2014 adoption

Even though former East parent Nikki Pauls has worked as an adoption social worker for nearly 20 years, she was still nervous when she and her husband Brian adopted then-11-year-old Yiyi Pauls in 2014 from Guiyang, China.

The two were about to become new parents to an almost teenage girl — rather than a baby.

Yiyi had moved from multiple unofficial placements, to an orphanage at age 7 and then to different foster homes.

At the adoption center, Nikki was immediately thrown into the new role of a mother when Yiyi’s foster mom tasked her with the job of opening roasted chestnuts from a street vendor for Yiyi. Nikki spent the rest of the wait cracking open the chestnut with her molars and handing them to Yiyi. Hours later during their first day together before signing the adoption paperwork the new parents navigated moments such as a little girls’ demands for two new barbie dolls.

But these new experiences as parents weren’t their biggest fear. They were more concerned about the risk of Yiyi losing her culture when she moved to America. 

So the family takes every opportunity to integrate Yiyi’s heritage into her life, whether it’s through the arts or local festivals, as well as helping her adjust to an entirely new country.

“These American, typically white families are going over [to other countries] and pulling these kids out,” Nikki said. “In one way, [adoption] does solve some of their problems but in another way creates a host of new problems and the most of which is removing them from that culture.”

Yiyi is able to maintain her traditional Chinese culture through extracurriculars and traditions even while living in a different country.

She’s always wanted to be a dancer. As a little girl, the bright yellow-and-red costumes, ornate headpieces and unique choreography excited her. But because she was always moving around, she never had the chance to take dance lessons or perform. Until she came to the United States, that is.

Her parents searched and found a Chinese dance company that she participated in with Chinese families and families who had adopted children from China.

“I enjoy Chinese dance a lot,” Yiyi said. “[It] was always my dream to do it when I was younger, but I never had the chance to do it until I got here.”

Yiyi also participated in Chinese drumming. She practiced drumming with the instrument — shaped like oversized bongo drums and long drumsticks — and performed at the annual Moon Festival — an event her whole family still attends each year. She also took piano lessons from a Chinese teacher. While dance and music helped her connect with her peers Nikki made sure that she was also getting the influence of her culture as well.

“[We did] I guess what we would consider anyway, doing for our kids, but making sure that those were done in Chinese,” Nikki said.

The families’ biggest tradition is celebrating Chinese New Year. Yiyi’s love of the holiday started with dinners with her foster family and watching the four-hour-long parade and has carried over to her celebrations now.

They order authentic Chinese food — Yiyi doesn’t even have to look at the menu to order — from the few local restaurants they’ve found including ABC Cafe and Sichuan Dynasty, and Brain makes a dish called Hotpot, one he learned to cook from scratch for her last year. The house is embellished with decorations bought when she was adopted and Yiyi and her little sister Cici receive envelopes of “lucky money” — small red envelopes filled with money — from their parents. 

Yiyi’s heritage is not just a part of her life or something special, that’s only “Yiyi’s thing,” according to Nikki. The entire family — her parents and her younger sister — all embrace the traditions and celebrations and bi-weekly orders of black bean chicken and Ma Po tofu.

“It’s a bummer, [not having] New Years and family dinners [in China], the idea of being to make Chinese dinner and have a dinner together and do fireworks, that’s kind of a bummer,” Yiyi said. “[What we do here is] different in its own way [but] I don’t mind if I don’t have certain traditions. It really is OK. I’m fine with that. I’m happy to be in America and everything.”