From Beijing to Brookfield

Matthew Diamond, a 13-year-old Whisconier Middle School seventh-grader, has a hard time picking his favorite sport. He was outside playing basketball when I stopped by his parents' house, but it turns out he likes football even more. And skiing is up there, too; he tried it for the first time over the Christmas holidays. "The instructor asked him how many times he'd skiied before," says Matthew's mother, Stephanie Joy, because he took to it so quickly. "He was skiing backwards by the second ski trip."

Typical American teenager, right? Well, not quite: Matthew's only been in the U.S. since October, having spent the previous 10 years in a Beijing orphanage. He still speaks Mandarin with friends — fortuitously, a Chinese boy named Zack, not an adoptee, moved in down the street within a month of Matthew's arrival — and his English is already pretty good. Ask him about his favorite food, and you'll likely hear him say,"Five Guys, Burgers and Fries!"

The new parents' journey started 18 months ago, when an acquaintance with an adopted child said, "You know, you guys can make a child happy, too." After that, says Joy, "there wasn't a whole lot of agonizing" — they got in touch with a New York City adoption agency and started filling out the piles of necessary paperwork. "Fingerprinted three times, looking into sex-offender status, arrest records in every state you've lived, and you have to get everything notarized, too," says Dan Diamond, Matthew's father and Joy's husband. "The process is not fast."

Almost exactly a year ago, in April 2009, the couple were deciding which child to pick from a video provided by a U.S.-sponsored orphan day-camp ("Bright Futures") in Beijing... and Matthew seemed the right fit. "We sent him a cake and a scrapbook about us for his birthday in August," Diamond says, and subsequently received a photo of Matthew holding the book. The connection was made — and none too soon, because under China's adoption policy, children must be adopted by the age of 14.

In September 2009, the Chinese government approved Joy and Diamond's travel plans, and started their journey to parenthood. They spent 18 days in China altogether, starting in Beijing, then in Guangzhou, home to the American consulate. From the day they met Matthew, the new family was always together — visiting the Great Wall, Ming Tombs, Summer Palace, Forbidden Palace — or going to amusement parks, eating out, talking and generally getting to know one another. "We got along with our limited Chinese and a good dictionary," says Joy. "And the adoption agency provided a facilitator/tour guide." Matthew didn't speak much English then: Joy reminds Matthew that back in China, he mostly said "I'm sorry, I don't know."

Diamond, who teaches high school math in New Fairfield, says being father to a teen has made him a better teacher. "I have a more intimate understanding of things through my son," he says, "and I can use that in the classroom." Diamond thinks he's more patient with students, too — and more adamant, this year, that parents need to be involved in their child's education. For similar reasons, the family is currently studying Mandarin and Chinese culture at a weekly Hua Xia school in Danbury (classes meet at WestConn), because, Diamond says, "We thought it would be a failure on our part if we let him lose where he came from." Matthew, having been in China so recently, is the teacher's assistant. Many of his fellow students are American-born Chinese children and he learns better English as he helps them learn Mandarin.

Oh, and one more thing about Matthew that makes him a typical American teenager — he doesn't like homework. "More work than here," he says of his school in Beijing. And what happened if you didn't turn in your assignments, back in China? "Not nice," says Matthew with a big grin, admitting that, at least once, he'd had his hand slapped. "Here, I like school."

Especially math. Though he rolls his eyes when his father tells one of his standard math jokes. "What did the acorn say when it grew up?" asks Diamond. "Gee, I'm a tree!" Or, for those of us slow on the uptake — "ge-om-e-try"....