Of ladybugs and bats

When I was in Nürnberg, I was given a small stone painted with a pair of scarlet ladybugs. I was told that these Marienkäfer (Mary’s bugs) were good luck.

I don't know whether I had an especially good harvest that year, as Sandie's ladybug lore promised, but I do know that whenever I see ladybugs in my garden today, I'm sure to have better luck in my struggles against the aphids. (Have you ever seen a movie in which a monster runs amok, stuffing hapless humans into his ravenous jaws? That is exactly what a ladybug looks like when she rampages through a colony of aphids. It is strangely fascinating to watch [as long as you are not an aphid!])

Now, if you have rejected these rosy godzillas as having only tenuous ties to Chinese culture, what other creatures might you select in their place?

If you look to Chinese art, you will find quite a number of animals (and plants) with cultural significance. As a Westerner, you may be surprised by what you learn: for instance, my only real association with bats is vampires, but in China, bats are a symbol of luck:

...[I]n China, instead of writing actual good luck characters (words), objects with the same pronunciation as the lucky characters are often used instead. The Chinese word for "bat" happens to have the same pronunciation as the characters for "good luck," so the bat has become a symbol of good luck.... The bats flying among the clouds [on a robe that is being described] are a reddish color. The pronunciation of the characters for "skies full of red bats" is the same pronunciation as characters meaning "the heavens are full of happiness and good fortune." (Kyoto National Museum, "Textile Stories")

(Admirable wit! I love being able to gain new insight into the designs like this. Since we don't have any real knowledge of Chinese, I fear most such puns fly right over our heads.)

Given our Western sensibilities, I suspect the only bat(t) we'll include in this quilt will be a cotton one. But perhaps one of the other creatures on this list of symbols in Chinese art will be auspicious in both Eastern and Western cultures.

This last gets at something at the heart of our whole discussion here. When two disparate cultures come together in an international adoption, there are a lot of adjustments to make, a lot of differences. Adoptive parents are probably glad to find points of commonality wherever they can. If they are told that both ladybugs (cheerful and good in Western culture) and bats (creepy and evil in Western culture) are considered lucky in China, who would doubt what their choice would be?