July, 1997
It’s 1:00 in the morning and I am on a plane coming back to the US from China. My dear friend Mary is asleep on the floor (the bulkhead seats are roomier) with a baby girl. Mary adopted her five days ago in the county of QINGXIN, where one year ago this baby was abandoned in the Shima market, in the town of QINGYUAN. Guo Ying, or Katherine as she will be called in America, is a beautiful little china doll, with delicate features - except for her feet. They are big, reflective of her heritage. We guess she is from peasant stock from her peasant feet, wide and tough. They are tough and leathery, we surmised from wear at the orphanage. This baby has already got us trained to jump at her every cry - we were told she was one of forty five babies assigned to one caretaker or "auntie". We suspect that those children who screamed the loudest and had the biggest tantrums got the most attention. She hasn’t been herself since her polio, DHP, and hepatitus B shots on Tuesday. Exhaustion, disruption of her schedule, fear of the unknown, new food, a new mommy and godmother have probably overwhelmed her. We suspect Guo Ying was pampered and spoiled her first year because of her beauty. Fair skin and dark hair probably got her more attention that the others. In many ways I feel we have awakened a sleeping dragon. She is a handful. Very smart and very observant. Right now she is asleep in her new mother’s arms. The sun is rising as we fly East over the Pacific Ocean. The flight attendant just made me pull down the shade because of the light coming into the cabin. It’s three o’clock in the morning, Guangzhou time. Last Thursday when we flew over to China the flight attendants made the same request in broad daylight, I guess to get the passengers accustomed to the time change. Fourteen hours later, and two time zones, and you are there. We really had one of the best Chinese adoption encounters I have heard of to date. Our trip went very smoothly, and we were able to leave two days early, due to Mary’s business obligations. Most people seem to stay ten days to four weeks. We got there and back in eight days. We were very fortunate.
Our trip began in BEIJING. The capital city was a maze of streets with electric buses and accordian buses, people on bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, trucks, all of them cutting in and out of traffic, narrowly missing one another. I’ve never seen anything like it. Bored traffic police stood on small platforms in the middle of interchanges barely directing traffic. We had a lovely tour guide who took us to a wonderful restaurant the first night. The next day, we visited THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. A monsoon came down as we approached and all I saw was a maze of umbrellas and fog. Some of us walked the wall, I was surprised at the number of tourists crowding together in the pouring rain. The next day the sun came out and we began a long walk through Tiananmen Square towards The Forbidden City. Peasants from the country side came to pose for pictures with us. It was very funny. I walked up to Chinese families and motioned to take their pictures. At first they looked at me cautiously, but once they understood what I wanted to do they beamed and willingly stood while I took their pictures with their cameras. Neither of us could understand a word of each other’s language, but it didn’t matter. People were very friendly. Lot’s of smiles. Once we walked through Tiananmen Square the heat and humidity started getting to me. It had to be one hundred degrees and one hundred percent humidity. If a thought crossed your mind you would literally break out in a sweat across your forehead. Each of us in our tour group had frozen water bottles that we picked up while walking through the shopping areas as we approached The Forbidden City. There were huge structures for the emperors to wander in and out, incredible architecture. The size of the royal city was unbelievable, building after building only for the royal family. The only really unpleasant encounter occurred while we were attempting to find our tour bus after we had walked through The Forbidden City. All of a sudden a swarm of beggers descended upon us, blind children and distraught parents pulling at our water bottles and clothing. Our tour guide told us NOT to give them anything, that the government would take care of them, but it was difficult to ignore the children. I think everyone in the tour group was thinking the same thing, we were there to adopt unwanted children, but what about these kids? They were the unlucky ones.
That night we had dinner at a famous restaurant known for their Peking duck. The next day our trip took us to GUANGZHOU. When we got to the airport our first guide left us to go with half of our group to another province to adopt older children, while we flew south to GUANGZHOU to adopt six baby girls under the age of one. Boarding the plane was quite an experience, this was an internal domestic flight and there were no seat assignments, really. The majority of passengers were Chinese and everyone got up and impatiently stood in line near boarding time and pushed until they got on the plane. We were a little taken aback by this and waited until the end of the line to board. The plane was packed, and the ride, which began with no air conditioning, took a little over three hours from Beijing to Guangzhou. Despite our not so pleasant conditions everyone was anxious for the next day to come when we would hopefully see our babies for the first time.
This was the big day, we started out early Monday morning for Guangdong’s Provincial Adoption Registry for Foreigners. After several tense moments as each couple answered questions posed by the adoption official, we all got our birth certificates and off we went for the two and a half hour drive into the country to pick up the babies. Once we arrived in QINGYUAN we were asked to wait in a building where the children were going to be brought to us from the orphanage. For some reason we were not allowed to go to the orphanage. Everyone was very impatient and very nervous, once again we were asked to fill out more paperwork by adoption and government officials. Then the van arrived and the children were brought up the stairs to the room where we all were waiting. I have never experienced anything like it, and I doubt I will ever experience anything like it again. I watched as each couple received their baby girls one by one, handed to them by the orphanage personnel and our two guides on the balcony outside our room. Emotions were overflowing, everyone was crying as they held their babies for the first time, and the kids all looked at us with curious faces. We stayed in that tiny room for several hours getting to know the babies, and some of us walked down to the local market to buy food for lunch. I bought some bananas and shared them with the others. They were the sweetest bananas I had ever tasted with a delightful flavor indicative of just being picked ripe. Before we left the province we had to stop at the local police station and fill out more paperwork and answer more questions about the adoptions. There seemed to be some kind of delay in processing the babies passports, and luckily for us our guide was able to negotiate with the police to deliver the passports to our hotel the next day. On our way back to the hotel as most of the babies slept we got stuck in a huge traffic jam. As comfortable as our mini-bus was we couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel and relax.
At breakfast the next day all of us treated the babies to food they had never been exposed to, I am sure. Instead of, and in addition to, the congee that was being served, a kind of hot rice cereal like our Cream of Wheat with fish meal in it (this was a staple that the babies were used to, we tried it and couldn’t believe how salty it was), we gave them eggs and toast, and to those babies who had teeth, fresh fruit. I had a funny feeling about that, and the paperwork says to keep the babies on the diet they were accustomed to at least until they go home to America, but so many of us were so excited to share these new experiences with the babies that caution went with the wind. We paid the price with Mary’s baby later during the trip. She experienced terrific gas pains, and scared us half to death. A word to anyone adopting, DON’T give your baby all the food your Mom fed you, as nutritious as you might think it is, remember these babies have done just fine until you got them. Let the babies get used to fresh fruit slowly, very slowly, and only when you are back in the states. I don’t think the kids knew what hit them, here were all these new parents, and new Aunts and Uncles by circumstance, giving them loads of attention, and the excitement of it all was probably too much. After our Americanized breakfast we took the babies to the hospital for their immunization shots. Unfortunately, the babies were not happy campers after that. The rest of the day was spent attempting to shop in little stores along the streets going back to the hotel, but for most of us the babies demanded down time, and everyone ended up back at the hotel for some rest and quiet dinners. That night some of the babies, including Mary’s Katie, had reactions to the shots, and food, and some of the them spiked fevers that lasted off and on for a few days. The next morning we went to a Buddhist temple to have the babies blessed. I wish we had done that first, before the shots, because all of the babies were cranky and tired and not feeling too good. It was a great experience though, it didn’t matter which denomination of religion any of us practiced, it was a wonderful ritual for us all to share together. That afternoon we visited the memorial to Dr. Sun Yatsen, father of Chinese democracy. The next few days, the rest of the trip, we spent walking around the island of the city Guangzhou, in the stifling heat, or staying in the air conditioned White Swan hotel and strolling around with the babies in the different shops within the hotel complex. These shops, though convenient, were three times the price of street shops outside the hotel. Depending on the time of year you go it is worth braving the elements to shop in the little stores nearby the hotel. The shop merchants are very gracious. After you bargain with them and complete your purchase they smile and give you a gift. It was a charming gesture. At first I asked for discount prices on the little jade animals I bought, thinking I would bargain and get a good deal. But when they handed me my free gift and I figured out just how far one American dollar went (eight Chinese yuan to one American dollar), the next day I accepted their first quote on gift items and made them keep the change! The shop merchants looked so surprised and appreciative. I was very humbled. What I took back with me were little momentos for those important people in my life. What I kept in my heart were treasured memories for a lifetime of the people of China.
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO MAY BE GOING OVER TO ADOPT, the following information may prove useful. These were observations I made and suggestions we took from those who came before us, gleaned from articles such as this one.
PEOPLE ON THE STREET OF BEIJING AND GUANGZHOU. I’ve never seen anything like it, people walk right in front of you as if you were invisible. If you have ever been walking on the streets of New York during rush hour you may understand what this is like. People in New York, Beijing and Guangzhou all behave like zombies when in huge numbers. Don’t take it personally.
PEOPLE DRIVING IN TRAFFIC. I thought I was in some surreal newsreel from the 1950s, buses, cars, trucks, scooters, motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, rickshaws all crossing directly in front of one another on streets and at intersections as if there were no signals and no cross walks, narrowly missing each other, sometimes by inches. I almost started laughing. You will find very few women driving any vehicle of any kind. I think I saw one female bus driver in Guangzhou. There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to traffic patterns, motorcycles literally cut across two lanes and stop dead in front of a moving bus to turn abruptly. How no one got hit was astounding to me. There were so many near misses. Our drivers were very adept at getting us around town safely, and after seeing how people drive in China I was really appreciative that they did all the driving.
CONDITIONS OF BUILDINGS EVERYWHERE. Outside of the hotel complex and the nicer areas of Beijing and Guangzhou, buildings for the most part were so run down that you couldn’t really tell how they would have looked new. Everything had a filmy stain to it, dirt was everywhere, windows were dirty, water was dripping from broken or worn pipes, and garbage was piled up in an attempt to organize it, usually overflowing onto the floor. It was pretty gross. Most of the architecture that you could discern in the more affluent neighborhoods had a distinct European look. A few traditional Chinese dwellings would stand between European style apartment buildings that have not been kept up since the turn of the century. With the economic development of the 80s came graft and corruption, and bars and cages were on apartment balconies ten stories high, all over the cities of Beijing and Guangzhou. Every balcony of every high rise I saw in the cities had bars. It was an eerie sight. It seemed that the people were living in cages like the birds that some of them kept on their apartment balconies.
BATHROOMS. Well, Chinese toilets are an experience. Nothing to sit on, just a hole made out of porcelain that you squat over, usually with no toilet paper. On either side of the hole you would place your feet, sometimes on foot pedals, hoping that those who came before you didn’t miss the hole. I recommend carrying small packets of tissues at all times. You’ll feel better.
GARBAGE. Everywhere you looked and walked you saw garbage on the street. You smelled garbage. The odor was very old and very strong. Especially in the cities. It reminded me of New York City at times, but with a distinct Asian smell. I thought our beggers and street people in America had picking through garbage down to a science. In Guangzhou there were riders of bicycles with steel drums attached on either side, filled with disgusting foul smelling remains of food, table scraps that had been rotting for days. I don’t know if these people were homeless bums or this was their official job. It was an unbelievable sight.
TRASH. In the poorer sections of Beijing and Guangzhou cans and trash were just piled up in the allies and on the street, in vacant abandoned building sites, right next to apartment structures where people were living. Again, this was amazing to me. Even in the countryside, gullies would be filled with trash, some piles were burning, there seemed to be no modernized method of disposing of trash and garbage.
SEWERS. Some kind of concrete drainage system ran along the buildings on the island we were on in Guangzhou, about six inches wide and deep, and people would use this to dump water from containers as they were cooking on the sidewalk outside their buildings. This sewer system would lead to small square manhole covers, were workmen with shovels would dig black muck out of the holes and file baskets with this stuff. I have no idea what it was or why they were doing it.
PETS. Most pets are birds. Dogs and cats have to be licensed, and they are very expensive. I saw cats on makeshift leashes tied to posts, outside buildings in cardboard boxes in Qingyuan. The fate of the cats we saw running loose was in question because the Chinese people eat cats and dogs, and I would think a stray one would be fair game. Birds are very common pets and we saw quite a few in wood cages on apartment balconies.
OPEN MARKETS. Here you could buy live eels, fish, birds, cats, dogs, chickens, just about any fresh food to take home to kill and eat. None of the people in our adoption group elected to tour these markets when this opportunity was offered to us. Some of us had cats and dogs at home.
FOOD. I had Peking duck in Beijing and Dim sum in Guangzhou. The Mandarin diet served around Beijing was mostly vegetables and rice, with pork or beef. Cantonese food served in the Southern provinces was a little different, I had delicious eel and suckling pig with celery and cashew nuts. The sauces and oils used to cook everything were very light, bringing out the flavor of the vegetables. I thought the food was delicious. As long as you didn’t eat raw lettuce or vegetables you were all right. Most dishes were cooked anyway.
WATER, FRUIT AND MILK. Don’t drink the water from the tap anywhere, even in the best hotels. Drink only bottled water. If you love fresh orange juice you may want to bring small travel cans, you know the 6 packs, with you. We were served some kind of orange Kool-aid or Tang. Pineapple chunks were served on occasion. Watermelon was served with every meal. Milk tasted very strange. It was thick and sweet, and slightly brown in color. I never developed a taste for it, and ended up drinking my coffee black.
THE COUNTRYSIDE. If you have the opportunity to tour the countryside, do not hesitate to take pictures of the rice paddies and farms that you will pass. Because of where I was sitting on our bus with the sun shining directly into my camera I didn’t take any pictures on the road from Guangzhou to Qingyuan, the town where we adopted the babies. I mistakenly thought the hotel would have plenty of postcards of the countryside. I was so wrong. I asked our guide why I didn’t see post cards of the common people outside the cities, the farmers and day laborers, and he said the government is ashamed, they do not want to portray an agrarian image. China is to be perceived as an industrial nation. I was stunned. So, don’t make the same mistake, take pictures of the wonderful rice paddies and neatly tilled rows of vegetables protected by neatly arranged thatched cages made of sticks and tree limbs, and the white duck farm ponds, and the farmers in their straw hats tending their fields. After all, 80% of the Chinese people live in the country. Don’t miss it if you get the chance.
PERSONAL ITEMS. Besides the tissue packs bring your own Advil, or whatever you take for headaches. I have to travel with a decongestant, and my drug of choice was Coadvil. I followed the advice of my doctor and used a plain saline nasal spray on the airplane flights to ward off colds. Flying for fourteen hours your nasal passages dry out, especially if smoking is allowed on board (and it is for many international flights), and you will find that you can breath better when you get off the plane if you spray regularly. I have allergies too, so spraying is a must. Your stomach may be upset during the entire time that you are in China. This may not be so much from the food, but more from the change in time. I was constantly queasy. My doctor recommended I take two Pepto Bismol tables three times a day while in China. In addition to alleviating my "travel nausea" my doctor said if a virus or bacteria was introduced through my digestive tract it would have a hard time establishing itself with the Pepto Bismol coating. Hey, it must have worked, I felt better and did not get sick the whole time I was there, or when I got back. Other parents were not so lucky. They got the typical travel flu that is very common when travelling internationally. My advice, take precautions.
HOW THE TRIP MAY AFFECT YOU. I went for eight days with my friend Mary, who was adopting a baby. I can now say, one year later, that the trip has changed my life. I had no idea it would to this degree. If you are like me you are probably petrified at the prospect of going to a communist country. I was terrified that something would happened and I would be stranded. Hong Kong had just been handed over to China in July of 1997 and I was afraid that the mainland would be unstable and hostile to Americans. I imagined all kinds of things. But reading articles, written by people like us after coming back, helped to dispel some of my fears. I hope you are lucky enough to have wonderful guides like we did. They spoke very good English, were a wealth of information on Chinese culture and customs, and made us feel safe and welcome in their country. I actually had no desire, no intention on going, if it was not for my friend who was abruptly told she had to be ready to travel to China two weeks after my visit back East to see her. Mary was in a state because her trip was originally scheduled in September, and she had friends lined up to accompany her. Being a single mom-to-be and running her own business out of her home, Mary had to take care of all the arrangements well in advance. When she received the call that her baby was available two months earlier, Mary had to make some quick new arrangements. When I arrived at her home for a vacation after a business trip back East, Mary was in a panic. None of her friends who had intended on going over with her were available two months earlier. I had plenty of vacation time available, so I offered to go with her if my boss agreed. I would just be coming back from a ten day business trip and wasn’t sure my boss would be OK with me turning around and leaving for another ten days. He was. So, Mary flew from JFK, I met her in LA, and off we went for the adventure of a lifetime! Fourteen hours later we were in Beijing. It is now one year later and I am different. I can’t explain it, but the trip has changed me. You may be changed too. Martin, our guide in Guangzhou, told us we were tied to our babies. He was right. Thousands of miles away this little baby was to change our lives. We not only got a baby, we were exposed to a whole new culture, very different from our own. Just by being there we seemed to absorb the rich history, the traditions, the philosophy of China. Again, I can’t explain it, but I have changed. That baby. Her "sisters." Their country. Something happened.
I have recited my story many times to friends and interested acquaintances. More and more people seem to be adopting babies from China. It’s incredible. In 1994 the first adoptions from China occurred, 1,500 babies, and since then 3,000 babies were adopted in 1997. Over 100 agencies run Chinese adoption programs, mostly in the US and United Kingdom. The US consulate in Guangzhou can handle up to 6,000 adoptions a year, and is gearing up for as many as 10,000. When we asked why parents abandon their children in China, as opposed to being allowed to openly turn them over to adoption agencies, our guide had a very philosophical response. He told us that children are not abandoned in China, that their parents are the Communist Party. Nice answer. China seemed like a land of contradictions to me, its government, its culture, its history, however, without the government’s willingness to let these abandoned children be adopted out of the country, my friend Mary and the other five adopting parties would not have been given the opportunity to experience the joy of parenthood. For that, I am eternally grateful to the Chinese government.
LONG DISTANCE GODMOTHER. I saw my godchild Katie on a trip to New York from Los Angeles in December of 1997. She had already changed so much. It was six months since I had last seen her. At 18 months she was quite the little girl. This past June we had a reunion with all the other children from our adoption group, almost a year to the month when we went over to China. It was an incredible experience. We all felt as if no time had passed. The girls behaved like sisters, the parents like old friends. Another gift from China. We are all planning on having reunions often, perhaps every year if we all can afford it. Spread out over the country, the six of us will find it quite a challenge to get together, but knowing this group as I do now, we will all find a way. As Mary’s official godmother, and unofficial Aunt to the five other little girls, I wouldn’t miss this for the world. We are already talking about when the girls are old enough we will take them back to China for a visit, all together as a family. So much to look forward to. We are so lucky.
If you would like to get in touch with me I can be reached at: lisafimiani@sbcglobal.net
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