An Adoptive Family Brings Their Daughter Back to Yingtan for a Visit and Also Visits the Child the Family is Sponsoring in Foster Care
By AE (UDMCollins@aol.com)
who adopted Laura
from Yingtan in January 1996 and
visited Yingtan in November 2002
Hard to believe, but we did
it!
When we visited the Great
Wall, Laura sort of gasped as she touched it and said "I can't believe
I'm finally touching the Great Wall!" But for her ‑ and for us ‑ the visit to
Yingtan was even more wonderful.
Children's Hope International
and Lotus Travel made it possible. Even if we hadn't been able to visit the
orphanage, Lotus would have helped us visit Yingtan. The trip to
Dragon Tiger Mountain was added at the last minute at our request.
We left Guangzhou late and
arrived in Nanchang as it got dark, so the 3 hour bus ride to Yingtan was
mostly in the dark and in pouring rain. We stopped in the way for soft drinks
and cookies ‑ which was good, because by the time we reached the hotel, the
dining room was closed with no place to eat in sight. We picked up
some ramen type noodles and used the still‑very‑hot water in the thermoses in the
rooms to cook them. (For those of you who have only been to 4 and 5 star
hotels, the Chinese have, and for years have had, incredible thermoses which
keep water near‑boiling hot for a full day. They are in hotel rooms with hot water
for use to make tea, rinse your mouth, or just drink. They are
used regularly in every day life by Chinese families.)
Anyway. When we woke up
the next morning, it was still raining. We got up pretty early and had a very
traditional Chinese breakfast in the hotel dining room ‑ none of the French
Toast or omelet stuff like the White Swan buffet. Congee, with hot chili sauce,
something like kim chee or salty dried sardines to add. Tea smoked
eggs, bar‑b‑que pork steamed buns, pot stickers. Both our guide and driver joined
us, which helped with the ordering.
We then went to the Yingtan
SWI. Laura correctly remembered that it was outside of the City.
Our guide said that Yingtan was over 100,000 and then said it was over 1,000,000,
although I thought the Chinese sounded like over 100,000. Hard to tell
as we drove around. For example, Wuhan exceeds 10 million if you count the
suburban areas, but it didn't seem as big as a U.S. city that size. The
driver frequently called out the window to help get directions. Finally, we
ended up on a road through the country out to the SWI. I wasn't sure if
pictures would be OK, and with the pouring rain and a sort of welcoming committee
as we arrived, I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the building
outside. It is a very white building ‑ almost a porcelain type finish ‑ with
blue trim. There is a large, silver colored statue of a woman in a long
robe holding a child that stands in a flower bed in front.
It's a little bit of a blur
at the moment, but we were ushered in and everyone oohed and ahhed at
seeing Laura (Fu Chun) again. (We never used her American name ‑ only her
orphanage name ‑ the whole time. That is how all the kids are remembered by
the director and aunties.) They all remembered her. The told us what
she was like when she was there. We were taken to a sort of meeting room with
plates of fruits (including those wonderful little oranges!!!!!). They
asked us to tell them about her life with us. We gave the director a photo album of
the last 3 years. Although we had sent an album a couple of years ago
with pictures through 1999, it didn't appear that the director had a memory of
it. In hindsight, we should have put together an album of her whole life
since she left.
When we moved stuff so we
only had to take one suitcase to Yingtan, I behind the photo album of another
Yingtan girl.� However, one of the photos
in Laura's album also had a good picture of the girl and Laura together.
I told the director who she was (orphanage name),
including the approximate date when she left Yingtan SWI, and the director
remembered her well. I sent her the album when I got back to
Guangzhou. All the aunties gathered for a group photo with Laura ‑ they
told us they had all taken care of her when she was there. I'm not sure
Laura remembered any of them particularly, but she really enjoyed their hugs
and attention.
Apparently we are the 3rd
family to have come back to visit. The director wondered how we knew other
families from Yingtan. We told her about the Yingtan listserv.� It is clear they remember all the kids who
have been there and left and they are all very special to them.
While we were in one room, an
older boy came in to get one of the kids ‑ he looked about 12.
Couldn't tell if he was the child of a caregiver or an older orphan. But I
think the former. In any event, he and Laura were pointed out to each other, as
they apparently played together when she was there. Being 12 and 10,
they kind of stared at each other with blank looks and shrugged and he went on
with his business. Later when we asked if any of the kids who'd been there
when she was there were still there, the answer we got was no. (We
struggled a little bit with translations at times.)
In the toddler rooms, it
appeared to be a ratio of one care giver to 5‑6 kids. I remember an
adult bed in one of the bedrooms. Probably was one in the other as well. In
the baby room, there were a lot more kids, and also a lot more care givers. I
think there were 13 kids, and I think there were 4 caregivers. Many of the
kids were in those walker things. But each of the caregivers had a child in her
arms. One wasn't in the white uniform the director and aunties wore ‑
perhaps she was one of the hugging grannies.
There didn't seem to be much
heat. As we had noticed in 1996 when we were in Nanchang, the official
building where the adoption proceedings took place didn't seem to have any
heat. When it is seasonably warm, that's OK. But on a cold rainy day it was
noticeable, at least to me. Although the kids were all bundled up, the adults
seemed more acclimated than I. People's houses were the same ‑ with the
fronts wide open to the elements, any added heat inside would have been lost
in no time.
We also had asked to visit Fu
Lai, the little boy we are sponsoring in foster care through Amity. So
we got on our bus again (a bit ostentatious, but we were very thankful with all
the rain that day) and with the director and the woman from the SWI who is in
charge of babies along with us, we went and visited him and his
family.
First, whoever donated funds
to get him his walker, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!! He is
walking around like a champ. Their home has a step from the front area to the
back, dining/living are. He negotiates it with no problem. Very
mobile! The mother invited us to sit around her table and served us cups of hot
water. Welcome in the cool air. As is very common once you leave the more built‑up
city areas, the whole front of the house is essentially open. Don't
know if they pull a door or something down at night. There doesn't seem to be any
real source of heat, though there may be a cooking stove
somewhere. The front area often is used for a store, although this family didn't seem to
have a commercial operation in place. There was a busy market place in
operation along the street ‑ but I didn't really want to be a tourist at the time so I
didn't take any pictures of Fu Lai, his family or the street. Although
the foster mother thanked us for "giving Fu Lai a new life," we told her
she was the one who was doing that and thanked her for all of her wonderful work as
his foster mother.
Fu Lai greeted us and then
told us all good‑bye as we left. Although it was a bit early, we then went to
lunch. The hotel didn't change currency, but we had stopped at a bank on the
way to the orphanage to get some money changed. Good thing, because we hadn't
really thought we'd be going to lunch with the director and her
assistant. In the meantime, while on the bus, Laura pulled out her school journal, which
she had covered with pictures of herself from age 3 to date. Although
we had not included the earlier pictures in the album we gave the director,
all the earlier photos were glued on the notebook. So the
director and her assistant oohed and ahhed over all the old photos and the collage of
Laura growing up from age 3 to age 10. They also looked at the journal she'd
been writing while in China, including all her illustrations. Laura
was very comfortable just sitting with the director's arm around her as we rode
along in the bus and the director looked at her notebook.
At lunch, Laura sat between
the director and her assistant. They fed her the best morsels of food. Peeled
her shrimp for her, etc. One thing I regret is not having honed my
skills for making toasts. Many toasts were made. Many that weren't
translated for us were between the director, our driver and our guide.
No clue what they were! But we had toasts to Laura's return, toasts for Laura
returning in the future, toasts thanking us for our care of her, toasts thanking
them for their care of her, etc. I had only tea, not wanting either Coca‑Cola
or beer, so my toasting was a bit awkward. In hindsight, I should have
had one or the other, so that I could have more properly toasted, even if I
didn't otherwise drink any. (That's my "Emily Post" note for anyone
else in that position in the future!)
We then drove the director
back to the SWI. She had refused to answer her cell phone all during lunch,
but business required her attention. Her assistant stayed in town to
do something. Final farewells and we left. Still pouring rain. I
took some pictures of the fields, buildings, river, etc., as we drove back into
town. Hope they aren't too blurred.
We ended up back at the hotel
and rested that afternoon. Before we went to dinner, our guide showed up
with a birthday cake for Terry (he must have overheard me say something to
Laura). We ate the cake much later ‑ it was wonderful (whipped cream
filling and frosting on a very light cake, with fresh fruit on top, complete
with little forks, a knife, plates and birthday candles). We went to a
wonderful restaurant for dinner. Our guide said the hotel was too
expensive. We went to a restaurant that was recommended by the taxi driver who had taken him
to get the birthday cake. Dinner was 138 Yuan for 7 of us. (At an
8.16 dollar to yuan conversion rate, not bad at all.) The TV was turned on in our
private dining room (the usual style for most "better"
restaurants we ate at was for each dinner group to have its own room). Our guide
ordered for us and we watched the outcome of the 16th Communist Party Congress
election of the new leaders of China.
Then back to the hotel.
We had to get up at 5:30 the next morning to go to Dragon Tiger Mountain because
the driver wanted to leave by 10:00 to get back to Nanchang. Terry and
our guide went shopping for fruits, cookies and drinks so we could have
breakfast on the bus.
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