The White Swan

For the past day we've been in Guangzhou. I should say something about the hotel where we're staying, the White Swan.

Every child adopted internationally by an American family needs an immigrant visa. The only US consulate in China that issues them is in Guangzhou. The Guangzhou consulate used to be located on Shamian Island. Adjoining the consulate is a five star hotel, the White Swan. And so, from 1992 to the present, the White Swan is where the majority of adoptive families stayed while waiting for a visa. It has a special place in the memories of many families.

During the peak period of Chinese adoptions, the White Swan (sometimes called the "White Stork") was a veritable nursery. Travel groups lined up in front of the lobby waterfall for photos. Babies went for their first swim in the pool. Dozens of businesses catering to adoptive families crowded the area. "White Swan family" (as in "look, Dad, there's a White Swan family") crept into our family's lexicon.

Even though the consulate has moved, quite a few new adoptive families still stay in the hotel. However, the number of Chinese adoptions has gone down in recent years. The neighborhood now has several vacant storefronts, and the remaining businesses seem to be suffering. But if you walk around the hotel, you see quite a few Western parents with preteen or teen-aged Chinese girls, who have returned to China to visit the country of their birth -- either individually or in groups like ours. It is something we hoped for at the time we adopted, and now it is happening.

Lia's Home Town

Monday was the day we had looked forward to for over a year. We visited Lia's orphanage in Guilin, which is also where she was left and found almost 10 years ago, and met Lia's foster mom.

Our guide, who we arranged through the Our Chinese Daughters Foundation (OCDF), met us at the hotel at 2. We sat in the lobby and talked about what to expect and what was going to happen. Lia was very quiet, as she was all afternoon.

We rode in a van to the northern outskirts of Guilin, where the Guilin Social Welfare Institute is located. Our driver had to stop several times to ask for directions. When we arrived at the gate, we were met by the head of the children's section, Mr Li, and two of Lia's caregivers, Miss Liang and Miss He. Because of worries about swine flu, the provincial government would not allow us inside, but we did get a chance to see the outside of the building where Lia spent her first two months and take some pictures. Mr Li pointed out the new wing that had been built with contributions from overseas adoptive families. Miss Liang and Miss He both remembered here and were very happy to see her. We gave Mr Li a gift for the institute and a small personal gift (a Yankees t-shirt). Then Mr Li went back to his office to call Lia's foster mom, who was late.

A few moments later, I looked up and there she was, walking toward us from the gate -- the woman we had seen only in pictures. She smiled, ran up to Lia and gave her a big hug. It was a very emotional moment.

Since we were not allowed into the orphanage, we went back to the hotel where we talked (through our interpreter) for a couple of hours. We learned that Lia's foster mom's name is Wang Tai and that she has fostered several other internationally adopted children -- children who now live in England, the Netherlands and Spain. We gave her a photo album with pictures from before we met Lia (taken by Ms Wang) to the present. We told her about Lia's life, her hobbies and her schoolwork. We asked her questions about what Lia was like before we met her, and expressed our gratitude for the wonderful way she cared for Lia in the first months of her life.

We also had more time to talk to Mr Li, who told us something about how girls are named at the institute. At the beginning of each year, the director chooses a family name from the traditional list of 100 Chinese family names and that name is given to all children who arrive in the institute in that year. For 1999, that name is Chu (褚). Then the staff picks a name that seems appropriate for each child. For Lia, they picked the name Xiuzhi. Xiu (秀）means "beautiful." Zhi （芝）means "sesame." Together, they mean that Lia will be beautiful and will grow in leaps and bounds, like the sesame plant.

Also, we learned that most orphaned children in Guilin are placed with foster families. Only those with health problems or disabilities stay in the institute, and they stay only until they are health.

Finally, we found out how Lia came to be Ms Wang's foster child. Ms Wang had fostered several babies before, and none of them had any hair when they came to her. She had decided that she wanted her next child to have hair. When the institute officials led her into the nursery to pick out a baby to care for, she picked Lia because even at two months she had a nice head of hair.

When we and Ms Wang ran out of questions, we went to the garden and took several pictures. We also got the mailing and email addresses of the institute, so we can send Mr Li and Ms Wang pictures and letters. We shook hands and hugged goodbye. It was a very emotional and very rewarding day.

Beichuan

[Note: I started writing this post on 7/24, the day we visited Beichuan, but didn't finish it until now.]

Today we visited Beichuan, a town that was totally destroyed by the May 12, 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

We are staying in the provincial capital, Chengdu. Although the earthquake was felt strongly there, no buildings collapsed and the number of deaths and injuries was very small.

Beichuan is about three hours to the northeast. The drive took us northeast on an expressway through beautiful lush fields of rice and corn interspersed with patches of melons. No sign of the disaster was visible until we left the expressway and turned toward Beichuan on the local roads.

The first indication we were close to the disaster area was vehicles of all kinds -- from trucks to motorcycle rickshaws -- carrying construction materials: cement, reinforcing rod, brick, stone, wood, tile and more. Construction sites are everywhere. Soon we began passing temporary housing for people displaced by the earthquake. These are long one-story buildings with blue metal roofs, arranged in parallel lines. Many roofs have satellite dishes, and most have a kitchen enclosure at the back covered by red, blue and white plastic sheeting. Each building looks like it houses about 20 families. These buildings replaced the tent villages that the army constructed immediately after the earthquake.

Farther along, we began to see fallen houses. Other houses were spray-painted in red with writing that said "demolish." The road became cracked and rough. We forded a river to avoid a bridge that would not support our bus.

As the road climbed into the mountains, we began to see landslides -- brown gashes in the wooded hillsides. Along the road, collapsed buildings mixed with new homes and shops. We could see rebuilding everywhere. Every few miles, we passed a newly-constructed cement plant making cement for reconstruction.

The road curved along a river that was nearly choked with silt and rocks. Backhoes dug in the riverbed to make a new channel. Across the river, we saw a new village of stone houses built in the traditional style of the Qiang, the minority group who make up most of the area's population. The road continued to climb, and we saw landslides that were wider and higher. At one point, it looked like an entire mountainside had slipped away.

At the end of another small village we came to a wall with a gate guarded by soldiers. The area beyond is closed to all but official visitors. Our group had an invitation visit the area, so the soldiers opened the gate and we drove through.

Just beyond the checkpoint was a white van. Its roof looked like it had been crushed by large boulders. We left the bus and walked about 100 yards down the road, through an area the driver thought was too narrow to drive safely. One of our guides told us the area is very dangerous, because more boulders fall down every time it rains.

The bus made it through the narrow section safely. We got on again and drove for about half a mile down the deserted road, past a faded advertisement for China Mobile of the kind you see everywhere in China. The bus rounded a corner and suddenly the town was in front of us. The bus stopped at a wide switchback and we got out.

Beichuan is, or was, located in a valley with steep mountains on three sides. Now the mountains are scarred by large landslides. The town is divided by a green river, which at one time was crossed by a suspension bridge. All that's left of the bridge is one tower. 20,000 people lived here. Now the town is deserted.

To the left of the river, in the new part of town, several new-looking apartment buildings stand tilted at odd angles. Close to the road, what had been a five story building now looks like a three story building. Landslides obliterated the bottom stories. In between is a pile of unidentifiable rubble and ashes. That is the site of the high school, where over 1,000 students were killed. On the right side of the river was the old town, where most buildings were completely or partially leveled.

Immediately in front of us next to the road was a long box filled with earth, where mourners had placed thousands of incense sticks. The air was full of the fragrance of incense. We left a bunch of white lilies and a string of cranes that the children had folded.

It is impossible to convey the sadness of this place.

Olympic Village, Shopping and Random Thoughts

This morning the group didn't leave the hotel until 10, so Susan and I decided to take a walk. We crossed the 3rd Ring Road (14 lanes of traffic - fortunately there are pedestrian overpasses) and walked a few blocks north to a small park along a river. Men were fishing and one was taking a dip, and several women were doing a kind of exercise I've never seen before - walking backwards along the path and making tai chi-like motions with their hands.

Our main activity this morning was a visit to the Olympic Village, where we got a chance to go inside the Bird's Nest (the main Olympic stadium, where the opening ceremonies and track events were held) and the Water Cube (site of Michael Phelps's amazing victories). Both are just as impressive close up as they looked on TV last year. I promise to post pictures as soon as I can.

This afternoon was shopping in Silk Street, which is no longer a street but a five story building full of vendors selling just about everything. Dinner was at a great Szechuan-style restaurant at the Pacific Department Store. (Yes, somewhere in the world, there still is a good department store restaurant.)

Now some random thoughts...

The girls have formed a group and taken over the back of the bus, where they are making paper cranes as a gift for earthquake survivors in Szechuan. Most of them also sit at their own tables at meals - usually with one or two adults, but clearly they prefer each others' company. I think it's cool that they have made friends so quickly.

Beijing has changed radically since we were here nine years ago. New skyscrapers are everywhere in the central city, and many former hutong residents have moved to outlying areas as a result. The architecture is also much more varied than the glass boxes that dominate new Manhattan construction today.

Traffic in Beijing is a tremendous problem. When we were here in 1994, bicycles vastly outnumbered cars on the roads. In 2000, there were still a lot of bicycles, but mopeds and motor scooters were really catching on. Now the roads are clogged with cars, especially at rush hour. The government is trying to encourage mass transit use by keeping 20% of cars off the roads each day. Traffic jams may be no more hellish than in New York, but the number of cars seems to be orders of magnitude greater.

More tomorrow.

Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City and Duck

This is Susan writing about Monday, July 20. We visited Tiananmen Square, the central square of Beijing, this morning. Our guide, Tony, is very pleasant and entertaining, and very knowledgeable about Chinese history, but no mention was made of the 1989 massacre. Then we crossed the street by means of an underground tunnel to the Forbidden City, home of emperors for several centuries, and containing 9999.5 rooms (of which we saw about 10). My favorite part, though, is the garden at the north end of the complex. The garden contains several trees that are over 300 years old, and some incredible rock formations, which are man made but look natural.

After lunch we visited the hutongs, which are very old dwellings in the heart of Beijing. There are very few of these left. Many were destroyed in the building spree before the 2008 Olympics. Very sad.

Dinner was at a famous restaurant, the Beijing Quanjude Hepingmen Roast Duck Restaurant. We were served duck in at least five different forms, starting with lettuce-wrapped birds' nests containing diced duck, and ending with the classic roast duck, which we wrapped in tortilla-like (but thinner) pancakes with scallions and thick sauce. All fabulous. Apparently many well-known people have eaten at this restaurant, and pictures of some of them are on the walls. These include Richard Nixon, Henry Kissenger, and Seiji Ozawa. The duck ended at dessert, which was a birthday cake for Bob and another member of the group. Surprisingly, the cake was western-style, and was very competitive with the best birthday cakes I've eaten in the United States.

The Chinese are extremely worried about the possible transmission of the H1N1 flu from visitors to their people. So we were scanned by infrared cameras at the airport, and are required to monitor our body temperatures daily. However, I have noticed that at meals, dishes meant to be shared often arrive at our tables without serving utensils, necessitating that we serve ourselves with chopsticks that may have already been in our mouths. Strange.

Temple of Heaven

Yesterday (Sunday) morning, we visited the Temple of Heaven. I'll try to post a few pictures later today.

The TofH is located in a park on the southern edge of imperial Beijing. I hadn't known that with its grounds, it is over three times the size of the Forbidden City.

I'll leave it to Wikipedia to describe the buildings and history, and tell you about some unexpected things we saw:

• Older men and a few boys doing calligraphy on the paving stones with long brushes and buckets of water. According to our guide, it's excellent for maintaining flexibility.
• Women hitting a shuttlecock back and forth with their feet (badminton with no rackets and no net).
• Ballroom dancing and t'ai-chi (actually not a surprise to us, since these are common forms of exercise in Chinese parks).
• Musicians performing covers of Taiwanese pop songs and attracting large crowds of all ages.
  
• Musicians performing songs from Peking opera and attracting small groups of retireees.

The buildings were extensively restored prior to the Olympics. The difference is so striking that it's obvious when you compare pictures from a few years ago with the pictures we took yesterday.

Photos!

I've posted some photos of our trip so far at http://www.flickr.com/photos/92614967@N00/.

First Group Dinner

Last night was our first chance to meet members of our tour group, at a dinner a few blocks away from our hotel. The food was excellent and not, as we feared, too "westernized." We sat with a family from Toronto and one of our guides from the OCEA, a young man who grew up in one of the southern provinces, attended university in Guangdong and now lives in Beijing. Part of his job is traveling to the US and providing materials to schools on Chinese language and culture. We had an interesting talk about dual-language schools, US politics, regional cuisines and the ancestral homes of China's current leaders, among other things.

After dinner, we collected our "goodie bags" - two T shirts and a hat each, plus backpacks, pins, books and a few other things. Tomorrow we're all to wear our yellow shirts to the Temple of Heaven.

The Egg

Today is the only day in the next two weeks that we are totally free. We took advantage of it to see one of the sights the tour won't visit, the National Centre for the Performing Arts, also known as the Egg. It's one of the most striking new buildings in Beijing - silver in color and looking like it is floating in the water that surrounds it. You reach it by walking through a glass-roofed promenade that tunnels under the water. Inside are a beautiful opera house, a concert hall and multiple other halls and exhibit spaces. It's also very comfortably air conditioned, which was attractive today since the temperature was almost 90.

Later, we decided to stop by Sanlitun Road for shopping. Our taxi driver, although very nice, got completely lost and finally dropped us off near the Workers' Stadium. Fortunately there was a restaurant and while out of the sun, we figured out our destination was a short walk away.

Sanlitun Road is not the Silk Market - it's a mix of upscale US, Japanese and European stores with some oddball ones as well (have you ever seen a BMW dealer that sells both cars and "BMW-inspired" clothing?). The girls cooled off in a fountain before we stopped at Uniqlo to buy our daughters parasols and me a cool Pac-Man t shirt.

We've already met two families from our tour, and will meet the rest at dinner tonight.

Pictures coming soon!

We've in Beijing

5 pm Friday in Beijing, 5 am Friday in New York, and we're settling into our hotel (the Great Wall Sheraton, located nowhere near the Great Wall but just off the Third Ring Road).

Some notes on our trip so far...

As I mentioned in my last post, the flight was a lot shorter than on our last trip to China (2000), since Continental and several other airlines now take a great circle route. The flying time is just over 13 hours. It sounds long until you consider the alternative -- last time, with stops in Anchorage and Seoul, the same trip took almost a full day. Our plane, a Boeing 777, had individual video screens at each seat with hundreds of movies and TV shows to watch and games to play on demand. Between that, eating and sleeping (I actually managed four or so hours), it didn't seem that long -- I barely started the books I brought along. I'm now a Continental fan.

We were almost delayed 45 minutes in Newark -- the president was flying where our plane had planned to go so the airspace was closed, but our pilot found an alternate route.

In Newark, there was heavy security (bomb sniffing dogs in the terminal and a phalanx of TSA officers on the jetway). I didn't understand until I saw in the China Daily that Al-Qaida has threatened to attach overseas Chinese in retaliation for the unrest in Xinjiang. In Beijing, there was heavy security of a different kind. Because health authorities here are really worried about swine flu, everyone had to complete a health questionnaire and walk past a bank of infrared cameras that presumably were looking for anyone with a fever. The health officials and immigration inspectors all were wearing surgical masks.

We were met by Tony, our guide for the next two weeks, and took a van with another family to our hotel. The girls have one room, and we have another a few doors away. Nothing special to do until tomorrow night, so we have some time to adjust to the time change. I'm trying to keep myself awake until normal bedtime tonight -- so far, so good.

More tomorrow.

Introduction

For those who don't know us, we are the Crayne-Dedrick family: Susan Crayne, Bob Dedrick (who's writing this), and daughters Sara (16) and Lia (9). We live in Hartsdale, NY, in Westchester County about 45 minutes north of the city. Susan is an independent computer consultant, and I'm a software engineer in the telecommunications industry. Sara is a high school junior and Lia is in 5th grade.

In 1994 and 2000, we had the good fortune to adopt our wonderful daughters in China. Now, we are going back (the third time for Sara, but only the first for Lia) to visit the country of their birth. This will be the journal of our trip.

We're going on a tour sponsored by Families with Children from China, an international organization of families formed through Chinese adoption, and the China Overseas Exchange Association. In addition to the usual we'll be visiting the cities where Sara and Lia were born.

We're leaving for Beijing in an hour.

This time, instead of flying across Canada and the northern Pacific with a stop in Anchorage, we're flying direct from Newark Liberty International to Beijing - 13 hours over Canada, close to the North Pole, then across Siberia and Mongolia (I think).

We're through all the lines and waiting at the gate. On to China!