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.