Journal - 09/20/2000

JOURNAL FOR 09/20/00

adoption site | contacting me by e-mail | Jiangmen main journal page | home page | Meredith's page

<== Last episode, our hero...
In our next thrilling adventure ==>

(09/20/00)
Jim: Early in the morning after breakfast, we went out to roam around in Shamian and to go over to the Free Market, also known as the Qingping afterthe main street it runs on. Here's a good rundown of what we did.

We strolled around Shamian Island for a while that morning. Over 160 years ago, this was the only part of China open to foreign traders; the place was a warehouse center for the Hongs that controlled the trade from the Chinese end. Now, it's a quiet, parklike area heavy with Western influence. The White Swan hotel is the center of this; it holds the US Consulate on its grounds that all Chinese immigrants or visa-seekers must get past to get into the USA. It also is the top hotel in town, and the various stores in the area cater to Westerners, especially the heavy numbers of adopting parents who have to go through the Consulate to get their baby's visa and 'green card' into the USA. In our case, we will be here for the entirety of our visit, as we are adopting a little girl from a town two hours southwest of her called Jiangmen. Which means all of the Chinese end of the paperwork is done in the provincial capital city - Guangzhou.

We passed a number of the cater-to-adoptive-parents shops - the Shop on the Stairs, Jennifer's Place, Sherry's Place, etc. In the China-adoption-oriented listservs that we are in, these name are of almost mythical nature - places in the exotic Orient, et cetera.

Well, they're not all that exotic when you get in there. They sell the same stuff - knicknacks, some very 'old Chinese' clothes for kids and grownups, chops, granite carvings from Photos, et cetera. My suggestion is not to jump at the first thing, and look 'em all over, taking notes, and shop in comparison for prices. Some stuff looks a little better in shop a than b, but you have to be careful, as there's some obvious fakes in there - fake old coins, for instance, that I spotted right away. Of course, we have lots of time to comparison shop because our entire trip will be spent in Guangzhou. However, the shops are all close together and it shouldn't be too hard to do a quick run through before you spend money.

After our quick case of the area, we decided to find something to eat. We found our self at the Kiu Mei Restuarant. When you first walk in, there is a seafood/meat counter where you may pick your meal. Lobsters two feet long, crabs of all sorts, fish, frogs, snakes, squid, shell fish, beetles, meal worms, etc...

Susan: The lunch menu didn't have much on it that I could eat and not much that Jim would eat. I don't eat fish because I'm allergic to some and just plain don't like most of it. Jim is a much more adventurous eater, but even he balked at fried insect. We didn't want to be rude and leave so we ordered rice dish and steamed veggies. It was very good. No doubt the rest of the menu was good, but ...

Then we went to Qingping market. What an experience. We taped the entire thing. Just left the camera running. Our friend Jean didn't get to go to Qingping when when she and her family were here in April to adopt their youngest, Erin, and wanted us to video it for her. It was amazing, interesting, gross, disgusting and scarey all at the same time. We were glad that we went before we got Meredith. I would not have wanted to take her. It was crowded and the streets were slimey. I wouldn't want to have carried her all that way and a stroller would have made me feel uncomfortable. Shasha was suggesting that only one person in the family go on the field trip that she was planning and one person stay at the hotel with the baby. After going, I agree. Here are photo's from the trip.

Jim: I don't remember the last time I felt quite so physically scared by other people. The stuff that was being sold in the most crowded areas was in the most unsanitary manner you can imagine - flies covering meat, garbage and rot everywhere, the smell would make you ill, and the tons of live animals were obviously kept in horrible conditions. We didn't see any dogs, but we saw cats and kittens intended for roast cat, and a ton of snakes, frogs, turtles, all kinds of fowl, scorpions, fish - you name it.

Ther worst thing were the people; their reaction to us was scary. Some were annoyed. Most were surprised and amused in an ugly way at us, with an undercurrent of anger and fear. Think of being dressed up as a circus clown and strolling down the street of the worst neighborhood you can think of, with people jeering and gang types glaring and making crude fun of you as you walk by, with a steady background of menace. You begin to get an idea from that as to how we felt, with people making all sorts of comments in Cantonese, mostly mocking and nasty, all unfirendly. It was an interesting trip - once. You couldn't pay us enough to go back there.

In the middle of all of this, however, a woman came up to us with a set of wall maps in Chinese- one of the world and the other of China. She offered them to us for $5 for the set; they were the laminated sort , rolled up, that you'd see in a classroom. Why she went to me, the map freak, with 'em, I dunno. But we took them and went on.

Susan: Since we didn't have much for lunch, we went to the "small restaurant" next to the White Swan and had an cheap meal (but good) and entertained (and were entertained by) the wait staff. While we were waiting for the food, we'd turned on the camcorder to view the footage that we'd just taken. We'd had about 7 of the restaurant staff watching over our shoulder. The real fun started when I started filming them and showing it back. Jim's got a picture of that. Then as we left, I went over to the 7-11 across the street to get some snacks and bottled water (we knew that we'd not want to leave the room that night). Jim spied the owner working on a computer and abacus. It was such an oxymoron that he took a picture with the digital camera (that will allow you to preview the picture you just took). More fun. The owner then turned the tables on Jim and took his picture by the computer (with the digital camera). According to Karen, that restaurant is the best, most inexpensive place to eat. And we can get a bowl of congee (rice ceral) for Meredith for 2 yuan (about 24 cents). We paid $6 for 2 plates of noodles and beef and 4 cokes. Good food too. At some point, we will take the disposable Polaroid camera and give a picture to the staff`.

Jim: The pictures from this are found here. This was a welcome bit of relief after Qingping, especially considering that it was thunderously hot out. So far, it's been universally steamy-hot day and night, and you sweat yourself to death going anywhere, especially since the bulk of places are either outdoors or poorly air-conditioned. In China, air-conditioning is not on any kind of standard, and many places only have fans, if anything.

And Susan is quite correct: the Small Restaurant is well recommended as good cheap eats with decent service by both of us.

Susan: At this point it's about 4 pm and we get back to the hotel and make sure we are ready for Meredith, send some email and wait. At 5:45 Shasha calls and says the baby is here, please come to the reception area on the 1st floor. So we gather our camera and head down. We first see Meredith being held by the orphanage staff in the lobby outside the reception area. Shasha herds us to the large meeting room where they hand me the baby.

She is perfect. She doesn't cry, just looks very doubtful. She doesn't react to much of anything, just stares at us. I try to engage her with a small toy that I brought with, but doesn't seem too interested. The orphanage nurse is talking to Meredith and telling her that we are Mommy & Daddy using a mix of English and Cantonese language. At this point, I hand her to Jim. She still doesn't cry and just takes everything in. (The picture to the left was taken the next day at the MCA, but it shows Susan, a hot, sleepy Meredith, the assistant director at Jiangmen SWI and one of the nannies.)

Shasha tells us to enjoy the baby, she will be right back. She's also coordinating the delivery of the other 2-3 babies from another orphanage. The orphanage staff hangs back and lets us check out the baby. We are absolutely in love by this point. Shasha comes back and we sit with the orphanage staff and give them some photo's that were given to us by some families in the States who also adopted from Jiangmen. They were a big hit. The staff from Jiangmen really enjoyed them. Then they asked us if we were happy with the baby and if we wanted to keep her. We told them that she was beautiful and perfect and that we are very happy with her. We then asked some questions about her life at the orphanage and the staff left. During all this, the other babies arrived and it was very noisy. Barbara Rapaport's daughter is older than the other babies and did not want to leave the orphanage staff and cried and fussed and thrashed about. I wasn't paying much attention, but Meredith watched it all with great interest (and doubt).

Jim: The questions we asked the orphanage people got very general answers. They said that Meredith loved to be held, was most upset by not being promptly fed or by strangers, and not much more (aside of giving us a bag of the local formula and a list of her feeding schedule). Meredith was not causing any problems; she was mostly sleepy and annoyed at being handed over.

Because of the odd awkwardness of it all (we had been told we'd get the baby upstairs, then it was changed at the last minute)we didn't get direct shots of the handover - some video tape of the questions of the staff was taken, but the huge amount of noise from the other parents and babies didn't make things easy to follow. And no, nobody cried.

Susan: Then some of the other families who had gotten there babies earlier that day popped in and we let the babies play together. Meredith wasn't too interested and hung back and watched. The other babies (they were a little older - 13 months) were all over the place - crawling and playing together. One of them approached Meredith and eventually pushed her over. She started to cry and I picked her up and she instantly quit.

She's a very good baby. She was tired and we were getting big yawns, so we took her up to our room. We called home and talked briefly to the Grandmas & Aunties back home, and changed the baby's diaper. I made a bottle for her, but she wasn't interested. Jim took some pictures and uploaded them to the web site while I played with the baby. Rubbed her back and stomach and just touched her all over. She laid so still and enjoyed it. At one point, I was lightly rubbing her belly and it must have tickled because I got the slightest of smiles. I just kept playing and soon I was getting big grins (she has 4 teeth on top and 2 on bottom) and even giggles. She loves it if you play with her feet.

Jim ordered us room service and Meredith decided to play with the stacking cups. They are a big hit. She does "blah a lot to herself" as the orphanage report stated. She seemed happy and content. After dinner, she crawled into my lap and settled in. She was asleep in no time. She sucks her thumb. I put her in the crib and she slept all night. She stirred a couple of times and I patted her on the back and told I was there. And she went right to sleep. What a good baby.

JOURNAL FOR 09/20/00
adoption site \| contacting me by e-mail \| Jiangmen	main journal page \| home page \| Meredith's page
<== Last episode, our hero...	In our next thrilling adventure ==>
(09/20/00) Jim: Early in the morning after breakfast, we went out to roam around in Shamian and to go over to the Free Market, also known as the Qingping afterthe main street it runs on. Here's a good rundown of what we did. We strolled around Shamian Island for a while that morning. Over 160 years ago, this was the only part of China open to foreign traders; the place was a warehouse center for the Hongs that controlled the trade from the Chinese end. Now, it's a quiet, parklike area heavy with Western influence. The White Swan hotel is the center of this; it holds the US Consulate on its grounds that all Chinese immigrants or visa-seekers must get past to get into the USA. It also is the top hotel in town, and the various stores in the area cater to Westerners, especially the heavy numbers of adopting parents who have to go through the Consulate to get their baby's visa and 'green card' into the USA. In our case, we will be here for the entirety of our visit, as we are adopting a little girl from a town two hours southwest of her called Jiangmen. Which means all of the Chinese end of the paperwork is done in the provincial capital city - Guangzhou. We passed a number of the cater-to-adoptive-parents shops - the Shop on the Stairs, Jennifer's Place, Sherry's Place, etc. In the China-adoption-oriented listservs that we are in, these name are of almost mythical nature - places in the exotic Orient, et cetera. Well, they're not all that exotic when you get in there. They sell the same stuff - knicknacks, some very 'old Chinese' clothes for kids and grownups, chops, granite carvings from Photos, et cetera. My suggestion is not to jump at the first thing, and look 'em all over, taking notes, and shop in comparison for prices. Some stuff looks a little better in shop a than b, but you have to be careful, as there's some obvious fakes in there - fake old coins, for instance, that I spotted right away. Of course, we have lots of time to comparison shop because our entire trip will be spent in Guangzhou. However, the shops are all close together and it shouldn't be too hard to do a quick run through before you spend money. After our quick case of the area, we decided to find something to eat. We found our self at the Kiu Mei Restuarant. When you first walk in, there is a seafood/meat counter where you may pick your meal. Lobsters two feet long, crabs of all sorts, fish, frogs, snakes, squid, shell fish, beetles, meal worms, etc... Susan: The lunch menu didn't have much on it that I could eat and not much that Jim would eat. I don't eat fish because I'm allergic to some and just plain don't like most of it. Jim is a much more adventurous eater, but even he balked at fried insect. We didn't want to be rude and leave so we ordered rice dish and steamed veggies. It was very good. No doubt the rest of the menu was good, but ... Then we went to Qingping market. What an experience. We taped the entire thing. Just left the camera running. Our friend Jean didn't get to go to Qingping when when she and her family were here in April to adopt their youngest, Erin, and wanted us to video it for her. It was amazing, interesting, gross, disgusting and scarey all at the same time. We were glad that we went before we got Meredith. I would not have wanted to take her. It was crowded and the streets were slimey. I wouldn't want to have carried her all that way and a stroller would have made me feel uncomfortable. Shasha was suggesting that only one person in the family go on the field trip that she was planning and one person stay at the hotel with the baby. After going, I agree. Here are photo's from the trip. Jim: I don't remember the last time I felt quite so physically scared by other people. The stuff that was being sold in the most crowded areas was in the most unsanitary manner you can imagine - flies covering meat, garbage and rot everywhere, the smell would make you ill, and the tons of live animals were obviously kept in horrible conditions. We didn't see any dogs, but we saw cats and kittens intended for roast cat, and a ton of snakes, frogs, turtles, all kinds of fowl, scorpions, fish - you name it. Ther worst thing were the people; their reaction to us was scary. Some were annoyed. Most were surprised and amused in an ugly way at us, with an undercurrent of anger and fear. Think of being dressed up as a circus clown and strolling down the street of the worst neighborhood you can think of, with people jeering and gang types glaring and making crude fun of you as you walk by, with a steady background of menace. You begin to get an idea from that as to how we felt, with people making all sorts of comments in Cantonese, mostly mocking and nasty, all unfirendly. It was an interesting trip - once. You couldn't pay us enough to go back there. In the middle of all of this, however, a woman came up to us with a set of wall maps in Chinese- one of the world and the other of China. She offered them to us for $5 for the set; they were the laminated sort , rolled up, that you'd see in a classroom. Why she went to me, the map freak, with 'em, I dunno. But we took them and went on. Susan: Since we didn't have much for lunch, we went to the "small restaurant" next to the White Swan and had an cheap meal (but good) and entertained (and were entertained by) the wait staff. While we were waiting for the food, we'd turned on the camcorder to view the footage that we'd just taken. We'd had about 7 of the restaurant staff watching over our shoulder. The real fun started when I started filming them and showing it back. Jim's got a picture of that. Then as we left, I went over to the 7-11 across the street to get some snacks and bottled water (we knew that we'd not want to leave the room that night). Jim spied the owner working on a computer and abacus. It was such an oxymoron that he took a picture with the digital camera (that will allow you to preview the picture you just took). More fun. The owner then turned the tables on Jim and took his picture by the computer (with the digital camera). According to Karen, that restaurant is the best, most inexpensive place to eat. And we can get a bowl of congee (rice ceral) for Meredith for 2 yuan (about 24 cents). We paid $6 for 2 plates of noodles and beef and 4 cokes. Good food too. At some point, we will take the disposable Polaroid camera and give a picture to the staff`. Jim: The pictures from this are found here. This was a welcome bit of relief after Qingping, especially considering that it was thunderously hot out. So far, it's been universally steamy-hot day and night, and you sweat yourself to death going anywhere, especially since the bulk of places are either outdoors or poorly air-conditioned. In China, air-conditioning is not on any kind of standard, and many places only have fans, if anything. And Susan is quite correct: the Small Restaurant is well recommended as good cheap eats with decent service by both of us. Susan: At this point it's about 4 pm and we get back to the hotel and make sure we are ready for Meredith, send some email and wait. At 5:45 Shasha calls and says the baby is here, please come to the reception area on the 1st floor. So we gather our camera and head down. We first see Meredith being held by the orphanage staff in the lobby outside the reception area. Shasha herds us to the large meeting room where they hand me the baby. She is perfect. She doesn't cry, just looks very doubtful. She doesn't react to much of anything, just stares at us. I try to engage her with a small toy that I brought with, but doesn't seem too interested. The orphanage nurse is talking to Meredith and telling her that we are Mommy & Daddy using a mix of English and Cantonese language. At this point, I hand her to Jim. She still doesn't cry and just takes everything in. (The picture to the left was taken the next day at the MCA, but it shows Susan, a hot, sleepy Meredith, the assistant director at Jiangmen SWI and one of the nannies.) Shasha tells us to enjoy the baby, she will be right back. She's also coordinating the delivery of the other 2-3 babies from another orphanage. The orphanage staff hangs back and lets us check out the baby. We are absolutely in love by this point. Shasha comes back and we sit with the orphanage staff and give them some photo's that were given to us by some families in the States who also adopted from Jiangmen. They were a big hit. The staff from Jiangmen really enjoyed them. Then they asked us if we were happy with the baby and if we wanted to keep her. We told them that she was beautiful and perfect and that we are very happy with her. We then asked some questions about her life at the orphanage and the staff left. During all this, the other babies arrived and it was very noisy. Barbara Rapaport's daughter is older than the other babies and did not want to leave the orphanage staff and cried and fussed and thrashed about. I wasn't paying much attention, but Meredith watched it all with great interest (and doubt). Jim: The questions we asked the orphanage people got very general answers. They said that Meredith loved to be held, was most upset by not being promptly fed or by strangers, and not much more (aside of giving us a bag of the local formula and a list of her feeding schedule). Meredith was not causing any problems; she was mostly sleepy and annoyed at being handed over. Because of the odd awkwardness of it all (we had been told we'd get the baby upstairs, then it was changed at the last minute)we didn't get direct shots of the handover - some video tape of the questions of the staff was taken, but the huge amount of noise from the other parents and babies didn't make things easy to follow. And no, nobody cried. Susan: Then some of the other families who had gotten there babies earlier that day popped in and we let the babies play together. Meredith wasn't too interested and hung back and watched. The other babies (they were a little older - 13 months) were all over the place - crawling and playing together. One of them approached Meredith and eventually pushed her over. She started to cry and I picked her up and she instantly quit. She's a very good baby. She was tired and we were getting big yawns, so we took her up to our room. We called home and talked briefly to the Grandmas & Aunties back home, and changed the baby's diaper. I made a bottle for her, but she wasn't interested. Jim took some pictures and uploaded them to the web site while I played with the baby. Rubbed her back and stomach and just touched her all over. She laid so still and enjoyed it. At one point, I was lightly rubbing her belly and it must have tickled because I got the slightest of smiles. I just kept playing and soon I was getting big grins (she has 4 teeth on top and 2 on bottom) and even giggles. She loves it if you play with her feet. Jim ordered us room service and Meredith decided to play with the stacking cups. They are a big hit. She does "blah a lot to herself" as the orphanage report stated. She seemed happy and content. After dinner, she crawled into my lap and settled in. She was asleep in no time. She sucks her thumb. I put her in the crib and she slept all night. She stirred a couple of times and I patted her on the back and told I was there. And she went right to sleep. What a good baby.