July 2003

Yue Yang & He Fei

We had no trouble finding contributors for the Summer’s Yueyang and Hefei trip reports (as usual, reports are obligatory for school age children

Linda & Claude Coulombe

travelled in July. They brought home 11 month Camie Lin. Camie Lin left instructions for the nanny the day that Linda & Claude visited the Great Wall.

Dear Nanny,

My name is Camie Lin and it sounds little bit like Yulin but it’s like « Kami » « Lin ». I am 11 months old and I am a very good girl. I rarely cry. I sometime cry when you change my diaper, but if you give me a toy I am usually alright.

I know my parents love me and if they leave me here today it’s because I need my rest and they need a little break from me.

I already ate my breakfast but I like a little snack before my morning nap around 09:30-10:00. For snacks I eat cheerios, small cookies and apple sauce or juice. I usually sleep until noon. Then, I sit on my parents’ bed with my toys and I play for a while until lunch is ready. I eat lunch around 13:00 hrs. I usually have a warm bottle of milk and then I eat my cereals. For dessert, I like apple or other fruit sauce. I then go to bed again around 14:00 hrs. and I sleep until about 16:00-16:30 hrs. I snack again with cheerios and cookies. I drink orange, apple or my favorite, peach juice. This holds me until supper time around 18:00 hrs. I hope my parents will be back before then to have supper with me.

Sorry nanny, but I don’t understand much Chinese or English because I am just a baby and I just started to learn French. However, I am very easy to get along with.

Thank You,

Camie Lin Qiu Rong Coulombe

Mimi (5) travelled with her parents, Rodger and Mellissa McKinley to adopt her sister, Chloe.

This is Mimi’s depiction of the family at supper in an upscale Beijing restaurant.

Abigail Tait's Story

Abigail Tait travelled with her mother Diane to meet her sister Charlotte. Abigail was adopted from China 5 years earlier in the Spring of 1998.

My name is Abigail. I am 6 years old. In July my Mom and I travelled to China to pick up my baby sister Charlotte. My favourite part of the trip was the day we got Charlotte. I cried because she was so cute.

I love her spiked hair and I call her “Chubby Cheeks”. I really liked the Beijing hotel.It was like a castle. I didn’t like the hotness in China or the stinky squat toilets.

Mimi was my best friend. We played volleyball on the bed in the hotel room and we both wanted to buy all the dresses after the fashion show at the silk factory. It was especially fun when Qiu’s Dad (Jeff) let me ride on his shoulders when we went to the summer palace and when he took me out to hear the music and see the dancing in the street in the evening.

All the babies were cute, especially Chloe, Mimi’s sister, and it was fun to play with them all. Thank you Yulin for helping us to get my baby sister Charlotte. I love my sister Charlotte.

Abigail

Adopting in the Aftermath of SARS

Tim Sargent & Anik Lacroix travelled in mid-July to Yueyang in order to adopt Noemi as part of a group of 12 families. Two of the families were adopting through a special program (“Waiting Child”) – they travelled to other provinces.

July 11, 2003: a great day, long expected. Twelve families were finally on their way to China to adopt their daughters after two months of nerve wrecking delays owing to the SARS crisis. We were the unlucky ones who saw the door of adoption close on us mid-May just as we were getting ready to go to China. We had all received our proposals early April so it was quite a blow to have to wait, not knowing how long it would take. But our story has a happy ending. The travel restrictions were finally lifted 6 weeks later and we had only two weeks to get ready. Thanks to Yulin’s great gift for planning, she was able to get us on what must have been the first flight to China for adopting families from Canada.

After so many anxious months of waiting and of roller coaster mood swings, it was difficult to believe that we would get our children. So, on Friday, July 11, twelve families met at Vancouver Airport. Some of us had arrived in Vancouver a few days earlier to take advantage of the great beauty of Vancouver in the sun and we were feeling very rested. We were particularly lucky that ten of the families were adopting from the same orphanage, the Yueyang Social Welfare House in Hunan province. Two other families were adopting two and three years old girls from Anhui and Mao Ming. We were also lucky to have three big sisters on the trip, Mimi - traveling with her Mom and Dad to get her sister Chloe, and Abigail and Quinn – traveling with their moms to get their sisters, Charlotte and Reese. In fact, what was particularly reassuring in this trip was that most families already had other children and several were going for a second time to adopt from China. We were all coming from different provinces, New Brunswick, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

After a bumpy flight due to some turbulence, we landed in the heat of Shanghai in the later afternoon and headed for our hotel, where we had a chance to rest a bit before going out for a quick bite and a night tour of the city and a promenade along the Bund, the old business district. We felt a bit like zombies, what with the jet lag but no matter, it was well worth seeing. Then it was time to go back to try to have a good night’s sleep in order to be fresh and ready early next morning to travel to meet our children.

On Sunday, July 13, 10 families flew to Changsha, Hunan to meet their babies from Yueyang while two other families went their separate ways to meet their daughters (Julie and her daughter Quinn actually had to fly to Anhui in the middle of severe floods). After a two hours flight, the families going to Changsha arrived there in the early afternoon, in what seemed like a sauna. We had a bit of time to unpack (and to get sentimental over the crib already installed in our hotel room) and get ready before going to the conference room of the hotel to fill numerous administrative forms while waiting for our children. You could fill the increasing excitement and tension in the room… Finally, at five o’clock, right on time, the babies arrived. We could hear their cries and chattering. Yulin named the girls one after the other and every mother in turn would rush to meet her daughter while Daddy or another member of the family would videotape. Noémi, my daughter was the first one to come. I can only speak for myself but the funny thing was that I did not cry, I just felt that I had to take action and make this baby happy. Some of us were crying. Then some of the babies started to cry and very quickly we had a general pandemonium going on. Many of the mothers rushed to their bedroom to calm down their child while some daddies would stay and speak with the director of the orphanage to get information on the feeding, sleeping and other habits of their daughters. Finally, we had made it; we were reunited with our daughters. Incredible! And what a relief!

All babies seemed very healthy, apart from the occasional cold, and very alert. It was obvious that they had been well cared for. It was amazing to see how quickly the babies bonded with their parents. After two days, they recognised their parents and did not want to let go of them.

After a morning at the provincial adoption office, the next four days in Changsha were spent touring park, embroidery museum and university with our happy guide Smiles (that is how he called himself), shopping and of course discovering our daughters and enjoying all their smiles, chatting and movements. It was great to see how interested the babies were to follow on our various excursions even with the heat. It was around 37 degrees and the city was a huge construction site. However, sometimes we managed to get a bit of quiet and refreshing time, as was the case when we listened to a beautiful concert of ancient Chinese music at the

University of Changsha, one of the oldest ones in China, a very serene place to be.

Another great activity in Changsha was eating. Yulin had found an excellent restaurant near the hotel, located in a hotel for naval officers. There the food was wonderful not only for us but also for the babies. Yulin always made sure that we had steamed eggs for them as it seemed to be their favourite dish… The waitresses over there were wild about our daughters, of course. We also had the possibility of buying very good dishes at the food court located in a nearby shopping mall. Incredible how cheap it was.

After four days in Changsha we flew to Beijing. The flight was full and late so we arrived at 11 at night, to be welcomed by Yulin’s brother, sister and niece, who were all so helpful in making sure everything went smoothly. We were so tired but the babies less so than the parents! However our new quarters, at the Presidential Plaza Hotel, were gorgeous and so comfortable that we managed to get some rest. The next morning we met with the other two families from our group at breakfast, such a lavish affair. We had three days in front of us to enjoy ourselves as tourists before the babies’ medical check up.

Yulin, and Fay, our wonderful guide, kept us busy by making us discover all the wonderful sites in and around Beijing. Although Beijing was cooler than in Changsha, it felt worse because there was so much more humidity and pollution in Beijing. The first day was spent at the zoo (the pandas were fast asleep) and at the Summer Palace, where at last a breeze around the lake made the outing very pleasant. The second day we were extremely fortunate to have a clear day to go to the Great Wall at Badaling. Most people decided to attempt the walk with their children instead of using a baby sitter. It was really worth it. Although it was very hot the girls seemed to bear it better than we did. The view was spectacular and so clear! We also managed to visit Tiannamen Square and the Forbidden City, another amazing site, the next day. What was also very impressive though was the attention we received from the Chinese people there. We were definitely a show. Everybody wanted to touch our babies, practise their English or have their photo taken with us. The Chinese seemed so happy to see us with the girls. We were among the very few foreigners in China at that moment. I think during the whole trip we saw fewer than 20 foreigners and most of them were also adopting. SARS had definitely had an impact on tourism.

Fay was really great as a guide and historian. She also helped us organise shopping and food expeditions, along with Yulin. Shopping! There is so much to tell about it. Let’s just say that everybody felt that they would be happy to spend many days and a lot of money (although things were cheap) at the Indoor Market or Silk Alley…as long as it did not involve too much bargaining. I noticed that most men were quite happy to let the women negotiate prices and to look after the children during that time. It was also fun to see jade, silk and cloisonné factories.

One night, many of us went to see an exhibition of Chinese acrobatics, and were amazed at the skill shown by the acrobats, some of whom were reported to be as young as 5 years old. There would also be a lot to tell about food in Beijing. Everywhere Yulin and Fay took us, it was so delicious and such a bargain (e.g. amazing dumplings at the food court near the hotel for 5 Yuan [C$1] for 15).

The whole trip went like a blur. Everything went so smoothly thanks to the many efforts of Yulin, her family and our guides. Indeed we were so grateful for Yulin for planning our trip in such difficult conditions because of SARS, and for succeeding to take us to China as soon as the travel restrictions were lifted that we gave her a silk duvet and flowers to thank her for all her efforts and for being our fairy godmother.

The trip back was very long. Due to SARS there was no direct flight from Beijing so we had to fly via Tokyo. But although we had to take 4 or 5 flights and wait in Tokyo Airport for several hours, the babies seemed to behave quite well and to have become good little travellers! Then, suddenly it was Vancouver and after our daughters became permanent residents it was time to say goodbye. It was a bit sad to leave everybody behind. We have shared so much together in the last few months, anxiety, hope and finally excitement and fulfillment that we can feel a very special bond between us. In China it felt as if we were in some kind of bubble and I know we all miss it, its people, its culture, the amazing contrast between old and new…Let’s hope we will go back soon.

Anik Lacroix