Monday 11/18/2002

Our room on the 30th floor of the Dolton Hotel affords us with an amazing view of Changsha! The large, bowed window is fronted by a deep wooden platform which provides a great place to sit and watch the activity on the city streets far below. I'm surprised to find that the window can be opened all the way, even though we're 30 floors up! A forest of tall buildings, as tall as ours or taller, spreads out in all directions as far as I can see through the thick haze which hangs over the city. Hope is sleeping soundly, but at 7:30 we have to wake her so we can go to breakfast.

And to think we raved about the breakfast buffet at the Jinglun Hotel in Beijing. The Dolton’s buffet has everything from eggs and omelets cooked to order with toast and bacon, to lotus root dumplings (tastes a lot like sweet potato) and mad carp on a stick. I never did find out why the carp was mad, but I assume that it must have something to do with the stick (actually mad carp on a stick is very tasty fish sausage served on a wooden skewer). And of course, no buffet here would be complete without an huge serving bowl of delicious fried rice.

Our group is seated together in the same section of the dining room and everyone is showing off their new babies and swapping tales of the previous night’s adventures. Hope devours another bottle of formula with rice cereal but is stumped by the Cheerios we give her. She knows that they're food and puts one in her mouth, but without any teeth she really can't do much with it. She does much better with the congee (a creamy rice porridge which is very bland and seems to be quite popular in China) and scrambled eggs that we share with her from the buffet.

After breakfast it’s back on the bus to go to the Hunan Civil Affairs Office. Chinese adoptions are processed at the provincial level, so all Hunan adoptions are handled here in Changsha, which is the capital of the Hunan province. It's a 20 minute drive from the Dolton hotel to the Civil Affairs Office, which occupies the 6th floor of what appears to be a recycled hotel building. After a long wait for the elevator in the dingy lobby, we finally reach the 6th floor and are ushered into a surpirsingly nice waiting room. The next two hours pass quickly as we move from office to office signing forms, paying fees, and finally having our pictures taken with our new babies. All of the Civil Affairs employees are pleasant and efficient and it’s a surprisingly painless brush with bureauocracy. Upon clearing the last station at the Civil Affairs Office we have officially adopted our daughters from the Chinese government! The next step is to get Chinese passports so the girls can travel within China, and then U.S. visas so they can return home with us.

All of the fees which are paid during our visit to the Civil Affairs Office are paid in cash - American money, big bills. Before leaving home I had cynically assumed that the reason for cash was that the “fees” were really “bribes”. I am pleasantly surprised to find that the money is carefully counted into cash boxes and entered into ledger books. We are given a receipt for every cent that we pay. I still don’t know why the money needed to be paid in cash (perhaps it’s simply a lack of the infrastructure to handle checks or electronic transfers), but I’m now convinced that everything is on the up and up. It's certainly a relief to not have to carry all of that cash around anymore.

Back on the bus we notice a small boy and his mother on the balcony of an apartment building adjacent to the Civil Affairs Office. It’s one of the countless rundown apartments buildings that we’ve seen in Changsha and Beijing. Laundry hangs from rusted railings and the place has a look of long-term neglect - back home we’d definitely call this building a tenement. The boy is no more than 4 or 5 and has a little round face that reminds me the portrait of Chairman Mao hanging in Tiananmen Square. He’s obviously quite interested in this busload of Americans that’s parked right outside of his back door. After watching us for a bit he waves shyly, and the whole bus waves back. He tries a bigger wave and, to his obvious delight, we all wave back again. His mother leans over and whispers something to him; he blows us a big kiss! We all blow kisses back and he stands there on the balcony waving and laughing.

On the way back to the hotel we stop in a small grocery store for supplies. Along with water, Cokes, and baby bottles I buy an assortment of Chinese snacks including Chocolate Funnies and Lonely God Potato Curls. I also pick up a six-pack of Guang’s Pineapple Beer. Two heavy bags of groceries comes to 93 yuan – about $9.00 American. Back at the hotel we lunch on snacks and pineapple beer. The pineapple beer turns out to be exceptionally good, but unfortunately unavailable outside of Asia.

That night we decide to eat at the hotel. There are several restaurants there, including one which specializes in seafood and which, at least according to the poster in the elevator, promises to "leave you with an unexpected feeling." As tempting as that sounds, we decide to take Hope to the hotel dining room for the dinner buffet instead. Along with standard Western fare (including pizza and spaghetti) and fairly mainstream Chinese dishes, the buffet includes stewed duck tongues (which look pretty much like you’d imagine) and broiled turtles. The turtles, of course, have been broiled whole (head, legs, shell, and all) to a lovely deep brown color. I’m fairly adventurous and like to try new dishes, but I’m not quite that brave. Even if I did want to try a turtle, I have no idea how you’d go about eating one. Do you have to crack the shell? Are there special tools involved? I scan the dining room, but can't spot anyone eating a turtle.

When we arrive with Hope she causes quite a stir. The waiters and waitresses are falling over each other for the chance to talk to her, touch her hands, hold her. Other guests stop at our table, smiling and speaking to her in Chinese. She seems to delight all of the Chinese who see her. Once she’s done with her dinner (it doesn’t take her very long) a waitress picks her up and she’s passed from person to person around the dining room while we finish eating. At first it’s a little unnerving having all of these strangers pass your new baby around the room, but the love they feel for her is so obvious that we very quickly stop worrying and enjoy the rest of our meal.

We’ve only had Hope for about 24 hours and already we’re marveling at the reception we get from the Chinese people that we meet. I had expected to see some negative feelings toward the idea of Chinese babies being taken from their homeland to be raised by Westerners, especially when it’s due to what must be a very unpopular government policy. I had expected to see anger and perhaps even shame, but all we’ve seen so far is love and acceptance. They’re obviously deeply grateful to us for providing homes for these babies that they don’t have the resources to support. The Chinese love these babies - love them, and take good care of them, and want the very best for them. They love them so much that they allow them to be adopted by foreigners and raised in another culture, knowing that their loss will be the baby's gain. Before leaving the United States I heard people make stupid statements about how the Chinese don’t care about their babies like we do, but that’s so completely wrong. The Chinese love these babies and for that, I love them.

{short description of image}  Changsha panorama taken from the window of our room on the 30th floor of the Dolton Hotel.
Dolton Breakfast   Hope and Kathy enjoying the Dolton's breakfast buffet.
Dolton Lobby  Hope and Kathy posed by a huge urn in the lobby of the Dolton. 
Civil Affairs Office   The Hunan Civil Affairs Office in Changsha. This building appeared to have originally be a hotel or apartment building.
Civil Affairs Office  Kay & Lillian, Kathy & Hope, and Marie & Kathleen waiting to be processed in the Hunan Civil Affairs Office. 
Civil Affairs Office   Still waiting...
Civil Affairs Office  ...someone seems to have gotten a little tired of waiting.
Civil Affairs Office  In the end all of the waiting pays off. Hope's official Chinese adoption certificate.
Chinese Snacks   Back at the hotel we lunch on Chinese snacks - Chocolate Funnies, Lonely God Potato Curls, and Guang's Pineapple Beer.
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