Guangzhou

Hello everyone from Guangzhou, China! We arrived here on Sunday to complete the paperwork for the United States government. Last week we were in Nanchang, the provincial capital of Jiangxi Province to complete the paperwork on the Chinese government side of things. The Chinese government officially recognized the adoption, issued Nora her Chinese passport. This week, Nora has had a doctor’s appointment, and we’ve applied for her U.S. Visa and her official United States citizenship. When she lands in Los Angeles this weekend, she will automatically become a U.S. citizen. But each government—China and United States—require several business days for turnaround on all that paperwork, which explains why we’re here for close to three weeks!

Speaking of which, is it time to come home yet? Because we are ready! Although in all honestly our time here in Guangzhou has been the closest this has come to feeling like any sort of “vacation.” Guangzhou (formerly Canton) is the third largest city in China at approximately 13 million people. Our group though is staying on beautiful Shamian Island which is separated from the rest of the city by the Pearl River. Because the US Consulate is located in Guangzhou, most every family that adopts from China ends up here on their trip. We’re staying at the White Swan Hotel, which I believe (unverified) was also where Richard Nixon stayed during his 1976 trip to China. It’s really a nice place.

Whereas last week we KNEW we were in China—no other Westerners, no American food, no English language—this place feels a little more like home. Chocolate chip muffins at the breakfast buffet, ham and cheese sandwiches at the deli next store, hamburgers, fries and Budweiser at the American restaurant down the street. (They obviously see a lot of American families around here.) But if they told us we could go home tomorrow, we probably wouldn’t hesitate for a second!

Nora is doing quite well health-wise and she’s starting to smile a little more. She’s really developing a bond with Beth and Grace—not so much with me, in all honesty, as she and I are realizing that we have a certain stubbornness in common. Plus, she’s teething big time. She’ll have a mouthful of big choppers by the time we get home. There’ve been many smiles and thankful moments the last several days. But I can’t say there haven’t been any challenges!

You might be surprised to know that there are many Christians here in China—2 Christian churches in fact, right here on this tiny island. Our group visited a pagoda here in Guangzhou on Sunday morning and saw many folks coming to offer prayers and incense to three huge Buddhas. It was interesting. We opted out of the “baby blessing ceremony.” (And immediately afterward a great big Buddhist bird took a big poop on my head—totally NOT making this up!) While there are no bird poop photos, the sites we saw are chronicled on the facebook page.

On a far more serious note, last week we visited the countryside outside of Nanchang and saw conditions similar to what Nora would’ve most likely grown up in. Very sobering. Those pictures are also on facebook—I’ll try to do a blog post about it later this week.