...so that wake-up call hurt.
I was so groggy that I thanked all three recordings (English, Mandarin, Cantonese) before hanging up the phone. We got dressed as quickly as we were physically able (not very), did one last sweep of the room (found a couple of things we'd forgotten to pack), and had our luggage in the hall outside our door at 5:00am as required. (Ugh.)
We all got checked out, passed through the revolving door with its rosebushes one last time, and boarded the bus with many yawns but no drama. Effie & Lisa handed out boxed breakfasts and I inhaled a little bit of food while AJ attempted to keep a very annoyed & sleepy little girl from nose-diving off her lap. (AJ never got to eat hers; somehwere in the scramble to get off the bus & through airport security, those breakfast boxes got lost -- but Miri did get her bottle of formula.) We rolled over that oh-so-familiar bridge one last time, passed a wildlife park flanked by 40-foot statues of a tiger and a bear, and headed toward the airport through acre after acre of flat farmland (mostly rice with a little bit of corn).
As usual, Effie kept us entertained (and awake!) with stories about the area and its various ethnic groups (like the one that everybody avoids because they only bathe at birth & death but never in between) and what it had been like to grow up in sparser times. She said the Zhuang have a reputation for eating "everything in the sky except the airplanes, everything in the sea except the boats, and everying in the room except the table" -- and proceeded to tell us about hunting rats in the fields as a young girl so the family could have a little meat for dinner. She said she had since tried rat meat at a "nostalgia" restaurant and found it inedible... while all I could think of was that we take a lot for granted in our everyday middle-class lives.
Lisa told us there had been a change in plans, and she would be staying with the group for a couple of extra days to help with the last stages of paperchasing in Guangzhou -- an announcement greeted with cheers & smiles because we'd all grown very fond of her, and she had been an absolute lifesaver for us all time and time again. Her negotiation skills came in handy at the airport when she convinced the ticket agent to spread one family's overweight suitcase poundage across all three families, almost totally eliminating what would otherwise have been some very hefty fees. We had to say a fast but emotional goodbye to Effie because the area immediately past check-in was unexpectedly a "tickets only" area. It was a tough goodbye because she had been such a good friend to us all... but we got one last chance to see her because AJ had to run after her with a bag full of water bottles we'd brought not knowing they wouldn't be allowed into the terminal. Unfortunately, it took another 15 minutes for us to realize our trusty old thermos was also in the bag...
I got through security relatively quickly but had to wait (and wait and wait) until AJ finally joined me, steam coming out of her ears. Despite multiple previous security checks, the guard she encountered took umbrage at all the "strange liquids" she was carrying and insisted her carry-on (with all the adoption papers inside) be checked with our suitcases. She finally convinced the guy that the saline solution for her contact lenses was inert, but she had to give up the liquid Children's Benadryl that everyone else had cleared through. She was upset, but the adoption papers were safely with her while the Benadryl sadly waved goodbye.
Boarding was also a bit of an adventure; we were allowed to take the strollers to the plane but then had to check them at the door, then had to navigate the crowded aisle with an assortment of tired kiddos. (Hey, lady, your carry-on just kicked me!) I discovered my seat was on the opposite side of the aisle from AJ & Miri but as soon as I asked a Chinese businessman sitting in the 3rd seat by them if he'd mind swapping, he got up & motioned for me to sit beside my sister. (I still don't know if it's because he understood English -- he never said a word -- or if he'd just noticed my pointing to a baby and then the seat next to him.)
We had both worried about how the Pipsqueak would take to flying, but she handled it like a champ. Her time on the plane was spent just looking around, busying herself with a toy (or making toys out of everything within reach), and generally chillaxin' for 98% of the time. No crying, no drama, no omigod they're gonna give me a parachute and push me out the door... The only problem was when she would periodically give her Mommy a solid whack! in the face to see how much force it took to dislodge her nose...
Takeoff was smooth, and Miri seemed to decide all the funny bumps & noises were just another set of diversions to prevent boredom. Taking one last look at the karst landscape below, I commented to AJ that the Pipsqueak was now farther from her birthplace than she'd ever been in her life, and AJ replied that this was nothing to how far away she would be moving in just a few days. A cloud-filled valley below us marked the border between provinces, and a while later we saw a large airport and started to get ready to land... only to continue on our way until it disappeared behind us.
Finally, the usual end-of-flight dance began, and we put back together everything the Pipsqueak had pulled out and got ready to deplane. The airport at Guangzhou the most chaotic yet, and there were a few nervous moments for the group as we waited to reclaim the strollers, then our luggage, and then tried to find our guide Lucy. We were all even more nervous when we realized our minibus was more "mini" than "bus" but Lucy and Lisa kept reassuring us it would be alright and shooed us aboard... and after several minutes we hit the road and headed for Guangzhou (with just a couple of suitcases in a couple of laps). During the loading process, the driver was speaking with Lucy & Lisa almost nonstop; I didn't understand a word but could tell exactly what he was saying as he loaded suitcase after suitcase after suitcase after suitcase into the too-small cargo area in the rear...!
On the way into town, Lucy introduced herself and gave us a rundown of what we'd be doing the next few days. She also got some (quiet) cheers by saying she'd order pizza for us, did we prefer Pizza Hut or Papa John's...? (I had to laugh at myself for joining in the cheers at the prospect of choosing a pizza from two brands I normally did not eat back home.) If that sounds strange, think about it this way: We had all been in a very hot, very busy, very foreign country for a week on an extremely emotional trip. Breakfasts were a mix of East and West but all our other meals were local foods. As good as the food had been (I'd made a point of tasting any-and-every dish as long as it wasn't sea cucumber), none of us realized how much we had come to miss familiar food from home... thus the cheers over cheap pizza.
As we entered Guangzhou proper, our exhaustion was beginning to make itself felt. Guangzhou was a lot more "city" than Guilin had been -- big & noisy, with crazy traffic. I was beginning to wonder what we'd gotten into when we crossed the Pearl River onto Shamian Island on a road that quickly rose above the trees, and suddenly the world-famous White Swan Hotel was in front of us. Because the U.S. Consulate had originally been right next door, the White Swan had been the hotel of choice for almost every American family adopting a child from China -- so much so that some people called it the "White Stork," and an entire ecosystem of businesses catering to adoptive families had sprung up in the surrounding streets. (Present-day note: The U.S. Consulate moved to a new site elsewhere in the city in 2009; the White Swan shut down for extensive renovations in 2012 and reopened in 2015 as a much less adoption-friendly, business-oriented hotel.)
I think that we rolled up to the main entrance of the White Swan with the feeling that the adoption process was finally almost complete -- this hotel was so ingrained in the American adoption experience that there were some traditions that had families staying elsewhere in the city travel there just for certain photos. The nearby limo festooned with streamers (and stuffed Mickey & Minnie dolls attached to the grill) waiting to take a bride & groom away for their honeymoon was a gentle reminder that there were probably also people here who had nothing to do with adoption... but for us, it was a milestone in many ways.
There was the usual giant jade ship (almost as ubiquitous in hotels as rosebushes in the doorway), and a bunch of giant inflatable goat figures that we were told were the mascots of the city as well as the Pan-Asian Games scheduled to begin there a couple of months later. It felt a little strange to see so many non-Asian faces around us, almost all accompanied by young Asian children, but that got my mind going, "Yep, this must be the place!"
I didnt' realize how big the White Swan was until I could see the rest of the lobby; the waterfall was two floors below me, and the ceiling another two floors above me! I still didn't know about the shopping mall in the basement or the multiple swimming pools, but could now understand why when one of AJ's friends was required to stay in the hotel during her entire adoption trip during the SARS epidemic, she never felt cooped up or bored. (Quick note: That friend of AJ's, now Mommy to two girls born in China, is arguably the reason we made the same trek a few years later.)
We all made our way to our rooms on the 25th floor, with AJ & I farthest from the middle of the building. The room was compact but more than spacious enough to keep us comfortable for a week. Getting settled in, we enjoyed the view from our large window. We could see a real cross-section of the city's history: 18th century European style buildings immediately below on Shamian Island; a European-style facade on shops across the river that backed up to a neighborhood of old, small buildings, alleyways, and narrow streets; and modern high-rise buildings in various stages of completion to either side and beyond. Looking down, we were struck by how many "green" roofs there were, some planted with grass and others with full-scale gardens.
There was a knock on the door, and a smiling young woman wheeled in a large crib. She unfolded it just inside the door and wheeled it to where AJ was pointing... and the Pipsqueak shut down. She was focused intently on the crib, and the closer it got the wider her eyes opened and the more tightly she folded herself up into a little bundle in the middle of the bed. We never figured out why, but this crib absolutely terrified her. Maybe it was the size, or because the sides were so high & mattress so low to the floor, or because it reminded her of something at the SWI -- but she panicked & wailed any time we tried to put her in it so she slept in bed with Mommy every night we were there. (The day before returning home, I managed to get her to play with the colored beads built into one side, but only when I sat on the bed & held her in my lap.)
A second knock on the door let us know that our pizza party had begun in one of the other families' room and we happily wolfed some down while comparing notes; since both the S and B families were on their second adoption trips, they were noticing some changes and we all decided to talk a walk around the immediate neighborhood. It turned out the the U.S. consulate's move elsewhere in the city a year earlier, along with the steady slowdown in international adoptions, had led to a number of stores closing.
Some familiar landmark stores remained, including the famous Jordon's, whose proprietor came out to greet us and insisted he remembered our traveling companions. He insisted we come in so he could make a "welcome back" gift for everyone -- the kiddos' names in Chinese characters, hand-drawn while we watched and absolutely free of charge. When AJ pointed out it was our first time, he laughed that ours would just be for "welcome."
In addition to the heat, some things that struck me as our walk continued were a powerful sense of being in a European neighborhood, and the number of life-size statues we kept finding. Every block on every side street seemed to have at least one, most depicting scenes from the days when Shamian Island was a privately-owned English trading enclave... which accounted for the European feel, maintained by careful restoration of most buildings in preparation for the upcoming Pan-Asian Games. Something else that struck us all was the amazing number of bridal photoshoots. Almost every of the many scenic spots had at least one bride & groom (universally dressed in Western wedding fashions) with a photographer. It took us a while, but we finally figured out that these were modeling sessions and not actual wedding parties.
We all enjoyed the sights (including the occasionally baffling English on local billboards) and were positively thrilled to find a 7-11 just across the street from the White Swan's rear entrance. Cold drinks had been extremely hard to find, but this little piece of pseudo-Americana had a large cooler with all kinds of sodas & juices -- plus a few packages of Pampers and other baby supplies on a high shelf, emergency supplies we happily never needed but were glad to have nearby. The sense of "almost home" was only slightly shaken by some of the odd (to us) things we found on the shelves while searching for snacks.
The heat & humidity were taking their toll, but the other families remembered a very nice swimming pool with its own waterfall & shade trees so we arranged to meet there. AJ & I had swimsuits, and there was a swimsuit & package of swim diapers for Miri, so soon we were padding through the hotel lobby in bathrobes (me in hotel-provided plush slippers since my flip-flops were several thousand miles away) in search of the Route To The Big Swimming Pool. We eventually found it, and happily splashed around for over an hour. It had been so long since I'd been in a pool, I almost knocked my lights out on the bottom while doing an underwater flip, but that was the only problem.
The Pipsqueak was unsure at first, but eventually began to enjoy herself in the water -- as long as Mommy held her. Any time I tried playing with her, all was OK until we got more than 2-3 feet from AJ, and then I'd have a double handful of nearly-panicked Miri to deal with. However, I'd learned the rules, we had a good time together. I even taught my niece fun water games like "blow noisy bubbles" and "splash Mommy with water!" (the latter being noticeably less appreciated by Mommy than by uncle and niece for some reason).
We eventually ran out of nice things to coo at all the other cute kiddos with their new families and had begun to resemble large, pale prunes so the decision was made to dry off, take a quick break, and go out to dinner en masse. Maybe it was the pizza, maybe it was all the other Westerners around us, maybe we'd just grown tired of using chopsticks... but we all decided it would be nice to have an American-style dinner and we knew just the place.
It's neither the best nor the most charming of restaurants on Shamian Island (I was told it closed in 2013, but according to TripAdvisor it's still in business), but Lucy's -- also known as LuSi Ju Bia -- was just a short walk from the White Swan and offered a very American-style menu. The Pipsqueak seemed unsure at first, but my cheeseburger & fries were a welcome change from what I'd been eating for the past week. Tthe beef was somehow just a tad different and we were all a little gurlgy that night (perhaps because it was such a change in what we'd been eating), but everything tasted good, the beer was cold, and it felt really good to just sit and rest and catch up on each other's observations & thoughts.
We took an after-dinner walk through the riverside park behind the restaurant, watching the tour boats ply their trade on the river (most unique was a large one rigged to look like a classic Chinese "junk"), admiring a tall building across the river whose entire facade had been rigged with neon to act like a giant video screen with different lighting effects, and wandering past more statuary near another restaurant. It was hot, it was muggy, it didn't feel like home... and yet somehow it felt as if we had reached a specific destination we had been traveling toward for years.
Despite a relatively luxurious meet-up time of 8:30 the next morning, everyone was tired so we all made an early night of it. After one more abortive attempt to have the Pipsqueak sleep in the crib, AJ settled down for the night with Miri alongside while I posted in our travel blog. I had become accustomed to Chinese beds, but when I got into mine that night I discovered a whole new level of "firm" because I literally could not dent the surface of the mattress! I finally found a relatively comfortable position on my side (which showed some bruising the next morning) and soon dozed off to the sound of my niece quitely snoring nearby.
PRESENT DAY: As I typed the last few paragraphs above, I remembered that we were still poolside at the White Swan when we felt the first negative vibes from anyone around us since first landing in Beijing. (Even the semi-drunken workers watching us at the lake in Guilin had only seemed curious.) It turned out to be a Western businessman sitting nearby -- with a collection of empty beer cans in front of him. AJ & I were struck by the fact that until then, despite our pre-trip concerns, we had encountered only friendly or curious (or at worst neutral) reactions from everyone we interacted with or whom we saw watching us. Knowing the state of politics in the world today, I can't help but feel a real sense of loss at all the anti-foreigner rhetoric now being tossed around on both sides of the Pacific Ocean... or wonder if we will ever be able to take Miri back to the area where she was born on a "heritage tour" when she's older so that she can have at least some kind of first-hand experience with where she comes from at an age where she can understand & clearly remember the experience. AJ & I both know which room of which building marks where we came into the world, and at what time; Mom & Dad can do the same (minus the time)... but the best we can offer my niece is a miles-wide cluster of towns & villages in a particular county. She has found her own way to deal with this disparity, but I know it can still be a source of a type of pain we can't share with her, and I really hope we can give her more to fill in at least part of that gap in her identity in the future.
Next post: This kid's got lungs...!
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