We had all grown a bit blasé about the traffic (when the count of close calls reaches 5 digits, you stop counting... and sometimes you even stop gasping & closing your eyes) so the ride felt very run-of-the-mill. We rolled through yet another contstruction site into a nearly empty parking lot enclosed by tall, grey stone walls. The modern high-rise buildings surrounding the compound made the low, grey building in front of us seem all the older, especially when one took in the detailed bas-relief panels on the walls and the multitude of carvings on the roof.
By "multitude of carvings" I mean that the entire roof was absolutely jammed with three-dimensional carvings and free-standing figures. Lucy explained that all the statuary & carvings depicted scenes from folklore, from history, designed to invoke celestial goodwill, and or designed to show the greatness of the Chen clan (the originals builders & owners of the complex). The free-standing figures along the roof peaks were all ceramic and were dark due to age & weathering; the more brightly colored bas-relief figures below them were mostly porous soapstone, which meant they were repainted after the rainy season every year.
Entering through the huge double doors, we encountered a very large and intricately carved wooden screen. In the days of the Chen clan, this screen divided commoner from VIP; commoners had to make their way around it, but it would be folded out of the way so VIPs could walk straight in. After a little more information about the various scenes shown in the screen's carvings, we began to slowly make our way throug the compound. At one point, my knowledge of more recent history made me wonder how "voluntary" the Chen clan's handing over of their ancestral hall to the local government had been... but here we were, and it was truly an impressive place to be.
Unfortunately, this was one of the hottest days of the trip; even in the shade of covered walkways, the heat made itself felt with a vengeance. The entire courtyard was open to the air, and many of the display rooms opened directly onto the courtyard; impressive as everything was, we were moving progressively more slowly as our visit progressed. (We weren't alone; both the foreign & Chinese toursists also in the compound were either talking mostly about the heat and/or sitting down & mopping their brows every few minutes.)
Heat aside, the museum was one amazing set of sights after another, with each exhibition room dedicated to a different form of art (or simply depicting the daily life of the wealthy Chen clan a century earlier). Through it all, I couldn't help but think that all the amazing statuary on roof (even in the interior courtyard) was the Chen clan's last laugh, with scenes of their family history overshadowing all the other displays. I was also struck by the amazing contrast between the very old scenes at eye level and the modern high-rise buildings looming overhead (just out of sight if one kept one's eyes level and stayed in the covered walkways).
Something else that impressed me was the fact that this museum had more souvenir shops than any other place I had ever been. An exhibit in wood carving ended with a related shop... an exhibit on paper cutting ended with a related shop... an exhibit on sculpture ended with a related shop... and so on for every type of art being showcased. It wasn't a bad thing, though; we could handle newly-made items in the shops where we'd had difficulty getting close to the displays, or where the artists hadn't been working that day (many folk artists keeping the old arts alive were employed by the museum). Even better, every shop had at least one large electric fan -- and I quickly perfected the fine art of locating the closest cool spot in each shop we entered. We all picked up a few souvenirs (including beautiful paper cuttings for a pittance) while slowly wilting from the heat.
The last gallery featured both modern & ancient silk needlepoint work, some of which were very large and many so detailed they could be mistaken for paintings or even photographs from a relatively short distance. This was followed by a display showing what a wealthy woman's quarters would have looked like in the late 1800s, and we all had a laugh at the bed. Where we would put a mattress was bare wood; where we would have pillows, ceramic boxes. Therew as no padding anywhere to soften all the hard surfaces, and when I asked Lucy if she could sleep like that she just burst out laughing. She added that the majority of Chinese have adopted soft, Western-style beds, and my first thought was that most hotel chains had somehow missed that memo. After a last few photos, we made our way to the bus through the usual gauntlet of vendors hawking all kinds of toys, tchochkes, and snack (with the girls buying some small souvenirs from one vendor, much to the jealousy of the others).
The ride to a nearby restaurant for lunch was -- as usual -- A Major Traffic Adventure despite out being used to it by now. It's one thing to see two cars tyring to jostle each other out of the way, or lining up three abreast on a two-lane road... but it's something else to see entire herds of buses and trucks attempting to all simultaneously occupy the same point in the time-space continuum. (For example, witness the photo below showing three different full-size buses all cutting us off at the same time from three different directions.) By the time our driver pulled up to the curb to let us off, we were tempted to walk in the heat just for the safety of it.
The building turned out to be a multi-story restaurant mall, with 2 or 3 on each floor. We had a very good lunch up on the 2nd floor, with Miri repeatedly insisting Mommy's food was better than her own bowl of congee. (My note in that night's travel blog: "The chicken wasn't looking at us, but we did get a whole fish.") Waiting to be picked up after our meal, I watched a small white cat dodging pedestrians on the crazy-crowded sidewalk, then give up and slink into a hole in a nearby work site before realizing it was the first stray animal I had seen since landing in Beijing. I also noticed the work site guard engaged in what the Chinse call shui mián -- or, as we call it here, napping. How he did that while sitting in the median of one of the loudest, busiest streets I've ever seen in my life is still a mystery....
At this point, our plans began to fall apart. We were supposed to return to the White Swan and just hang out for a couple of hours (maybe get in a shower or a quick swim), then get ready for the oath-taking at the U.S. Consulate. Local traffic had other ideas, and the more our driver tried to find alternate routes, the more jammed-up all the roads became. While repeatedly checking my watch I could see Lucy begin to look concerned... then worried... then really worried...
What was supposed to be a 20-minute drive finally ended with just enough time (if we actually ran, which we did) for everyone to get upstairs to their rooms, change the kiddos' clothes (and get a super-fast photo), grab the necessary papers, and join all the other families in the hotel who were scheduled for Consular appointments that day. Lucy had warned us that cameras were definitely NOT allowed inside the Consulate, so there are no photos for the next section of this post.
We found the White Swan's basement lobby occupied by a mob approximately ⅔ American adults (all looking slightly panicked) and ⅓ Chinese babies, toddlers, and young children (all in various stages of meltdown, nap, or confusion). Those panicked looks were appropriate, because everyone was headed for CA: the Consular Appointment. This was the penultimate step in the adoption process, where the U.S. government (embodied by consular staff) would process the last pieces of the application to ensure the honesty & legality of the application. (The only review after this one would be getting through customs back home.) Why the potential panic? Well... you try working half a decade to complete a process fraught with emotion on the opposite side of the planet from where you live, in a place where the local language might as well be Na'avi and even one missing page from one official form or one typographical error on a key line of text can derail everything...!
There were to large tour buses waiting to take the entire mob to the U.S. Consulate. Despite the size of the group (and a light drizzle) there was remarkably little drama as the buses filled. The different adoption agencies' guides cross-checked everything a couple of times, and we were on the road. Due to the Consulate moving literally halfway across the city in 2005 (to "temporary" quarters that lasted until 2013) we had quite a drive and I was sorry to not have my camera because much of the route was on a raised highway that had great views of many rooftops & upper-floor apartments. (The view was actually excellent, since traffic was moving at a crawl.) There were apartments without curtains that we could see in their entirety; rooftop gardens with no rail to prevent a multi-story "oops" if one stepped back to admire the view; jury-rigged shelters I couldn't decide were storage sheds or squatters' shacks; and the occasional apartment-dweller staring back at the busload of Westerners. In short, a fascinating close-up view of everyday life in Guangzhou, a quick series of silent vignettes that left me wanting to see more and marveling at how everything looked simultaneously different from and the same as cities back home.
Eventually the buses pulled up in front of a big commercial building and everyone filed into the lobby. We climbed onto a series of escalators past travel agencies & other businesses until finally reaching a floor that looked different from all the others, with U.S. Marines manning an airport-style security checkpoint. While about half the group was held up because they had to check cameras & other items we'd been told to not bring, we made our way through to a large room filled with those small metal & plastic institutional chairs found in waiting rooms worldwide. One side of the room had what looked like fancy bank teller stations behind windows, while big flat-screen TVs on both side walls presented looped videos on what we were all supposed to do. Unfortunately, the room's designers had failed to take into account the fact that more waiting families equalled more increasingly bored children equalled more increasingly nervous parents equalled a steadily increasing noise level, so after maybe five minutes I couldn't hear the instructions on the TV just a few feet away.
A few minutes later, a Consular Officer got up in front of the room & addressed the crowd. She gave a brief history of adoptions from China (including the recent slowdown & increase in special needs children), told us the families would be called to the windows by their adoption agency and child's Chinese name, and closed with an apologetic smile by saying that the oath (to be administered en masse after everyone had been processed at one of the windows) would be "anticlimactic" -- it was not the expected oath of citizenship, merely a formalized statement that all the information given was true & all promises for remaining adoption procedures would be fulfilled.
Family after family was called to the service windows, each spending a few minutes until the next was called, while we sat and felt increasingly nervous. We had one more unexpected hurdle to clear when a familiar name was called out, but because the noise level in the room was so high we could not tell if it was the Chinese name of one of our friends' children or the Pipsqueak -- they differed only by one having a T and the other a D! More & more families got up nervously, approached the indicated window, and then sat back down with big, relieved smiles... and we continued to quietly fret in our seats.
A couple of eternities later, we heard our agency's name and what we thought was the Pipsqueak's name, so AJ headed to the indicated window with a firm grip on that oh-so-important manila envelope of papers in her hand and Miri in her arms. I sat quietly gritting my teeth, wondering why time had suddenly slowed to the pace of molasses flowing on a cold winter's day in Antarctica and then AJ came back through the crowd looking like she didn't know if she wanted to laugh or cry -- everything was OK, the paperwork was complete.
There in that crowded, noisy, impersonal room, half a decade of hair-pulling, hand-wringing, second-guessing, stress, worry, sleepless nights, searches for information, mounting expenses, disappointing updates, paperwork renewals, and putting life on indefinite hold had just come to the desired end.
The next 15-20 minutes are very blurry -- I know both our companion families had their successful turns as well -- and after the last family in the room had returned happily to their seats the Consular Officer returned to teh front of the room to administer the oath. I didn't care how "anticlimactic" the oath was supposed to be or how minor a legal procedure it was in the overall adoption process; it marked the official closure the entire family had been striving to achieve for years and thus held a personal importance far in excess of its actual importance. I wasn't officially supposed to stand (again, I was "just" an uncle, not an actual adoptive parent) but I stood & raised my hand just like my sister -- the Pipsqueak had peed on me, drooled on me, woken me up at 3:00am, clung to me when she was scared or needed reassurance... I damn well earned the right to stand & take the oath. Most people in the room were getting choked up halfway through, and when I looked over at AJ she was almost silently mouthing the words with tears streaming down her face as she & Miri looked at each other. By the time the oath was done, she was just one of many who'd completely lost the ability to speak and later only half-jokingly commented she was glad I had finished the oath on her behalf. (It didn't tell her at the time that if it had been just a few words longer, I would've been crying as much as she was.)
The mood going back down the multiple flights of escalators was much lighter & happier, and I heard a lot of comments along the lines of, "You're going to see your new home soon!" There were still a few odds & ends to take care of, and long flights home for all, but for all intents & purposes the adoptions were now complete.
We again had a bit of a traffic-induced scramble for time because we were scheduled for an evening cruise on the Pearl River and traffic had once again obliterated all but a fraction of the time we needed to get back to the hotel, grab some things we needed, and get back on our minibus for a race to the docks. I think the Pipsqueak loaned out her ability to teleport (as she had done to get off the bed that night) because my memory is completely blank from halfway back to the hotel until we were already in the minibus halfway to the cruise office.
The ride through the city on surface streets provided a clear view of many vignettes of everyday life in Guangzhou, which was fascinating to see. Some of what I saw could have been almost any Western city (assuming the entire population was Asian!), other scenes were different enough to elicit several diyouseethat?! moments. (For example, the nightlub with a big sign out front showing Bugs Bunny ogling several scantily-clad young women...) The overall impression was one of crowds everywhere, with movement that looked simultaneously chaotic and orderly.
As the sky began to darken, the rain tapered off... and I noticed the river had begun slowly filling with tour boats of all shapes & sizes, each with its own complement of neon & animated lights. Maybe this was the light show...? We just chilled, occasionally repositioning one of the kiddos on the windowsill until it was dinnertime. As usual, I wasn't exactly sure what I was eating but it was all pretty good. Meanwhile, it had been getting steadily darker outside, and while the neon on passing boats was becoming more of a show some of the buildings were also beginning to light up... a colored rooftop here, highlighted edges there, maybe some moving lights on a large billboard... Finally, as the drizzle stopped, entire buildings were lighting up on shore. (The crew may have been saying something about it over the PA system, but there was no English translation so we never figured it out.)
Soon a huge animated billboard almost half a city block long came into sight advertising, of all things, Amway... and then there was another, this time advertising UPS, and the menfolk decided to make our way to the observation deck while the mamas & kids stayed at the table. Papa S and Papa B eventually decided to go back in, but I hung out topside with my camera for most of the trip. (It turned out that I missed a magic show & some other entertainment, but I enjoyed both the sights and the rare time alone.) There were buildings with their entire facade turned into a giant TV screen, others with animations, still others with constantly-changing patterns and colors... and there were scores of tour boats on the river itself, each with its own complement of animated neon lights & figures. It was also a different kind of breathtaking to watch the many boats in relation to each other, since they were being driven in with much of the chaos that applied to terrestrial traffic. (NOTE: There aren't many photos of the passing scene here because I recorded most of it as video... and ten years later am still trying to get good frame grabs. Sorry.)
Some time later, having almost been blown overboard by the wind a couple of times, I rejoined the rest of the group below. It wasn't too long before our boat had returned to its starting point and as we made our way back to the minibus I noticed that the crowds on the street had changed -- now there were a lot more twenty-somethings, many obviously dressed for an evening of club-hopping. Having completely rewritten any preconceived notions of what the People's Republic of China would look like, I just kept one hand on my wallet and treated the crowd like any in Europe or the Americas. The crazy traffic on the way back to the hotel was just another ride through a city (although it was entertaining when we passed a street cleaning truck obviously stuck under a too-low overpass, its driver dejectedly sitting on the fender)... and the occasional stare from someone in a nearby vehicle no longer seemed impolite or novel.
I don't know -- maybe, with the adoptions completed and our return home looming so large, Guangzhou had become just another city, China just another place...? All I know is that somehow things felt different, and while I really was in no rush to leave I felt like it really was time to return Stateside and get on with life.
During the trip, Lucy reviewed the options for the next day -- our last full day in China! -- and while AJ & I decided to squeeze in more sightseeing, there were som noncommital answers from the rest of the group. Everyone was exhausted, and it was beginning to show. We did a little pre-packing, Skyped with our folks a bit, and AJ & Miri dozed off in bed while I updated the travel blog. Unlike any other evening during the trip, something about the almost generically urban crowds and immediacy of our pending departure had left me feeling a little melancholy. I'd felt similar feelings before, when pending returns to the U.S. from overseas postings were close and there was a sort of "this is ending very soon" scent in the air, but the feeling evaporated every time I looked at the Pipsqueak snoring quietly beside my sister in bed. It took a few minutes to sink in, but by the time I turned out the lights I had a new feeling that this wasn't an ending -- it was just the closing of a first chapter, very much the beginning of a whole new adventure.
PRESENT DAY: I mentioned "vignettes" of city life in the paragraphs above, and while I'm not writing them all here (this entry would be at least half again as long as it already is) I can still clearly see many of them in my mind's eye. I still hope to have the chance to share those first-hand with my sister & niece on a return trip and build some new memories... but these days I try to not think about it too much due to the state of the world.
Hope springs eternal, they say -- and I refuse to not remain hopeful. I'll be back shortly with a post about our last full day in China...
No comments:
Post a Comment