Monday March 28, 2016

The Yangzhou girl returns.

We’re in the home stretch now. Today was our final orphanage visit, bringing Aelex back to Yangzhou for her turn at reducing her parents to emotional lumps of blubbering jelly. The things we do for our kids…

The day started in the usual manner: breakfast followed by our collection at the very capable hands of our guide Denise for the hour and change long van ride to Yangzhou orphanage. Aelex was very serene, neither outwardly excited nor nervous. She assured us that she was very much looking forward to returning to Yangzhou for the first time in over a decade, but she handled herself like a pro, joking and laughing on the drive, giving her emotionally frayed parents some much needed support.

Let me just take a moment to talk about how incredible our kids have been on this journey so far. It has been long, exhausting, sentimental, poignant, moving, exciting, and packed end-to-end with nonstop movement and activity. None of this has negatively affected them in the slightest. They have been absolute troopers, and more often than not, the superior of their parents in flexibility, maturity, and mental resiliency. They are my idols and their mother and I couldn’t be prouder of them. Parental bragging over.

We arrived in Yangzhou to again see a city much different from the one we remembered. In addition to the ubiquitous construction, the wealth of this city was plainly evident. Everything seemed new and big and impressive compared to the dusty town of 13 years ago.

We were in for an additionally eye-opening shock when we arrived at the (new) Yangzhou orphanage. It was far and away the nicest of the three we had visited. Spotless is a word I would not commonly use in China, but is more than apropos in this case. The immaculate buildings were surrounded by impeccably maintained grounds. It was not just comparatively impressive, it was stand-alone splendid.

The incredibly friendly staff greeted us warmly and fawned over Aelex, welcoming her and making all of us feel at home. Unfortunately, none of the caregivers from Aelex’s time here remained on staff, so we would not have the pleasure of a personal reunion, so the situational one would have to suffice. Aelex, in her usually unflappable way, was fine with all of that.

Our first stop in the orphanage was a welcome center that was filled with photos and stories of all of the children that have passed through the orphanage doors over the years. There were many picture albums sent from overseas families highlighting the new lives of the children that have been adopted from Yangzhou. The similarities between the lives of these other children and Aelex’s was easy to see. But the highlight of the room was a wall filled with the first photos of all of the children that have been adopted out of the orphanage — over 1500 in all. The orphanage official challenged us to find our daughter’s picture and Dorothy quickly accepted the challenge, telling her “No problem, I’ll find it.” And sure enough, moments later, she did. Mothers have that type of skill I guess, because if it had been left up to me, I’d still be standing there trying to figure out which one was my daughter of 13 years. They gave Aelex a little gold star sticker to place on her photo, marking her as one of the couple dozen alumni to have made the pilgrimage back to where they came from. It was touching, and nice to know that if — and when — we ever return again, it should be easier for Aelex’s dear old dad to find her picture because the next time he’ll just have to look through the ones with a gold star.

We were then escorted to another room with an impressively large, round table where we were allowed to review Aelex’s original orphanage file, which was pristinely stored in a sturdy and attractive box. The records were thorough and in fine order. The staff even made photocopies of the whole docket for us to take away. All three of our kids were also given a gift of local traditional Chinese paper cuttings. This was efficiency of the highest order. The resources of the Yangzhou orphanage were apparent which was comforting in the knowledge that the children who lived there had a robust infrastructure and plentiful resources to help care for them.

Next, we were given a tour of the orphanage itself. We were asked to put plastic coverings over our shoes, which of course we willingly did, happily aiding the staff’s desire to keep the building as clean as possible. The children’s classrooms, music room, physical therapy clinic, and dining rooms were all incredibly well appointed and cared for. The pride these orphanage workers took in their jobs was apparent and gratifying to see.

The hardest — but most important — stop on any orphanage visit is to spend time with the children still living there. Currently in China, the orphanages are almost exclusively populated by special needs children as the foster care system in the country has been expanded in recent years to move healthy orphans out of the institutions and into a more stable family environment. Of course, this makes the tour of the orphanage even more heart-rending as the children still there are in even grater need of care than the ones we have brought into our family already. While walking around, a young boy of about two reached out to me taking hold of my coat, smiling broadly. I asked if I was able to pick him up and was told that I could. So I did. He playfully grabbed my hair and caressed my face as I spoke english to him and he babbled back at me. I can tell you that the hardest thing I’ve had to do on this whole trip so far was put that little boy back down into his crib. It suddenly got very dusty in that room, I can assure you.

After our tour, we retreated to a private dining room for another lunch featuring an absurd amount of food. The staff just kept bringing dish after dish out until the lazy-suzan in the center of the table was overflowing with platters to the point that spinning it required significant effort. The salted goose and locally sourced whole fish was particularly good in my opinion, but the star of the meal, for the rest of the family, was the fried rice which, I would have to agree, was simply the most delicious version of this Chinese staple that I have ever tried. With great effort we consumed as much food as we were able without exploding our stomachs, in a herculean effort to not offend our hosts by eating a merely human amount.

Once lunch was finished we were given a tour of the surrounding grounds which feature a(nother!) temple, bamboo forest, koi pond, gardens, and playground. The whole institution continued to impress, and the staff ware incredibly gracious and accommodating. We returned to the main building and exchanged contact information as the orphanage representatives seemed very eager for us to keep in touch with them in the future. We will surely comply.

It was then time to make our way back to Nanjing. We said our goodbyes to the staff and thanked them profusely for their unparalleled hospitality. Aelex’s orphanage certainly featured the most impressive facilities of all of our visits but each one had its own moments of charm and particular memories that we will all cherish for all time. I think we need some time and distance to properly process all of the emotions we have experienced on our orphanage visits and Dorothy and I look forward to continuing to discuss our children’s feelings as they gain perspective and contextualize the things they have seen and felt personally about the returns to their former homes. This alone is the reason for our trip, and we have doubtlessly achieved the purpose of our journey.

Once back at the hotel, we took the kids for a quick swim in the hotel’s gorgeous pool and then went for a simple — and pleasantly small — dinner. Everyone was exhausted by this point so it became an early night for all of us in order to get some well deserved rest.

Tomorrow is an early start for our last bullet train ride to our last stop in China: Shanghai. It’s a quick final sojourn that will hopefully help us decompress from the high tensions of the previous week and a half before getting back to our regularly scheduled lives in the United States. We certainly miss our home, and are looking forward to getting back (and I am about ready to murder a double bacon cheeseburger from Five Guys) but a part of us is sad to see our adventure starting to wind down. But enough moaning! We still have a few more days to revel in the culture, tastes, sights, and excitement of China, so don’t go anywhere just yet. Still plenty more to come…

Spending emotionally, as if feelings were water…