Still in Wuhan China
Hello all,
I look forward to reading your hellos each day! I don’t have time to respond to each one, but want you to know that I really do like hearing from home!
Today we went to a beach. It is not like home beaches, but was a great place to visit with some local people. It is not the kind of beach where people wear bathing suits or anything…some people were in spike heels and formal dresses actually!! Even saw a wedding couple! Beautiful! The people here are much more reserved and a bit more formal then home. They are also more friendly. We were all like celebrities today! We were stopped by the local people and everyone wants to take our picture and have their pic taken with us.
It is funny to us because in the US, Chinese adoptions seem fairly common. But to many Chinese people, it is something very new! To Rick and I, many people said, oh she looks like Chinese baby! As if we didn’t know this! Cute. And constantly we are told she is so beautiful. To us, she is the prettiest baby of course! But we also think all the babies are beautiful. Our agency guide, Joanna, who lives here, told us today that Sophie is considered especially beautiful by the Chinese people because of her fair skin. I guess while we like nice tan skin in the US, in China, fair skin is pretty. Also she told us that Sophie will not be as short as many Chinese people. (she can tell this not because she is tall now but because of her hands) She will be more like Joanna herself (maybe 5’ 5” – not sure!). Joanna is stunning…
While at the beach place, we managed to get separated from the group. We are with 12 other families and 3 families got separated. We were a bit nervous but we always carry hotel business cards so we can show a taxi driver to get back. Luckily, we didn’t need to use that. George (Joanna’s helper) finally found us! We had gone back to the entrance gate hoping they would come back for us. It is quite weird to be in a country where we can’t understand anyone and they can’t understand us. Those who can speak English enjoy showing it off to us. Very fun.
We can’t believe we are more then half way done with our trip! Though it will be nice to get home, there is still so much to see and do here. I am glad that it is required by China that adopting parents come spend time here. We will have so much to tell Sophie. She is from a special place. It is beautiful and the people are so friendly and kind. And they adore the children. It must have been so hard for her birth mother to leave her.
George told us more about the one child policy today. He and his wife are expecting their one and only child in Feb. While it is a hard policy for us to understand, he said that he understands why it is necessary. He thinks it will end in about 20 years. We see both boys and girls with the local people, which seems good. I thought that maybe we would mostly see little boys since they tend to place so much importance on having a boy. Maybe this is more prevalent in rural areas. George and his wife had to apply for permission from the government to have a child. Once granted, they were able to go ahead but they are only allowed to have one ever.
We are in Wuhan only one more day. Monday we head to Guangzhou to get her visa from the consulate. I think we can send photos from there. I am hoping! So sorry about the photos situation! We are dying for you to see her! We are told that they don’t have Internet in each room here in Wuhan because there are only 3 AT&T lines in the WHOLE city!! This is very unusual. We had internet in Beijing and will again in GZ. Then we should be able to send pix from Ricks PDA.
We have to go to the department store and to pick up our dry-cleaning tonight. We keep her on her schedule pretty well even though we are busy! She does best this way and that means we do better too!
Ok, back upstairs to see if she is about ready to wake up for our outing.
XO,
Tiffany, Rick and Sophie too
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