Hui-Hui, I don't think we're in China anymore...

Yesterday we flew from Shijhizhuang to Guangzhou. We were so worried as to how Hui=Hui would do on the flight.

We checked out of our hotel at about 10:00 AM and took a van ride out to the local airport.



Much smaller than the airport in Beijing or Guangzhou.



Our guide made sure we had no problems checking our luggage or getting our boarding passes, and this all went very smoothly. I wish I had taken a picture of the plane we flew on because it was quite the sight! The safety card on board said it was a McDonald Douglas 82/90. From the window at the airport we got a pretty good look at it. Maybe too good a look! It was very grimy, and the paint was peeling off in places. Cam looked at me and smiled then said, “Hey, there’s nothing we can do about it now, so don’t think about it.”

I agreed with him and said that I felt safe because we had Kai with us. I figure he didn’t make it this far just to go down in a crappy little plane! We got on board and it didn’t seem too bad. We took up a whole row across the isle. Tina told the boys that she had heard of much worse planes on intra-China flights, with things like seats that don’t stay upright. “Like that onee back there?” Cam asked pointing back behind us a few rows.

Hey, I’m typing this right, so everything was fine!

Anyway, we are all on the plane wondering how Hui-Hui will do. We’ve missed lunch time and don’t really have anything for him but a bottle. Tina and I belt him into his own seat between us. First time with a seat belt. So far we’ve been driving around China with him standing up in the seat with us. (You know, the way our parents did when we were little) The flight attendant gives us a pillow for him and he’s hanging out being cool. The plane taxi’s to the runway and begins to take off. Just as the nose of the plane starts to tip up, His eyes roll back and he falls fast asleep!



He did wake up about halfway through with some painful (and quite stinky) gas, but after that passed (mercifully without anything else). Tina comforted him and he went right back to sleep.


(Can you tell from the picture if she likes doing this or not?)

He woke again before landing in good spirits. He read the in-flight magazines,



Reviewd the safety instructions,



played peek-a-boo with his big brothers,



and thought the fairly hard landing was pretty funny! It was truly surreal. This little guy is taking it so easy on us that we are simply amazed!

We made it through the Guangzhou airport without too much trouble. We did make the mistake of falling into our habit of following all the Chinese people around. This is a coping strategy that has served us well for the last week, but none of them had checked any bags today, so we cleared the security checkpoint without our luggage. We realized instantly what we had done, and turned right around to get our bags but we had gone about 10 feet too far. A guard stops us, and starts talking rapidly. I don’t know if he was speaking Mandarin, or Cantonese (the local dialect) but I knew what he was saying. So I showed him my luggage claim tags a few times, and finally after thoroughly wand-scanning my entire body he let me walk through the metal detector and get our bags.

Our new guide, “Connie”, was there waiting for us with a driver, and she took us to the White Swan Hotel on Shamien Island.

We have been promising Cam and Ben for over a week that this would be a very nice hotel, and that our last few days in China would be much easier on us. I am very happy to report that it appears we were telling them the truth!

I have stayed in some very nice 4 star hotels. This is a very nice 5 star hotel. What a difference a star makes! All 5 of us are extremely comfortable and happy to be here! I promise to give you a full report on the accommodations in my next post.

Hui-Hui continues to amaze us! He doesn’t really talk that we can tell, but he is vocalizing more. And now he has started “singing”! It began to rain here as we were checking into our room, so Tina started singing, “It’s raining, It’s pouring…” to him, and he starts making singing noises along with her! He kept that up all evening. He understands a lot! I can tell him to give something to Mamma, and he will hand it to Tina. Same goes for Baba (Mandarin for father). Tina says he was saying “Mamma” I have to concede that it does sound like it, though I’m not convinced he isn’t just babbling, and I am working very hard on getting “Babba” out of him. The boys have fun teaching him to mimic silly gestures. They caught him making a prayer like gesture with his hands pressed together in front of his face. They quickly developed this to include repeated headbowing and can get him to do it by simply telling him to, “pray to Buddha”. They are hoping he will do this when we visit the 6 Banyan Temple.

Okay, that’s all for now. Please keep those emails coming! We love hearing from you!

Getting to Know Hui-Hui

I have pretty much forgotten what a normal sleep pattern feels like. Living 15 hours ahead of your body clock does weird things to your state of consciousness. Then throw in the most extreme emotional experiences of your life, and intense culture shock. My brain is pretty much mush at this point. That’s one reason I am trying to write these blog entries everyday. I am so afraid of forgetting any of this experience.

I carry the digital camera with me all day long, partly just to help me remember things. Tina told me to leave it behind at one point but I refused. We’re coming up on nearly 700 pictures of the trip so far, and that’s after discarding the out-of-focus junk shots. I can’t imagine what it would cost to use real film on a trip like this.

Hui-Hui is beginning to find a routine with us. He is such a sweet little boy. Before we departed from Bellingham, I consciously refused to let myself think too much about what he might be like. It’s impossible not to fantasize, but I was so afraid of setting myself up for disappointment. I didn’t want to be disappointed, or overwhelmed, or I don’t know what. I just didn’t want to have some idyllic model in my head before we got here.

But now that we’re here and we really have Kai-Hui with us, I couldn’t possibly be happier, or more in love with him! I only wish you could see in the pictures what an amazingly beautiful little boy he is! It is truly miraculous!

Not that we don’t have concerns about him; he is very tiny, and weak too. His muscle tone is not good and he’s so scrawny. All the clothes we bought months ago that we started worrying would be too small when we got him are all way too big. And his walk has that drunken sailor quality to it of a much younger child. When we got him out of the bath the other night and he was naked in the room Ben commented that he had a “little old man butt”. He’s just so scrawny!

Having seen the conditions at the S.W.I. he was in, and knowing it’s far from the worst of them, I feel so sad that so many children have such little hope in front of them. He is such a sweet, sweet soul. And I can’t believe how lucky our family is to have him be with us. And there are so many more miracles out there waiting for families to find them.

This time away from everything normal in our lives has been a good way to make this transition. All of our focus has been on Hui-Hui. We still aren’t really parenting yet. I was saying to Tina, that I feel he is like this fine crystal goblet we are trying not to break. There is so little we truly understand about him yet. He is this deep, deep puzzle we are slowly beginning to solve.

Here’s some of what we’ve learned so far…

He will only eat food with a spoon. No hard foods. Many families talk about how Cheerios were THE thing that got them through their initial "Gotcha Day". We brought them along and tried them first thing. He likes to see how many he can hold in his hand but still refuses to eat any.

He won’t eat cookies, or sweets. Any sweets. We tried frozen yogurt at McD’s today (with a spoon) he tasted it but wouldn’t go for it.

He has intense concentration. I think he’s working on a doctoral thesis on the properties of stacking cups. He spends hours testing various theories regarding how they work.

Putting objects in containers is very good too.

Crinkly wrappers are good.

Feeding people is very good.

When he eats he is careful to get the food off his face into his mouth. He actually scoops up the dribbles off his chin and pokes them into his mouth. (I try not to think about the kind of hunger that teaches a child this young to conserve food in this way)

He loves to laugh so much!

He’s ticklish.

He throws things to be naughty and laughs when you tell him “bu” (Mandarin for “no”).

He makes faces at his brothers and mimics them.

If you say “humph!” he’ll cross his arms and tucks his chin.

He waves “zai jain” (Mandarin for Bye Bye) will wave for bye bye too.

Will put his pointer finger to his lip and go shhhh!

Knows that I’m “Babba” and Tina is “Mamma”

Is frighteningly cooperative when you are dressing him.

Is extremely affectionate.

Loves to be held.

Can entertain himself for long spells.

Can go to sleep by himself in his crib. (it took us until last night to discover this, when we finally realized that we were keeping him up by carrying him around singing lullabies to him. He just kept fighting it. After 30 minutes or so, we finally admitted to ourselves that it wouldn’t be a crime to put a former orphan down in his bed. He fell right to sleep once we quit messing with him. Still feels wrong though.)

Tina says I need to sleep more, so I’m going to stop for now.

We fly to Guangzhou tomorrow.

Here are some pictures of our day today…

First things first: Stacking Cups!


Breakfast at the buffet: hard boiled eggs mixed in oatmeal: 2 bowls
after one bowl of congee with pork and "preserved eggs"


Trying to pick out pants that will fit...
Hey, his brother Ben wears 'em like this!


To give you an idea of his size, this is a portable crib, not full size.
He's 33 months old.


Trying to get him to eat frozen yogurt. didn't happen


With his brothers at the park.


Walking with Momma and Brother Ben


The shopping mall across the street. We've spent way to much time here, but have some funny stories...


Cam and Ben meet some of the local people...






Our hotel from the park.

Roast Duck...

Today was another “quiet” day in Shijiazhuang. We didn’t have Bob, our guide, come to meet us for anything. Now that we have Hui-Hui’s passport all we have to do is wait until Saturday, when it’s time to go to Guangzhou. So we decided to just hang out around the hotel.

Hui-Hui started his day with the stacking cups again. These are good for long periods of time. He focuses quite intensely on this work.



He had oatmeal for breakfast. Hui-Hui likes to share and wants to make sure everybody gets enough to eat.



Tina and I decided to take him for a walk and practice crossing the street. I think we’re starting to get the hang of it. The best strategy for us right now is to find a Chinese person trying to cross the same street and follow them closely. Some will cross busy streets like they’re playing “Frogger”. One lane at a time stopping on the lines as cars and bikes come at them from every direction. It’s the taxi’s you really have to watch for.

Drivers have a whole different system for communicating. Horn honking isn’t rude. In fact it can be polite. Bob showed me how to honk “thank you”, it’s a quick “beep beep”. I’ve also noticed you should always honk as you enter an intersection to let people know you are there. It would be rude not to honk in this situation. Bikers ring their bells as they approach intersections. It’s a noisy place!



Shijiazhuang doesn’t have a lot of touristy stuff to do. Which makes it kind of fun for us in a way. We are a real curiosity here. Tina had a maid in the hotel sweep a tight circle around her in the lobby with a push broom while staring at her. We are glad we brought little cards with us that explain in Chinese what it is we’re doing here, and why we have Hui-Hui.

We took all three boys to the shopping mall again today. Cam got an er-hu, a type of Chinese violin.



Hui-Hui loves hanging with his brothers...







For dinner we decided to try a rather famous restaurant called Quanjude, known for it’s Peking Duck. Our Frommer’s travel guide says this “provincial branch” provides better service, price and atmosphere than it’s main outlet in Beijing. Since this was one of the few things listed in the Frommer’s China book for Shijiazhuang, we decided to try it out. I took the book down to the concierge desk and showed the entry to the attendant. No one here in the hotel really “speaks” English. I said “restaurant” a couple times to him, and finally he lit up and said, “Yes, restaurant, umm, chicken,no… DUCK!” and smiled real big! I took this as a good sign then he said, ‘Not far, take taxi, maybe… 5 yuan.”

We decided we could do this. We wrote the name and address for the restaurant on a slip of paper, and we have cards from the hotel that have their name and address on them in Chinese. We got a cab outside the hotel and rode a little ways across the downtown area.

So we get to the place and it looks great! We’re thinking we are so cool. This will be no problem. It’s a beautiful restaurant with a big happy duck outside.



We get in and the place is gorgeous.



we see the fire where they roast the duck,



and the ducks,



and all the seafood tanks that restaurants here like to use to display their fresh, live seafood.



A hostess shows us to our table and seats us. Then they begin speaking to us in Mandarin. I thought for sure that someone here would speak a little English, so I indicated I didn’t understand, she quickly went to get someone. This person didn’t speak English either though, and before long we had a crowd of well uniformed staff around us all speaking in Mandarin. A few of them gesture that I should follow them over to another part of the restaurant. They lead me to a display of hanging ducks. I try to ask how much I should order for 4 people. They look at me like I’m speaking a foreign language.

I smile a lot and keep trying to indicate that I’m trying to feed dinner to 4 people. We gesture and make confused faces at one another for a while then they lead me to a vast displays of dishes.



None of which are anything I recognize. More staff gathers around me. Then this guy



starts indicating that I should point to what I want. I make a couple choices, he seems to want me to continue. I point some more. I try to indicate that there are 4 people I’m trying to feed.

Confused looks and encouragement to select more.

Finally one of the waitresses in our entourage seems to think I may have ordered enough and they allow me return to the table. Tina and the boys are looking at me like “Where have you been?”

I’m not sure what to say, because I’m not really sure what had just happened.

I think we are going to get some duck,

and some other things.

Then about 5 waiters and waitresses tried to take our drink order. We think this shouldn’t be too hard, and try to order a couple Cokes and a couple beers. More confusion ensues, A wine list is produced. I think it was a wine list, but it was written in Chinese. I’m not quite sure why they thought I might be able to read Mandarin if I can’t speak or understand it, but they insisted several times that I should look at this list. The printing in it was very nice.

Finally we did actually get two Cokes and two beers. We also got two very odd, cloudy fruit beverages that we had also apparently ordered in the confusion.

We also managed to convey that we wanted soup for Hui-Hui. Tina had learned that the word for soup is something like “tong”.

So we all kept saying “tong” and pantomimed eating soup from the small bowls on the table. This they understood and quickly produced what looked like the “millet gruel” Hui-Hui likes in our hotels buffet.

They really made a fuss over him. When I tried handing Tina a disposable bib, a waitress took it, put it on him and proceeded to feed him for us.





Then the dishes I ordered start to arrive.

When I say these were generous platters, it doesn’t quite convey the amount of food I had apparently ordered. We might as well have been catering a small wedding.

Tina, Cam, and Ben, all start getting alarmed. “How much food did you order?”

I really have no idea what to tell them. I don’t even know what it is that I’ve ordered, let alone how much.

“What about the duck?” they keep asking.

I think I ordered duck.

In fact I think I might have ordered a couple. But there is no way we can fit any more food on the table.



We had also indicated that Hui-Hui would need more soup, so they brought him a whole tureen.



Then someone brings me this extremely fancy envelope with raised, golden Chinese calligraphy printed on the front.



I open it and find the certificate for the duck they are about to serve us.



The bird is carved table side and they have all of us taste a bite before it is served.



The head is split and served on a separate plate.



We begin to speculate what this dinner might be about to cost us. This place is pretty fancy, and we have ordered enough food to feed The Red Army. Ben always worries about our finances, and I can see him begin to panic.

The duck is excellent though, and we decide not to worry about it. We’ll just let this be our big splurge for the trip.

Finally the bill comes…

360 Yuan

That’s a whopping $45!!

So my advice is, if you find yourself in Shijiazhuang, and have time to drop by the Quanjude restaurant, try the duck. It’s excellent!

News from ShiJiazhuang

Okay, you should probably go to the bathroom and grab a snack before you start reading this, because I think it’s going to be pretty long

I’m going to try and write out how the last couple days went.

You might want some Kleenex too…

Today is our third day with Kai here in ShiJiazhuang.

Yesterday was a busy day! And a very productive one, we officially adopted Kai! And here’s the certificate to prove it!

Tina and I met our guide “Bob” in the lobby at 8:30 AM. We let Cam and Ben stay at the hotel, and Tina and I went from there to the civil affairs office.

Here we met the directors from the orphanage who also brought Kai’s nanny with them. It was sweet that she was able to come, but also difficult for us to see Kai have to separate from her again. She gave him a shirt and a toy, and beautiful little silver amulet which she tied around his neck with a red cord. I couldn’t help crying when she did this.

After we completed the adoption certificate we went to a notary office and had a bunch of stuff sealed.

This took a couple hours and again Kai’s nanny kept him with her during this time. This was painful for Tina as it seemed to be further delaying his attachment to us. Ultimately, I think it was a good thing for him to see that she was happy about him being with us, and made the transition more gradual. You could tell she truly cared for him, and I thought it was very meaningful that the orphanage directors made accommodations for her to travel with them for this.

After the notary office, our guide seemed concerned about the way the paperwork was proceeding. The passport application needed to be filed at the police station in Bao Ding, the city where Kai’s orphanage is. But we are now in the provincial capital, ShiJiazhuang. The orphanage directors said they would file it and have it mailed to us. But our guide didn’t like this plan. He was worried we wouldn’t get it before Friday when we are scheduled to leave for Guangzhou. So he decided that he and and I would drive back to Bao Ding again with the orphanage directors and file it ourselves. He suggested I take them to lunch as well to help things along. We went to another traditional Chinese restaurant. It was a very interesting place. It was a theme restaurant done in the style of the “Cultural Revolution” the waiters were dressed in red army uniforms and there were portraits of Mao, Stalin, Lenin and Marx on the walls. They were even playing Cultural Revolution songs. To me the really funny thing was that this was not a touristy type place. It was intended to be tongue in cheek, but was aimed at native Chinese. The menu was in Chinese only, no pictures so I couldn’t order. I still don’t know what some of the stuff was we were eating but it was very good. All the restaurants serve “family style” with big bowls in the middle and everybody just picks from them with their chopsticks. And smoking at the table is acceptable. No ash tray? No problem, just flick it on the floor.

After we ate, Bob, our guide, drove me back to Bao Ding. It’s about a two hour drive. He is a REALLY nice guy about the same age as me and Tina. We visited on the drive and talked about many things.

When we got to Bao Ding we went to the police station. This is the police station where Kai was taken when he was first found, so I was really happy I got to visit it.

It was very small, and quite funky. It seemed more like a DMV. People were there to process various applications, like we were doing. As it turns out we were very fortunate that Bob had insisted we made this trip. The police dept. had to see my passport, and the photos we had gotten of Kai the day before weren’t right. His head was too big in them, and the shirt he was wearing was too light in color. So someone from the orphanage took the photos back to the photographer and had him resize them and color his shirt on a computer. I also had to sign for the passport.

If I hadn’t made this trip I don’t know what we would have done, there’s no way we would have gotten his passport in time. Bob still seemed somewhat concerned but I think it will be okay.

Another funny bit to this story was that while we were waiting for the photos to be fixed bob took me into the back of the police station where they had a little store. He wanted to look at personal protection weapons, and this is where they sell them. In the back was a room with three people playing cards and smoking behind a counter. In the counter was the most amazing display of tazers and stun guns you can imagine. Bob asked to look at one that resembled a police baton with silver metallic spirals down the shaft. The woman helping him turned it on and discharged it in the room. The shaft lit up like a lightning storm! The crackling electricity left the smell of ozone heavy in the room. Then Bob tried discharging it a couple times. I was quite impressed, as I’d never seen anything like this before! He decided to settle on a small retractable spring club instead.

As we were leaving, Bob told me that his 19 year old son had just begun studying computers at the university here in Bao Ding, and asked me if I would like to meet him. I thought this sounded like a great idea to me, so we drove over to the University. Much of it is brand new, and very modern. Bob’s son was very nice, and seemed excited to meet me. His English was very good, which kind of surprised his father. We visited for a bit about computers, then Bob and I headed back to ShiJiazhuang.

I had him take me to a grocery store on our way to the hotel as we needed some baby food and a few other things. Bob took me to a brand new shopping center which was amazing. It was like a cross between WallMart and Haggen, only bigger and fancier. They had everything you can imagine there. Again it drove home the vast economic disparity in China. Parts are so modern and western, while vast poverty is still the reality for many, many people here.

I got back to the hotel about 8:00 PM. Tina and the boys had had a good day. Cam and Ben had discovered another shopping center across the street from the hotel. Cam bought a cheap guitar for $30 and Ben got a harmonica. They have been playing for Kai.

Tina found that Kai likes to eat egg drop soup. They had taken him to the hotel restaurant and tried him on several things. He settled in on the soup and had three big bowls of it!! She said she had to finally just quit feeding it to him as he showed now signs of stopping.

When we got back to the room the boys went to their room for a bit and Tina and I were alone with Kai. I laid down on the bed with my knees up and laid him back against my thighs. I then started playing with his feet in my face – peek-a-boo, and nibbling his toes, and he started to smile! This was so exciting because he has been pretty much just shut down since we got him. We think it’s a combination of stress and grief, but it’s scary to see this tiny little guy be so passive and quiet. But then when I was playing with him I suddenly got a giggle out of him!!!

It was so exciting and reassuring to hear! We called the boys into our room but he wouldn’t do it again for an audience. Still we knew now that it was in there, and were certain we’d see it again.

When we woke up today, I said to Tina that I thought today would be the beginning of Kai’s transformation. It was day three, and we didn’t have any plans to leave the hotel so we would be able to just go slow.

Tina and I had woke up at 4:00 AM and laid there quietly till 5:00. We have Kai in a crib next to us. But I couldn’t leave him in there any longer so we brought him to bed between us. He is soooo tiny, and sweet. Even though he’s going on three, he is still very babyish. He takes a bottle and wants to be held a lot, which we think is great. We are dying to hold him, and being able to feed him a bottle is such a great way to bond.

About 7 or so he was waking up so we gave him a bottle, and then he went back to sleep. He just seemed stressed out, and he was dealing with it by sleeping. So we just held him and let him sleep. When he did finally get up I started playing with him again with the foot game. I would put his toes in my mouth make noises. Then I started tickling him and before long I had him laughing out loud!!! It was thrilling. And from there he began to just open up. He still had some sad quiet times through out the day, but we just took it slow, and lounged in the bed with him.

We did go down to the restaurant for lunch and dinner, both times he did the same bottomless bowl of soup thing. The hotel restaurant is buffet style and they have both “western” (sort of) and Chinese food. So we started adding fried rice and cooked pumpkin, which we mashed) into the egg drop soup. As long as it was mashed and in the soup he would eat it. And he started feeding himself as well. At dinner I questioned whether we should really give him a third bowl again, but he was scraping the bottom of the second bowl. So we gave him the third but didn’t help him eat it. He didn’t need any help. He’s like one of those competition eaters. We all just sit there watching him put it away, and wonder, “where is it going???”

He also started playing with the toys we brought. Yesterday he would hold things, but didn’t play at all, just looked sad. But today he was really coming out of it. He likes putting things inside other things so we got out the plastic linking rings, and the biggest stacking cups. He spent about an hour putting the rings in the cup than dumping them out.

We also got out the magna-doodle. I wasn’t sure if he’d figure this out, but he obviously has had experience coloring. He wanted the back of the pen to be an eraser, but once we showed him how to clear the drawing surface he just went to town with it.

We are feeling much better about how he’s doing now, and expect to see even more improvement as we go forward. He’s grieving, and has some delays, but he is the most beautiful thing we’ve ever seen (along with our other two sons) and know he will make rapid strides.

Tomorrow we are to visit some tourist attractions. I can’t remember if it’s the temple or the bridge. I am hoping it will stop raining. It poured all day today. Since we didn’t go anywhere it didn’t matter, but hopefully it will clear and let us see some of the countryside.

Bob, our guide, had said yesterday that the cloudy weather was, “Perhaps because the sky is moved.” He meant that they were tears of joy for our adoption of Kai, and I think this is true. Bob has been a great help to us, and is a very sincere and noble man. I feel so lucky to have traveled this far and be able to meet people like him.

Please hold our family in your prayers as we still have a long way to go before we are back in our home. Emails are always welcome and reassuring!