Random Thoughts

BJ is quite different from CQ in many ways. Although both are 2 of the largest cities in China, CQ is quite mountainous (therefore few cyclists) and Beijing is quite flat. Our guides have told us many interesting bits of information about China. The population in BJ is 13 million plus 4 million “floating” population, meaning travelers such as us. There are 6 million bicycles in BJ and throughout China, and there are 300 traffic fatalities per day – we are surprised the number isn’t higher given the many near misses we have witnessed and/or experienced. Pedestrians do not have the right of way and as we crossed the street in front of our hotel, we were almost hit many times over when cars crossed right in front of us even with our baby strollers. Here is a photo of how wide the bicycle lane is; note the car cutting through the cyclists (Joan, don't worry - no one was hurt!)



BJ is much cooler than CQ – thank goodness – and luckily we packed a variety of clothes for Katie and us. BJ feels like a more cosmopolitan big city than CQ despite having a smaller population. We have heard that the girls of CQ are the prettiest in all of China, and based on Katie’s beautiful features as well as the attractive CQ girls that we have seen we agree. Everywhere we go, people smile and admire our babies. Some even play and touch them saying “ho guai” meaning very good/pretty. People are very family oriented but we have not seen any strollers and very few kids, but we did see this bottomless baby.



I presume the people know that many of their orphaned babies are adopted by Westerners – the newspapers publish “finding ads” whenever a child is abandoned hoping to locate the birth parents. However, the birth parents never come back to claim their babies as it is illegal to abandon your children in China. Although in BJ and in other cities parents are only allowed one child, in the countryside, if you have a girl as your first born, you are allowed to have a second child, girl or boy – this is in recognition that farmers want a boy to help with the physical farm chores. In the city, parents do not mind having a girl or a boy as they have equal entitlements. The military is composed of primarily people from the countryside because they are the poorest and although the wages are not very good, the benefits are excellent including free university education. A city resident told us that the army prefers country folk because they are viewed as being tough, whereas the city folk are considered soft.

Our hotel in CQ was very baby oriented with cribs and wash tubs ready in our rooms, strollers available, excellent food and extremely friendly service. Unfortunately, our hotel in BJ is not up to par with the standard we received in CQ, but the location is excellent and within walking distance of many shops and restaurants including a wonderful dumpling restaurant where we just had a takeout costing about $2.50.

Katie continues to make progress. She resists eating during the day, but when she is partly sleepy (usually in the middle of the night), she will drink quite a bit of formula. She is only just today drinking the expected quantity of formula. We had a better night’s sleep last night as she only cried out 5 times, 3 of which required attention. She makes excellent eye contact with us, an important feature in the process of attachment, and likes to touch or grab our faces. She is an excellent baby. I asked the doctor at the clinic whether we should be concerned as Katie took to us so easily and we had been told in one of our many adoption workshops that this could be a concern in the attachment process; he just smiled and said no, there was nothing to be concerned about – he’s probably thinking that adoptive parents are always worried even if there isn’t anything to worry about! Unfortunately, because I don’t want to pass my cold to Katie, I try not to get too close which does not help with the attachment process. Yesterday, she started doing more kicking with her toy, so we expect that “Kick it like Katrina” will be the next movie following the success of “Bend it like Beckham”. Today, she has started to stand with her feet more firmly planted – she used to curl her legs up when we tried to get her to stand before. She does have to work on her table manners as she likes to put her feet up.



We are starting to see the differences in the personalities of the babies – Katie seems to be quite good-natured about everything (except for eating) and just seems to take life in with a fairly relaxed manner. Some of the other parents have had to contend with bigger issues: temper tantrums, chest colds and minor infections requiring antibiotics. Our group is very fortunate to have all of our babies pass their medical exam because without it they cannot immigrate to Canada.

Before and during this trip, we have gotten to know 2 other couples: Sue & Aubrey and Lara & Vladimir.



Sue & Aubrey have a blogspot for their daughter as well at

http://www.journey-to-madison.blogspot.com/

which I believe may have a photo of us on it (unfortunately, we are unable to view blogs from within China.) The 6 of us provide support for one another, share our baby supplies and generally talk about our experiences and progress. Many of the families in our group have connected with one or 2 families and this helps with the support system. Our group is too large to get to know everyone (26 families) but the BC families (12 of us) are together on the same tours. Here we are at the cloisonné (enamelware) factory standing by a 2 million RMB ($300,000 Cdn) vase – we decided not to buy it as we don’t have any flowers that would fit.