Market and Temple

Hi Everyone,

This post is all Wim-- with just a little help from me. My big adventure today happened in the Swan room with Josie. She had a major blow-out from her butt. I'm talking ALL OVER! We got it all cleaned up really quick and Daddy had to run up to our room to get her another outfit. When we went shopping at the French Walmart a few days back, an elderly Chinese couple handed us some kind of bottled grape juice and indicated we should feed it to Josie Dong Dong. Today that is what she had to drink. I think in the future I will watch more closely how much of it she gets. She really does love it though. She kept digging it out of the baby bag when I wasn't looking and crawling off with it.

There are pictures posted after Wim's Commentary.

Wim:

Yesterday, 3/29/08, we went to a big market where we really went to see a slice of Cantonese life. Our guide Veronica says that the Cantonese people are known for being interested in eating anything. She is from Beijing and she admits being pretty mystified by what she sees in the market. Recently, after the SARS problem, the government began banning some of the consumption of certain animals in this province.

They had a pet market where kittens were for sale, as well as dogs and fish. We even saw a golden retriever puppy! We miss Phoebe!

Many of the products for sale, be they animal or vegetable, are thought to have medicinal powers. We saw some seahorses for sale. Reena says they are a threatened species. We asked the lady how much and they were about $US200 per pound.

I used my Mandarin to buy a few little bone carvings so that was a little thrill for me. They speak Cantonese here but everyone learns Mandarin in school. Also, the written language is the same for all of China. So one Chinese character always means the same thing, but a speaker of Mandarin will use a different sounding word than a speaker of Cantonese or Shanghainese. I want to try my Mandarin more often but so many people at the hotel and island speak English that they are resistant to my efforts and try to compensate for my stumbling in Mandarin by speaking more and more English. In contrast, when I was in the market I was able to speak and understand Mandarin pretty well.

Later in the day while walking around we were approached by some very young school children with their teachers. They were doing a little project where they had to approach English speakers and say, "Hi, How are you? My name is -------? What is your name? Will you sign my book?" So Reena and I signed their little books and felt very impressed. Can you imagine such a thing happening in America in a Spanish speaking neighborhood? Rather than feel threatened by a foreign language and people, these educators see the presence of English speakers as an opportunity for their children to learn not just another language but courage and open-mindedness.

We spend a lot of time in the "Swan Room" which is a big play room with lots of space and some toys from Mattel. Josie loves it there and aside from paying with Mommy, she will interact a lot with other children. She becomes much less shy. She is quite coy with me and she does reach out and touch me ever so briefly and then moves back toward Mommy. She sees Reena kiss me and has taken to offering me a little kiss, which we make a huge fuss over.

Today, 3/30/08, we went to the Six Banyan Trees, which is a Han Buddhist temple. About 10 % of Chinese are Buddhists making it the largest practiced religion. Many more Chinese have no religion and members of the Communist party, about 20-30 %, are not supposed to practice a religion. Communism guides their philosophy of life, though it is an 'open secret’ that some Communist party members privately practice a religion. The second largest religion is Islam, practiced mostly in the northwest of the country, and 3rd are Christians including Catholics. There is a Catholic church on the island where we are staying. Taoism is also practiced and it is China’s only homegrown religion. Lao Tsu is the founder of Taoism.

So I am interested in comparative religions so this was great for me. We all received a blessing from a monk at the temple. He hit a little drum, and then chanted and splashed little drops of water on us, and finished with the little drum. . We were kneeling in front of three huge golden Buddhas. Josie watched him closely the whole time. I also noticed there were female Buddhas in the temple.

It was ok for us to take photos in the temple, which surprised me, a little. It is a holy place but the focus is on tolerance in Buddhism. I was told not to take photos in McDonalds by a staff person. I asked why. She didn’t know. I mean, what is more important, Josie’s first McNugget or

her blessing by a holy man.

Wim and school Kids.

Parents and babies (from our group)

Empress Josie of the Dong Dong dynasty.
Josie and JulieAnne

(after the blow-out)

Random Shots from the Six Banyan Temple

The babies and families were blessed by a monk in the room with the three big Budhas.

Reena and Josie with incense to burn in respect for Josie's birth family and ancestors, her

adoptive family and ancestors, and hopes for a very happy future.

Reena placing the incense in a special area for burning.

Wim and Josie playing in the Swan Room

Homeless man

Random Shots from the local Market and Shopping Plaza
Check out the Yellow Shirt

Ducks Ants









Many people have dogs for pets. We were amazed to see how many pets. It is definitely a sign of increasing economic times to see so many folks with dogs for pets. We even saw one man with a St. Bernard!

That is it for the last few days. The spell checker will not come on and the formatting has gone whacky for some of the post. We hope that it is all readable.

Love,

Reena and Wim

Chen Family Museum

Hi Folks,

We are posting in two parts again today.

Last night Wim bought a stroller for us to use here and me to use during the trip home. We took Dong Dong Josie out for a stroll to get her use to it. She is a little tentative about trying new things, but she finally settled in as long as she could hold my finger.

We are on the Pearl River and there is a park on the river and people hang out here doing Tai Chi, ball room dancing, and just generally hang out and enjoy the sights.

Mommy and Josie on her first walk with a stroller. She needed to hold Mommy's hand on the first go 'round but now she is able to tolerate it without the hand holding.

This is the deadpan expression reserved especially for Daddy. Believe it or not, this is progress because at least she looks at me.

Josie's making her move upward to her Mommy. A flurry of "Mommy's" came out her mouth Friday which is a change from "aaaaayeeee". I am sure we have not heard the last of 'aaaayeee'.

Josie's smile is just a killer. You think the photo is cute - try listening to her laugh at the same time.

Josie walking around a circular table in the Swan Room, which we are trying to encourage. We already notice she is less wobbly. Initially she wouldn't even crawl in pursuit when Reena walked away, just sit and cry , some kind of learned helplessness. But now she does sometimes and gets a big dos of Mommy love to reward her effort.


She likes to take of her shoes. We think she is realizing that they are HER shoes.

This is a women doing Tai Chi at night. This is very common and you see people doing it all times of the day, mostly folks over 50. It is one aspect of Chinese life that I will not hesitate to say is better than American life.




This is a photo of a tour boat on the Pearl River with a lit up hotel in the background. The nights are really perfect. It smells nice too, probably the flowers .

Here is the scoop from Wim . . .

March 27, 2008

We went to the Chen family temple today and saw some traditional Cantonese architecture. It is a museum now but it used to be a site for ancestral worship. Many Cantonese still practice ancestral worship. In Canton the old style architecture is similar to the north in layout but the roofs are much more ornate and colorful with wood carvings of figures from Buddhist folk tales. 30-40% of Cantonese are now Buddhist. Below are some pictures:

Driving through Guangzhou with the huge proliferation of businesses it is hard to believe that until 1980 there were no businesses at all and everybody dressed exactly the same. It just seems so unChinese, especially here in the south of China.

Afterward we went to a government store where the quality of the products are guaranteed and therefore more expensive than on the street. We bought Josie a jade bracelet. The tradition in China is for the mother to wear the bracelet until the daughter gets married.

We finished our day at a Cantonese restaurant and enjoyed another great meal.
Now we are back at the hotel room and I was able to play with Josie in a way that I have not so far. Reena intentionally makes it so hard for her to get far from me that I think she gets tired of contorting her baby self to avoid me. Plus I have the power of the tickle so I was able to get some big belly laughs. Her big cheeks make her smile seem huge which increases the jolly factor to the 10th degree. Now that I have some contact with her my suffering is worse because I am still not able to give her a hug and squeeze without her crying. So when I am really feeling sorry for myself I mutter to myself something like this: "Dong dong Josie wants her dong dong daddy to take a dong dong dive in the Pearl River and dong dong disappear so she can be with her dong dong mommy and they can live dong dong happily ever after." It isn’t appropriate for me to suck my thumb, right? So my dong dong muttering carries me through.

From Reena: This is the first time Wim got to hold Dong Dong Josie without her crying- we were at the Cantonese Restaraunt and she is sleeping. As soon as she woke up, she cried.

She says words that we are sure are baby Mandarin or Cantonese, lots of vowels with ‘ng’ at the end and no consonants. We wish we had a tape recorder and we are going to try and get one.
The other families are adjusting to their new daughters and we really like our group. Most of them are from the south. Actually, Reena is originally from the south so I am the only person from north of the mason dixie line. They are a friendly bunch and all as enthralled and challenged as we are.

I am making an effort to be adventurous with the food and so far I have had ostrich, goose, eel, and a fruit drink with a crushed up tree frog in it. It just seemed like chewy pulp. The eel was good but hard to eat because of the bone in the middle.

Tomorrow we are going to walk around a local market that is nearby but not on Shamian Island-- it is where the local people shop.

Reena and Wim

Yun tai Garden

Hi Everyone,

We seem to be approaching a routine with feedings and nap time. It isn't quite how the Nannies described her schedule, but we are figuring it out. Dong Dong Josie is napping happily on the bed while I write this.

We had a nice morning today. As usually we had breakfast at the hotel buffet. It is included with the room and is quite the feast! You name they have it-- all the usual American stuff and typical Chinese morning food as well: noodles, steamed tomatoes, dumplings, rice porridge, chicken patties, steamed fish. . . .

After breakfast our group visited the Yun tai Garden-- which is a very beautiful place with lots of flowers, waterfalls, streams, totem poles, and rock gardens.

This is the waterfall and stairway as you enter the park. In front is one the dads in our group, Steve Jackson. To the left is another family in our group, Clay, Jenna, and Adrian.

Wim and I decided to try positioning Dong dong Josie a little differently today-- I had her facing outward in the carrier so she had to look at people-- especially

daddy.

Me and Dong dong Josie with a mouse statue at the park-- This is the year of the rat-- but mice are cuter.

Reena and Dong Dong Josie with Jenna and her new daughter, Caroline.

Shortly after we arrived at the garden-- it was too hot to keep her in the carrier, so I took her out and just carried her on my hip. It is a good thing I was hitting the gym so hard the last couple months before this trip!

Dong Dong Josie enjoyed trying to take a few steps in her new squeaky shoes (they squeak when she walks-- Phoebe is going to LOVE them!). She still needs some help walking-- I am hoping to have her up and running by the time we fly home.

This is us with our guide, Veronica. She is a lovely young woman who is extremely organized and she has a pleasant demeanor. I cannot imagine dealing with so many adoptive families, all the different personalities, the babies and all they have been through, making all the appointments, getting everyone there, getting the paperwork completed and there etc. She is amazing! We are very grateful and pleased to have her for our guide.

In this picture she is telling us that we will likely be approached by Chinese people while at the garden who are curious about why we are white and have Asian babies. She explains that some people may want to take pictures of us and/or with us. She is passing out to all of us a note card that we can were around our neck that explains we have adopted our daughter, her name, her birthdate, and her orphanage (each card is specific to each little girl in the group). This proved to be very helpful as you will see in some later pictures.

Dong dong Josie is doing much better today in terms of looking at people and looking at Daddy. He is able to talk to her and scoot in kinda close without her crying.

She enjoyed the garden very much and loved the flowers. I am not sure if she has ever seen flowers before or smelled them, but she was smelling them today. I showed her how to sniff the scent and then she did it and got a really big smile on her face.

Below are some random shots of the garden. We only spent a couple of hours here-- you could easily spend twice that amount of time. The tours we are now going on are kept short and are in the morning because we are catering to our babies' schedules and they all like to nap in the afternoon.

A few of the families brought some of their children with them on the trip. Dong dong Josie was very interested in watching them run around the rocks in a little cave area at the gardens.

The little girl in the pink pants whose back is to the camera was adopted into her family from China about 4 years ago. She is very happy to now have a little sister, also adopted from China. She said she has been waiting for her sister as long as she can remember.

This was a really good day for Dong dong Josie. She is a very happy girl and her personality keeps shining newer and brighter with each day.

Reena and Dong Dong Josie with a nice Chinese Lady who told us that our daughter is very beautiful and gave us a thumbs up.

One part of the day she didn't care for was all the old Chinese ladies who kept approaching us to take her thumb out of her mouth. This has been a common occurrence. A younger lady in one of the shops explained to me that in Chinese culture the older generation thinks a baby sucking their thumb or finger is bad for their Chi. This is because your hands get dirty, fingernails get dirty, you put them in your mouth and suck out the dirt and it will make your Chi unhealthy.

As annoying as this is, at least it is out of care and concern. Although, I don't think Dong Dong Josie cares about why they are doing it-- she simply wants them to leave her alone and was at the point of starting to slap away at people by the end of the morning. Mostly she was doing this to me because I would try to gently take her thumb out of her mouth when we were approaching or being approached by old ladies so they would leave her alone.

Reena and Dong Dong Josie surrounded by Chinese ladies. The read the card that Veronica gave us and most gave us the thumbs up. The lady to the left in the purple shirt and brown sweater was not happy with the thumb sucking and kept pulling on Josie's arm to take her thumb out of her mouth.

She told me to tell Josie, "Boo Yao!" when she sucks on it. This means "don't" and/or "no" in Mandarin.

On the bus ride home Dong Dong Josie let Wim give her some small strokes with his finger without giving a fuss. The last picture is a bit blurry, but very important. It shows that Wim is finally able to feed her a couple of bites.

Slowly, she is starting to warm to him. I think she is figuring out that he at least will let her suck her thumb in peace!

The First Days

Hi Everyone,

Wim and I are both writing some tid bits down to share with you all. First let me say, before this trip several people warned me that the rooms etc. in China are kept very cold. I brought extra clothes because as many know-- especially my work friends-- I get cold easy.
I'm freak'n dying of heat exhaustion here! Our room in Beijing was like a Sauna and everywhere we go it is HOT! I'm about ready to rip the sleeves off of the sweatshirts I brought and start wearing them as skirts!



Josie's first bath with us. She fussed for the first few minutes, then liked it until she threw her cup and splashed herself.




I am going to randomly but somewhat chronologically post a few pictures with captions about what is happening. This may or may not coincide with whatever else we happen to write. I know this may be a little confusing, but that is what you get when you mix flying over the date line with a toddler and a little Tsing Tao beer.

I have to say, this trip is really exhausting-- in a good way; very good way. But still, exhausting.
Yesterday we returned to the CCAA (China Officials in Charge of adoption) for our interviews and to sign documents that we want to adopt Josie and promise that we will be good parents to her forever. We were also able to meet the Director of her Orphanage and ask her some questions.





Reena and Dong Dong Josie at the CCAA office talking with the Shaoguan SWI Orphanage Director.





As many of you know, her Orphanage is sponsored by Half The Sky (see link on the blog). We are very fortunate in that we were provided with a booklet they kept for Josie documenting her life and development while in their care. This booklet also includes many pictures of Josie at various ages. The book has several pages and many pictures-- we will need to get it translated to English to read it-- but we are extremely happy to have been provided with so much information.

Josie is also recovering from a cold and the director provided us with quite a bit of medication for her and instructions on how to give it. She also told us that they called Josie Dong Dong. Right now we are calling her Dong Dong Josie. We want her to know we are talking to her and we also want to transition her to her new name slowly.


We were interviewed by two different officials in separate rooms one was the notary and the other was the registration.

Reena and Dong Dong Josie with the CCAA government official at the end of the 2nd Interview.

It was a big morning for Josie and she was more than ready for her first nap with us when we returned to the hotel.

We went out to eat with several of the other families in the evening to a Thai place called Cow and Bridge. Wim and I shared red curry goose and green curry ostrich. Josie had dish of steamed eggs with chicken and most of Wim's papaya shake. She definitely has the eating food thing down pat and she likes to take her time about it. Really she eats a ton and likes to eat slow. It takes about 45 minutes to an hour to feed her. She's not fussy about it-- she is really happy, she simply likes to take her time.

She is eating a ton-- I don't know where she puts it! To give you an idea, aAt breakfast today (it is a buffet) she had: about 2 scrambled eggs, 1 cup of yogurt, 1/2 banana, 3/4 of a stewed tomato, OJ and 8 oz of formula mixed with Rice Cereal.

Reena Feeding Josie in the Hotel Restaurant.

Josie in the shopping cart at Walmart.

She would not look up at people because she is shy.

We went shopping at the Walmart in Guangzhou today. It is a french walmart-- careform (yes, you read that right-- a french Walmart in China). That in itself was to eventful to write about. Suffice it to say-- Josie experienced a very large and I am quite sure satisfying dump. We had to borrow a diaper from another family (Wim left our diaper bag on the bus because our guide said we could leave our stuff on the bus if we wanted to-- I don't think I need to bother writing a comment about this). (I have no idea where this underline came from???)

Then we had to find a place to change her. They don't really use diapers here so Wim got very frustrated asking the sales people where we could go. I ended up changing her on the floor in a little hall wall. I don't think the workers in the adjacent room appreciated it. They went running out of their room yelling "OOOooooooo!"

In the afternoon we had to go to another China government appointment to have a picture done of Josie and received our official Adoption Certificate from China. This was an interesting trip and we were not able to take our own pictures. Wim and I were both on the other's nerves-- and letting each other know about it (yes, in the "holding area" for China's finalization of the adoption). Josie had been napping and was not happy to be woken up, we were irritated and we had a Male Chinese police looking guy trying to get Josie to smile for the picture.

She is shy, doesn't like strangers-- which is anyone other than me-- and she especially doesn't like men. She screamed and Screamed and SCREAMED at this guy. Finally he just took the picture and shook his head. He probably figures she is a good match for us since we were being fussing with each other while waiting.

Picture of me a Josie playing in the play room at the Hotel-- called the Swan room. She would not look at Wim for her picture.

Josie after her Oatmeal bath-- Reena took the picture.

So, without further Ado-- The China portion of the adoption is now complete. In China's eyes, we are legally and solely the parents of Josephine Orangelee-Fudong Chase. Next up is the American Embassy-- we'll see what our government manages to screw-up-- I'm taking bets that they manage to screw-up something.

Wim and I got some food from a nearby Chinese bakery and deli for dinner and ate in our room We felt that we should have a nice easy and quiet evening tonight. There has been soooo much running around the last few days-- I can hardly imagine how tired Josie is with everything! After dinner we went to the play room and played for about an hour and then we completed our day with a soothing oatmeal bath. Josie really seemed to enjoy it-- followed by a bottle of milk, she was out like a light.

Here are a few words from Wim (morning 3/24):

Today we officially became Josie’s parents after going through an interview and paying some fees, all very reasonable. We had a chance to speak with an employee of the orphanage, Xu Xiu Ying, not sure of her title. We asked her some questions though it was limited because the person interpreting was spread thin. We also think she didn’t know much specifically about Josie. Josie had her own nannie named Wang Qi Zhen.

We learned that they call her ‘dong dong’, likes fruit, doesn’t like water, likes to be held and be bounced on your knee. She likes to be spoken to. We have noticed that she really listens when you speak to her, and it seems to soothe her. She is very curious, but pretty much wants to cling to Reena all the time so far. She is very very very very very slowly allowing me to play with her a little tiny bit, and I even fed her some today while Reena held her.

She is so cute and I am so used to being so hands with babies on that I am just going nuts ‘respecting her space’. She calls Reena a word that sounds like ‘ eye - eee’, emphasis on ‘eeee’ which means auntie or something and is the word they call the nannies. It is really cute to hear her say it.

She sucks her thumb and is probably the chubbiest of the babies, looks more like Gabrielle and Xavier at that age than the other babies. She can’t walk on her own which I think would normally be the case at her age but she crawls REAL FAST when Reena takes 2 steps away from her so I think she is hiding some abilities.

It is really important for me to remind myself that Josie has been through major emotional trauma and just relax. There really are no males in the lives of these girls so we are new to them. It is hardest for the older girls, over a year, to adjust to males. The younger ones do ok. Other men have similar issues.

Reena does consult me about diapers and I just let her know that it will be very obvious when she poops, you don’t need to worry that you may have missed it. She did poop today, and my point was validated.

So this is blogging. I am telling you about our baby’s poops and I hope you find it interesting. The weather is cloudy and even a little drizzly though in the 60’- 70's.

Reena an Wim