After a buffet breakfast Mandarin Garden Hotel Nanjing style, we meet our guide Susan and climb into the van driven by our kind bus driver. Anna is attired in her red butterfly dress specially chosen for this occasion. We are driven to the Civil Affairs office in Nanjing to pay a fee of 2000 yuan for the privilege of revisiting the orphanage. How much money the orphanage will get out of this is subject to question, but it's now a requirement on the part of the Chinese government. Unsure of the decorum with regard to making this payment which I was hoping might be a gift for the orphanage, I had placed the yuan in a red envelope. When the civil affairs representative takes it, she laughed. I resisted taking back the red envelope itself, but think that I should have... We are quickly off to a supermarket where we hurriedly pick packages of Pamper diapers and plastic toys off the shelves to buy at the request of the orphanage as a gift for the children. Then we are off on the longer drive than I had remembered from 1999 to Yangzhou. It's a lot more built up than in 1999. We pass by lots of very tall, new apartment buildings interspersed with green rice paddies and older one story buildings with old style roof lines that are made of clay tile and have stone figures of animals atop to ward off evil spirits. We also pass by areas of storefronts with roll down fronts that are restaurants, stores, mostly empty, or stuffed with goods of one sort or another, all of which appear a bit worse for wear. The people in these areas look a bit worn out too, by and large. We cross over the Yangtze River on a long bridge with sculptures on each side that commemorate "The Long March" in 1934 when the Chinese Communist Party fled the Kuomintang and marched a distance of 6000 miles from Jiangxi to Shaanxi Province. This bridge was built from 1959 to 1969. As we enter the outskirts of Yangzhou, there are many car dealerships including Mercedes Benz and VW. Susan explains that Yangzhou is an ancient city about 2500 years old and that the opening of the Grand Canal is what made it famous. During the Tang Dynasty, Yangzhou was one of ten major cities. Houses in Yangzhou have flat roofs. 4.6 million people live in the general area. It is close to noon before we arrive at the Yangzhou Public Welfare House. When we pull up to the front of the children's building, Susan points out that the large red placard with gold characters on the front and little pink tulips in the lower left corner is a sign welcoming Yang Ru Qian back to visit. The assistant director comes out to greet us and we are ushered inside to a room and invited to sit in very small wooden children-sized chairs to watch a video about the reunion that was held last March for adoptees from Yangzhou SWI. From the looks of the video, it was quite an event and one that brought out the local officials as well. Apparently, the American Ambassador and his wife have adopted a young girl from Yangzhou SWI.
We then exchange gifts beginning with Anna's going through the photo album that she has prepared to tell them about her life. 2 others have joined our group by this point in the visit - a Miss Yan who has been in charge of the nannies for 25 years and a younger woman named Miss Fan who can speak some English and helps with the translating. They are very impressed with Anna's artful way of creating her album. They are then given packets of Anna's notecards and are very pleased to learn that the art work is hers! Right away, the assistant director invites Anna to paint something larger that will be placed in an exhibit hall they are hoping to set up about the lives of those who have been adopted from Yangzhou SWI. They are also interested in seeing a video of Anna's ballet. The assistant director Mr. Huang gives Anna a red packet that contains beautiful paper-cuts, and also gives us a video about the reunion last March, the same that we were just shown. We were not able to attend that reunion, but we sent a page of photos of Anna to go into a book for the occasion. We ascertain that their files don't include anything that we don't already have. There is no information to shed light on how Anna was named other than "the workers" would have named her and that it is a nice name. Anna thinks that the nannies must have named her. The Yangzhou SWI is very interested in maintaining contact with those who have been adopted out. Photos are taken and then we are taken on a tour of this new facility. (The one that Anna lived in was torn down to make way for this new one). There are nice designs painted on the walls in pastel colors including green, yellow, pink, purple, and others from the ground up. We go up to the second floor to see the sleeping spaces and the therapy rooms. It is nap time and there are two rooms with banks of wooden cribs inside each - Anna thinks maybe 50 cribs in each room. The cribs are pushed together so that they are touching one another, back to back in two long rows. But for one baby crying, they all appear fast asleep include one young boy whose legs are dangling outside of the side of the crib. I don't see any adult in the rooms monitoring the children but I'm distracted in the situation so I may not have noticed everything. The concrete dark green floor in the halls appears very clean. Overall, the area seems clean but a bit stark. We see some therapy equipment but where are the toys? On the way back downstairs, I have an opportunity to share with Miss Yan through Miss Fan that It was very clear to us that Anna came to us "full of love" . Her smile and demeanor tell me that she appreciates learning that. Miss Yan stays indoors and we wave goodbye to her as we start to walk around the grounds outdoors. The area is in the process of being landscaped and looks very nice. We have photos with us of our visit with Anna in 1999 and Mr. Huang is able to determine exactly where one of the photos was taken so we go there and take another, now over 11 years later. We see a small canal over a wall with a fishing boat tied up to the other bank. We walk along a winding path through a very tall thicket of bamboo. We climb aboard the van and drive away before I ask if Anna can leave her rocks back at the orphanage. Kindly, Mr. Huang asks the bus driver to turn around so that we can go back. Richard climbs out with Anna who leaves her rocks there and picks up a few to bring with us from there. We then head off in the van for a luncheon with the assistant director on the second floor in a private room of a local restaurant. Round table, lazy Susan, bowls of soup, fried rice, green tea, and sprite in small wine glasses. Susan, our guide and interpreter, and the bus driver join us at the table. We are pleased that the bus driver has joined us for lunch. It had been made clear to us that we are being treated to Lunch courtesy of the assistant director. At the conclusion of lunch, we say our thank you and goodbyes as he will take a taxi back to the orphanage while we head off to see Anna's "finding place" which the bus driver knows the location of - the Yuejin Bridge over the Grand Canal. When we adopted Anna, we hired a taxi to come see the place but it was dark and looked like a pedestrian bridge at that time. Not so this time. Though there are sidewalks, the street itself looks pretty busy. Of course, the whole area seems so built up compared to the last time we were here. At any rate, it's a fairly pretty area as weeping willow trees line the canal. Again we take photos though passing folks on motor scooters and bicycles look like they're wondering what we're doing. After that, we're off, back to Nanjing - this time taking the ferry across the Yangtze instead of the bridge. Will it be a stretch to say that we've been boating on the Yangtze, I wonder? On the way back in the van, Anna tells me that she feels it's been a good day, not as emotional as she thought it was going to be, and that she'd like to come back and play with the babies and children. We make one more stop before going to the hotel, that of stopping at a "brocade museum" to see how silk is made and then woven into fine garments. We see about 8 large looms that are in use. Several of them have something like a second floor above the main part of the loom which is being worked by a second individual. On our way to the showroom, we see some incredibly intricate examples of cloth in the form of royal robes and others. Then, predictably, we are thrust into this shopping situation again where I feel obligated to buy something, but what!? Because it is the eve of Ali and Steve's wedding day, we decide to get them a double phoenix design of handiwork which is the symbol that is given to couples on the occasion of their weddings. How timely! Once back at the hotel, Anna and I opt to stay in for the evening while Richard and Gail head out to walk around the Confucian Temple and night market and then have dinner. It's been a long day and visiting the orphanage, the crux of the trip, has been tiring. Anna opts to stay overnight with us in our room tonight which is fine. Nice to be close at the end of this day.
Note: 56 minorities in China all of which have dance styles.
Note: Susan is very familiar with Half the Sky Foundation.
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