The Road to You

Then:

Ten years ago my husband Eric, and I flew to China to meet our daughter Anne and bring her home. She was only a year old. As she grew we showed her pictures and videos from our two weeks spent in her birth country. She told us she wanted to visit “I want to see everything you saw that I don’t remember,” as soon as possible. My husband wanted her to be at least ten years old, so we told her she had to wait until she was ten. Wow, did ten years go by fast! When Anne turned ten, we didn’t see how we could make good on the afore mentioned trip to China. But, as her tenth year progressed, God provided and we planned the first hometown trip! Boy was she excited “I’ve waited my whole life for this!” That’s what she said to me when I asked, “Are you ready for this Anne?”

Now: Goals For The Hometown Visit

• Give Anne her own memories and experiences in her birth country
• Experience the Chinese culture-foods and people so that we can form our own opinions of what it means to be Chinese in China. (I never want my kids to believe everything they see and hear when it comes to other countries and their people. The best way to know the truth, is to travel and see for yourself.)
• Go to some of the places we went to on our first trip so Anne can see them in person.
• Go to new places, so we can all have new memories and experiences together (we chose Shanghai for this part of the trip, and it was awesome)
• Visit, and stay in Anne’s hometown of Lianyungang, China. On our first trip to China we only did a day trip to the children’s home. This time we wanted to stay and explore the hometown. We hoped we could all have a better picture of where our daughter was born, and the town she would have grown up in.
• Collect any information we may not have gotten, on the first trip to China, about Anne and her beginning.
• Bring pictures from the last ten years and gifts to the staff that cared for Anne in her first year of life.
• Let Anne meet, and ask questions of the ladies that cared for her in her first year.
• Tour the Children’s home if possible, to give Anne a view of where the kids are now. (The Children’s home has changed locations since we went, so she was unable to see the exact room, and setup of where she was…We do have pictures from the first trip that we do show her.)
• Let Anne experience her country as soon as possible. As she ages and has the addition of hormones we want to have gifted her a strong foundation to work from as to who she is, and where she is from.

How The Trip Went

Emotions: Jet lag is real. At nighttime that’s when emotions would be heightened. You might think I would have expected this and been patient. Nope. I expected the emotions to be experienced on the days in her actual hometown, or visiting the Children’s Home. Instead, they came out at night and were expressed about things that made NO SENSE. Of course I know that when I’m scared or anxious about say my child’s future, I might snap on someone about the windows being dirty. Which also, seems to not make sense. But wow, when my child is being ugly about us saying there will be showers in the evening, and no reasoning will touch the emotions….it’s like every training I ever took is completely ignored by me… I just have to say, I am not good at everything all the time…and at night time she and I both seemed to be not at our best. In the mornings, I would revisit and every thing would be back to normal for both of us. I made apologies if necessary for my words, or lack of compassion. I would ask if just allowing her to be upset, and not trying to talk sense would have been best (yes)….and we would move on….but another evening would occur…and still both of us not on our best behavior… I would try. It’s just hard when you do the things you think will help, and there is NO response from the child showing that your efforts are touching their emotions….we did our best..and that wasn’t always enough.

Navigating on days we didn’t have a guide or driver: We had amazing weather the whole time we were in China, the guides were awesome. However on days we didn’t have guide and driver, Eric was able to load and use China’s most common scan to pay app, and their version of Uber, so getting around and purchasing things was all relatively easy. We even took a “Didi” (China’s Uber) car to Shanghai Disney which was almost an hour from our hotel, spent the day at Disney on our own, and arranged another DiDi ride back to hotel. No issues and all fun!

Our DiDi cars were SO NICE. Since we needed vehicles that held 6 people, it was lazy boy style chairs in minivans with marble flooring! So much space! All of us wanted to buy their cars and bring them home. So much nicer than the minivans I have been in here in the U.S., and they were electric!

Breakfast times: I have one child that really just eats sugary things for breakfast, so they struggled in a place where the breakfast buffet is noodles, veggies, rice, stuffed buns, and lots of other savory foods. However, the rest of us will miss those hotel breakfasts!

The hometown visit: Well our first stop was the beach and right when we got out of the car we discovered a bird feeding experience (which Anne is about anything that involves animals). We went to a big mall, which had luxury cars inside that you could get in and look around. My son Holden, opened one door and found a guy taking a nap in the car. Another guy was eating in a car. There were apparently no rules. You just test the cars out for real life, right there in the mall. Does it pass school car line test? I don’t know. Nap in it….let’s find out! Also, the mall was tall, each level was themed such as, kid stores level, food places on another level, adult clothes on another. So easy to navigate and not so much walking from one end of the mall to another. Why don’t we do that here too?

We also got to experience shopping in a popular strip which Anne loved, we walked the old street in her town which led us to a little free museum, and a good coffee shop. Then, of course the Children’s Home day. There were at least 5 ladies that remembered Anne and played some part in her first year of life. We had a great time having lunch with them, and touring the classroom space where we also met some of the children who still have to call the children’s home their home. I of course was sad to know they don’t have families to call their own, and I wondered what they thought seeing us with Anne. Anne didn’t seem to take anything in as sad, but instead smiled quietly and listened as her previous caregivers spoke and asked questions about what grade she is in and what’s her favorite thing to eat and does she like it in China? I had to give her time and encouragement, but she was able to tell them her favorite food is dumplings with dumpling sauce and yes she likes it in China.

I don’t know what the future days hold…I don’t know if emotions will be heightened even now that we are back. But I know that we had an adventure that we will remember forever. I know that we made memories that will last a lifetime. I know that if Anne ever questions if we love her and the country she was born in…We have done all we can to answer those questions with yes and yes.

Will We Return?

Yes, as soon as possible. There is much left to explore. I would love to spend more time in Anne’s hometown seeing the sights and experiencing the people. We also want to go back when our youngest can join us. He is six and we knew the long plane rides, and all the transitions would be too much for him at least at this point in his life. We are hopeful in the next 5-10 years we can return with him in tow.