Morgan Girls Return To China - Part 1

By Susan Morgan
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China

Dear Family and Friends,

Our time in Nanchang, the provincial capital, has been filled with a mixture of "new and old"...old in the sense of being the same (or nearly so) as it was in 1997 and new in that everything has changed.

Our arrival in Nanchang was a new experience since the airport Ruth and I (and the other seven adopting families) flew into in December 1997 is now a military airport located about forty miles from the current large and modern facility. The beautiful ceramic bowl I hoped to finally purchase from the Nanchang Airport giftshop if I ever returned is probably no longer still sitting on the counter...

Our visit to the Teng Wang Pavillion on the banks of the Gan River was a nostalgic one for me, a novelty for Anna and Mary Ruth. The many-storied cultural center hundreds of years old matched my memories of it in 1997 when all eight families and babies made their way to the top. It was here that, with Guo Hongxiang in my left arm and my camera in my right, I snapped many panoramic photos of the skyline of Nanchang City. Today's skyline seemed much the same except for the addition of a multitude of skyscrapers, not to mention the biggest ferris wheel I have ever seen on the drive to reach the pavillion from our hotel.

The visit to the Jiangxi Hotel brought back many memories of our days there during our adoption trip for Anna. We ate dinner in the same hotel diningroom on the first floor where we ate almost every meal while in Nanchang in 1997. The restaurant seemed familiar although the decor had changed and I couldn't remember details of the diningroom. The area where I was pretty sure our adoption group always sat had not a trace of all the mess our eight babies managed to make after every meal! I was relieved, however, to find out that indeed it was the same place when a waitress employed more than ten years recognized the photo of another Jiangxi waitress holding Anna in a 1997 photo. Unfortunately that waitress, who had taken a shine to Anna during our stay, left the service of the Jiangxi Hotel about a year later and was thought to have traveled overseas. Tammy joked that maybe she was looking for us!

As we left the Jiangxi Hotel through the main lobby, I glanced around, remembering the night we arrived in 1997. I remembered the walk from the check-in counter to the bank of elevators on the far side of the lobby and the sounds of voices and soft laughter on the other side of the wide room. Glancing over, I saw a woman holding a small child dressed in red who quickly moved behind a large pillar but not before the baby in her arms (who I'm now sure was Anna) flashed us a beautiful smile...

Tomorrow, we will arrive in Guixi, Anna's birthplace. On Thursday, we will meet with the staff of the Guixi Social Welfare Institute and spend the day there. It has been confirmed that Anna's foster mother, who took care of her for almost one full year, has been located and will be there to meet us! We are full of anticipation and will write again of this continuing adoption adventure...

Susan, Anna (adopted from Guixi, Jiangxi Province, in December 1997), and Mary Ruth (adopted from Lu'an City, AnHui Province, in February 1999)





China-Babies Research