Paul Merton in China EP3 Part 8 - Christianity In China

Very interesting video by Paul Merton in regards to how Christianity has been aceepted, and not accepted, in China.

Paul Merton in China Babies

Rumors, Schmumors.

Interesting blog entry. Not sure if I like the blogger yet or not, but she definately cuts straight to the point with no vanilla icing, which I do like.

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Rumors, Schmumors.
August 16th, 2007 · No Comments

Damn rumors making my work more difficult. There’s been a lot of chatter about Chinese children with special needs being referred in the non-special needs program once they have had corrective surgery. Apparently these children have had corrections done such as extra digits that have been removed or minor heart repairs. But the one condition that seems to have everyone’s undies in a bunch is a cleft-affected child who has had the cleft repaired.

The most frustrating part to me about all this gossip is how families waiting for the referral of a NSN referral are talking about it. They are being horribly insensitive. It seems to me that they keep cloaking their desires for a child without any medical issues as what is “the best interest of the child.” Their argument goes that a family referred one of these “repaired” children is not prepared to parent such a child, and therefore the CCAA is not acting in the best interest of the child.

Does anyone else see how stupid this argument is? It makes me so frustrated that I can hardly put together a cohesive retort.

First of all, I think these families need to realize there is no guarantee that ANY child will be completely “healthy.” Perhaps that’s part of the pipe dream of some China families since one reason families pick China is because there is no family history to the child, and as far as doctor’s reports can tell the child is healthy. This information alone does not ensure that a child is defect-free. This idea ties into one of my former posts about families wanting to “order” their kids just the way they want them. Sorry, but even for families who have their own children they cannot do this. Even in my own family, my brother and his wife gave birth to a beautiful little girl who nearly a year later was diagnosed with a serious heart defect. Does this then mean that because they didn’t prepare for a child with such a condition that it is not in this child’s best interest to remain in this family? Of course not. Nothing in life is perfect. There are going to be surprises and bumps along the way. It all depends on how you want to look at it.

Secondly, I think that all this talk about a few instances where children like this have been referred has brought out all the dirty laundry and scary stories people have heard about families adopting a child that they thought was healthy (whether after having corrective surgery or just not having any issues documented in the original referral). This, in turn, frightens everyone else because now they think that this sort of thing happens a lot more frequently than it actually does, and that they may be next. Then, suddenly its doomsday in China-adoption-town, with the China adoption program quickly going to hell in a hand basket.

Furthermore, I really don’t think the CCAA in China is doing any of this maliciously. I think that they are bending their definition of a child with no known medical needs to include these children with corrected conditions because they have so many PAP applications that they are trying to match. It seems to me that the CCAA is in fact doing what it sees as the best for these children because it is matching them with families. And children with a removed extra digit or a cleft lip that was repaired maybe really are healthy after corrective surgery. I think the CCAA is really just trying to do the best they can for everyone involved in this process—finding children homes, giving families the opportunity to parent, and to keep the criticism of their agency to a minimum.

Perhaps if these stories were shared openly with families early in their adoption journey, they would not have such high expectations about the health of children coming from China. I know that even within the agency I work for we see a couple cases each year where a child referred to a family as a NSN child returns home and it is discovered here that the child has a medical concern. And the possibility of being presented with the referral of a child with a minor, corrected condition is there too. This just happens. It’s happened every year for many years because believe it or not, adoption is uncertain in more ways than just wait times. All families need to prepare themselves for the possibility that their child may be one out of the hundreds that has an issue, and how they are going to deal with that situation, should it arise, beyond making judgment calls out of fear.

The Adoption Morass

Publish Date: 8/15/2007 Page: A4
The Adoption Morass

In October 2000, President Bill Clinton signed the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000, committing the United States to abide by an international agreement called the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. Nations that sign it agree to follow a set of rules that protect the best interests of children and prevent their sale, abduction and exploitation by adoption traffickers.

But nearly seven years later, the U.S. State Department has yet to finish writing the rules and regulations that are essential for its implementation. Some of the 68 countries that already have done so are refusing to permit American parents to adopt their children until the United States completes the work. The State Department’s best estimate for when that will be is early 2008, some seven and half years after the work was begun.

“It’s incredibly important but also incredibly complex,” said Steve Royster, a spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs. “It’s worth taking the time to protect the welfare of the children.”

By way of comparison, in May 1961, President John F. Kennedy committed the nation to landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Eight years and two months later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were there. If it took 98 months to put a man on the moon, also an “incredibly complex” operation, why should it take State Department rule-makers almost that long to write some regulations? To be sure, the process is complex. The Hague Convention makes the State Department, in effect, the licensing agency for every organization in America that wants to help parents adopt foreign children. That has meant an agency-by-agency application and approval process, meetings, comment periods and revisions.

The national standards were long overdue; most agencies are reputable, but some parents have been fleeced by fly-by-night operations that took their money and failed to help them navigate the hurdles involved in foreign adoption.

That said, there has not been much pressure on State to work faster. More than 70 percent of the 20,679 foreign children adopted by U.S. parents in 2006, the last year for which figures are available, came from just three countries: Russia, Guatemala and China. All of them continue to permit adoptions, albeit at a slower pace, despite the U.S. delay in implementing the Hague Convention rules.

China has adopted more restrictive rules for prospective parents, insisting that they not be overweight, too-recently divorced or too old. Russia has slowed foreign adoptions considerably because of internal political criticism. The nation has a negative population growth rate, and national pride bristles that thousands of its children are being sent to other countries, chiefly the United States. Russia now insists on doing its own certification of U.S. adoption agencies and has approved only 12 of 76 applications.

Guatemala recently adopted the Hague Conventions despite opposition from the nation’s thriving industry of baby brokers. Our State Department had threatened to prevent U.S. citizens from bringing home Guatemalan babies because of horror stories about parents there selling children to brokers, or kidnappers abducting children on demand.

All of this has meant longer waits for prospective parents in the United States, some of whom then look to other countries for their children, only to be told that because we haven’t fully implemented the necessary rules, they’re out of luck.

The Hague Conventions actually were signed by international representatives in 1993. They took seven years to get through Congress before President Clinton signed them in 2000. A child born and needing a family in that year would be seven now. Even on Eastern Bureaucratic Time, that’s a long time to wait. Too long.

— The St. Louis Post-Dispatch/
Copley News Service

Gov Signs Hendon and Feigenholtz Legislation Protecting Rights of Adoptive Children

Source: Illinois Channel

SPRINGFIELD – Governor Rod R. Blagojevich today signed a new law to make sure children who are adopted receive the same benefits as biological children when a parent dies. House Bill 49, sponsored by State Representative Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) and State Senator Rickey R. Hendon (D-Chicago), ensures that legally adopted children are entitled to the same benefits as biological children when a parent dies and surviving children are due benefits from public sector pension plans.

“Parents adopt a child into their home and hearts with the same love and commitment that they give biological sons and daughters. It’s only fair that the state respects the permanent commitment these families have made, by ensuring equal access to survivor’s benefits for these children,” said Gov. Blagojevich.

Child or survivor’s benefits are provided to minors if a parent dies in the line of duty or after having served in a pension eligible position for a certain time. The bill amends 15 pension codes for state, municipal and county employees, firefighters, police, judges, General Assembly members, and employees of state universities, forest preserves and park districts. Some of these codes denied benefits to adopted children if the parent was over 50 at the time of the adoption, or if the parent dies within a certain time (such as one year) after the adoption.

“A parent’s love for a child remains the same no matter if that child is adopted or is a biological child,” said Rep. Feigenholtz. “Now adopted children have equal rights to benefits left behind after a parent passes away.”

“Adoptive families are forever families, and adopted children are just as worthy of their parents’ legacy as are biological children,” said Erwin McEwen, Acting Director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), which supported the legislation. “The signing of this bill ends an injustice.”

The bill was inspired by a firefighter who had adopted two children from China when he was over the age of 50, only to learn that his children would not be eligible for survivor’s benefits under the current firefighter pension code.

HB 49 goes into effect January 1, 2008.

Adoptees get a taste of China

By Hu Yinan (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-08-18 08:45



Amused as they were, the summer campers found it really hard to create the same butterfly patterns that their teacher so easily cut out.

How does she do it? The young boys and girls asked, joking at each other's snowflake-shaped folded paper.

"They're like my friends," said 15-year-old Sara of her teammates. "It's like any other summer camp I've been to."

But it definitely isn't just any ordinary summer camp.

The atmosphere of bonding was a result of their shared background as adopted children from China. The 30 children were orphaned in different Chinese provinces and adopted by North American families between 1991 and 2001.

Today, 29 of them live in 17 US states, including Alaska and Hawaii, while the other resides in Canada's Saskatchewan Province.

The 10-day summer camp, themed "Embracing China, Experiencing Beijing," opened on Wednesday and is the first-ever such activity organized and hosted by the China Center of Adoption Affairs, Ji Gang, director of the domestic adoptions department with the non-profit organization, told China Daily.

It's the first China visit for about half of these children since their adoption, including Jiangsu-native Alyssa, who was adopted at 10 months old and just celebrated her 14th birthday at Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant in Beijing on Friday night, and Sara, adopted at 11 months in 1991 from the same province.

The youngsters have so far visited the Forbidden City, the Capital Museum and the Temple of Heaven, as well as Baigongfang, a traditional Chinese art and handicraft museum where they learned about paper-cutting and kite-painting on Friday morning.

On Friday afternoon, they also experienced a taste of haggling at the famous Xiushui silk market.

Hague Convention on the Protection of Children - Part 2

This is part 2 of the re-post I am doing with Brian's permission of his research and blog entry:

The Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption

Again, I am not going to comment on the conclusions drawn in this research, I will however state again that I applaud Brian for his willingness to expend his time and energy compiling this data and sharing it with the public. Each person in my opinion needs to come to their own conclusions regarding what this all means, and I encourage would-be and current critics of this piece to do their own research and post their conclusions and findings for the public to review.

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In September 2005, China ratified the Hague Agreement on the Protection and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. One of the primary provisions of this agreement is the recognition “that intercountry adoption may offer the advantage of a permanent family to a child for whom a suitable family cannot be found in his or her State of origin.” Many of us adoptive parents question whether it would be better for China’s children to remain in their birth culture and country rather than being adopted into other lands, often becoming members of multi-racial families. Like many orphanage directors, we wonder which option presents the best opportunities for a child’s life and happiness – domestic or international adoption. But the world community as a body has determined that if possible, a child should remain in their country of origin before being adopted internationally. This understanding was codified in the Hague Agreement, and ratified by China. It appears from all the evidence presented above that China is in violation of that agreement by continuing to place healthy infant children with foreign families when many domestic families are desirous to adopt those same children.

As stated above, my survey of all the orphanages that participate in the international adoption program shows that 88% state that they have no healthy children available for domestic adoption. Below are the survey results for Guangxi Province. This province was chosen because every orphanage indicated to my interviewer that no healthy children were available. Next to each orphanage name is the number of dossiers that were submitted for international adoption in 2005:

Beihai -- 142
Cangwu -- 24
Cenxi -- 28
Desheng -- 70
Guigang -- 67
Guilin -- 113
Guiping -- 109
Hepu -- 64
Jingxi -- 13
Laibin -- 32
Liuzhou -- 55
Nanning -- 118
Pingnan -- 51
Qinzhou -- 39
Rongxian -- 8
Wuzhou -- 50
Yongning -- 18
Yulin -- 125

It is theoretically possible that all of these children were “passed over” by domestic families, or had medical issues which made them difficult to adopt to a Chinese family. However, a survey of 72 families that adopted children from these orphanages in 2005 and early 2006 revealed that only 17% of the children had special needs, with the balance (83%) being classified as “healthy”.9 The directors of the Cenxi, Guigang, Jingxi, Pingnan, and Yulin orphanages expressly stated that there were large numbers of domestic families waiting to adopt (30 to 40 in the case of Yulin), even as they continue to submit healthy children for international adoption.

Clearly, healthy children have and continue to be adopted internationally at the expense of families inside China that desire to build a family. It is possible that the difficulties experienced by domestic families seeking to adopt outlined above are found only in those orphanages that participate in the international adoption program. Thus, perhaps the rest of China’s orphanages that do not take part in international adoptions have abundant healthy children waiting for adoptive families in their facilities. One solution would be to increase participation in the international adoption program to all orphanages in China. This would spread the demand more evenly, and free up healthy children in the current internationally adopting orphanages to be adopted domestically. Given the number of children reportedly housed in these facilities, however, it seems likely that even this would not solve the demand imbalance.10

Another solution, and one which benefits all parties involved, would be to limit China’s international adoption program to those children who are, for one reason or another, “unadoptable” inside China. These would include children over 2 years or those with special needs, which are a growing and pressing problem in China’s orphanages.11 This would allow domestic families to adopt the healthy infants for which there is strong demand. Foreign families, most of whom have access to health care and other corrective medical technologies, would be able to adopt and give a home to a child who would otherwise most likely remain in an institution in China.12

In 2001 the Romanian and Cambodian international adoption programs were closed after it was shown that both countries had significant problems with their international adoption programs.13 In those cases, significant evidence of baby trafficking forced the closure of their programs until adequate safeguards could be implemented. These countries were violating basic human rights, and they deserved to be closed.

China is different. With the exception of the Hunan trafficking scandal reported in late 2005, its program has been the model of legitimacy.14 The issue is therefore much more complex, and focuses almost exclusively on the question of where the adopted child will have the best life and greatest opportunities. Setting aside the Hague agreement, as adoptive parents of Chinese children we must decide who should take priority in adopting these children. I frame the question thusly: I am the director of a Chinese orphanage and have a single healthy infant available for adoption. Two families apply to adopt the child, a middle-class Chinese family and a middle class American family. With whom would I place the child?

Personally, my instinctive reaction would be to place the child with a domestic family. As I wrote following the adoption of my oldest daughter Meikina, I have always felt that the loss of culture, language, country and religion to be important and significant in foreign adoption.15 I mourn the loss of these attributes of China in the lives of all three of my daughters. Tobias Hubinette, himself a Korean adoptee in Sweden, writes a biting criticism of the global international adoption program. “It is assumed that there are no special problems, emotional or psychological costs being a non-white adoptee in a white adoptive family and living in a predominantly white surrounding. Consequently, assimilation becomes the ideal as the adoptee is stripped of name, language, religion and culture, while the bonds to the biological family and the country of origin are cut off. Adoptees who are consciously dissociating themselves from their country of origin and see themselves as whites are interpreted as examples of successful adjustments, while interest in cultural heritage and biological roots is seen as an indication of poor mental health or condemned as expressions of biologism and Nationalism.” Hubinette goes on to quantify the problems of adjustment experienced by international adoptees, and the additional risk these individuals have in areas such as mental health, crime and suicide. He concludes, that given all of these problems, that “in this perspective, it becomes more evident than ever that intercountry adoption is nothing else but an irresponsible social experiment of gigantic measures, from the beginning to the end.”

Many adoptive families would disagree with some of Hubinette’s conclusions. Although Hubinette’s criticisms are directed largely at the Korean adoption program, parallels to the Chinese program are evident. The loss of culture and heritage has compelled many minority groups to come out in opposition to trans-racial adoption, including many Native American tribes. As adoptive parents of Chinese children, we often resist or ignore this problem by attending our FCC parties, teaching our children Mandarin, and participating in other activities designed to instill in our children a sense of “culture.” We must recognize that these are poor substitutes for authentic culture.

This loss, however, is simply the first layer of the onion. Comparing the positive attributes of Western culture to Eastern makes the judgment of what is in the best interest of the child more difficult. China’s perceptions of women, and its bias against women, offer a substantial counter-argument in favor of international adoption.16 Additionally, as many directors in my survey revealed, it is felt that educational opportunities are substantially better in the West. My children will be free to choose how long they will work, where they can live, which countries they visit, how many children they wish to raise, and a myriad other opportunities afforded citizens of the West that are absent from the lives of most women in China. How much these benefits offset the negatives of heritage loss is difficult to quantify and is a topic with which I constantly struggle.

With so many of the orphanages involved in China’s international adoption program reporting significant wait times for domestic families to adopt, it is clear that the number of healthy children available for adoption has fallen below the demand from both inside and outside China. International agreements state that given that circumstance, priority must be given to domestic families. Americans and families in other Western countries should consider this reality when making their decisions on where to adopt, and China must consider changing their program to address these realities. Together, solutions can be forged that benefit all of the children in China’s orphanages, especially those left behind.
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The following table shows the survey results by Province (click on image to make it more readable).


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A word on how the orphanages were surveyed: Contact was made by phone, and my surveyor started by simply stating she was a married woman seeking to adopt a healthy child under 2 years of age. No mention was made as to where she lived, her age, income, etc. unless the director asked specifically for it. In over 90% of the calls, the director never asked. A small percentage simply hung up, which we quantified as a no-contact, although it seems likely they hung up because they were uninterested in adopting a child from their orphanage. In other words, I feel we would have received a "No" to our inquiry.

Most directors simply stated early in the conversation that there were no children available. Those that did inquire as to where my surveyor was from almost always indicated that there were children available. In other words, having my surveyor telling a small number of directors that she was from Guangzhou but that her husband was from the orphanage city had no detrimental impact on the results. I composed the script after considering all possible variables, and believe that this method insured the most "honest" answers.

An additional word to accusations about my "agenda": My agenda is simple -- the overall well-being of China's orphans. I certainly understand a difference of opinion as to what is better for a child -- adoption in-country or adoption to an international family. But minds vastly superior to mine have studied and concluded that it is in the best interest of the child to remain in-country whenever possible. We can debate that issue, but it forms the foundation of the Hague Agreement. Although I obviously am ambivalent about this difficult issue, in the international arena it has been decided, and by ratifying the Hague Agreement China has indicated agreement also.

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Footnotes:
1. There is some disagreement as to how many orphanages exist in China. China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs reported in 2001 that there were 1,550 state-run orphanages, 160 of which specialized in the care of orphans. These facilities were said to have cared for approximately 41,000 children (Kay Johnson, “Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son – Abandonment, Adoption and Orphanage Care in China”, Yeong & Yeong Book Company, p. 204). Jane Liedtke of “Our Chinese Daughters Foundation” (OCDF) puts the number of orphanages at over 750, with between 42,500 and 85,000 children institutionalized in those facilities. The number of orphanages continues to rise as China implements their redistricting program. This is resulting in more “district “ orphanages being created in the larger cities. Maoming City in Guangdong Province, for example, has, in addition to the city orphanage, two district orphanages – Maonan and Maogang. The Jiangcheng district orphanage in Yangjiang (Guangdong Province) is located 200 feet west of the Yangjiang City orphanage. A 2004 pronouncement states that “Today, China has 192 special welfare institutions for children and 600 comprehensive welfare institutions with a children's department, accommodating a total of 54,000 orphans and disabled children. My listing of the orphanages that participate in the international adoption program is drawn from the “Raising China Children” Yahoo Newsgroup. This site lists the orphanages for which individual newsgroups exist. These groups are formed by parents whose children were adopted from common cities as a way of gaining information about their child’s beginnings, and to remain in contact with their child’s “orphanage sisters” and "brothers." As of this writing (June 2006) there are 274 of these individual newsgroups, encompassing almost all of the internationally adopting orphanages in China. Additionally, I have added orphanages that publish finding ads for international adoption, even though no Yahoogroup exists. Thus, the total number of orphanages I attempted to survey was 292.
2. We were unable to interview 34 of the orphanages due to an inability to locate working phone numbers, or because the orphanage director simply “hung up” when we called.
3. In order to protect the identity of the orphanage directors, who were unaware that their conversations were to be used for publication, I am not able to identify how specific orphanages responded to individual questions, other than to refer to their province.
4. The term “Finding Ad” is a technical misnomer. The ads are not published to locate birth parents, but rather are legal notices transferring legal custody of the child from her birth family to the state, allowing for her adoption. In contrast to the finding ads placed for internationally adopted children, the finding ads published for domestically adopted children do not describe which orphanage the child was adopted from. In the case of the finding ads placed in the Guangzhou Daily, I relied on my wife’s knowledge of Guangzhou (she is native to Guangzhou) to determine which children most likely ended up in the Guangzhou orphanage. Since the finding ad describes what geographical area a child was found in, we were able to assign with high probability which orphanage they were taken to. Although I have taken great care to discern accurate numbers for Guangzhou’s domestically adopted finding ads, small mistakes were possibly made.
5. Category 3 consists mostly of unadoptable children, those possessing extreme mental and physical disabilities. Since there is little reason for an orphanage not to submit the paperwork for adoptable children, most unadopted children will fall into category 2, since their paperwork has been forwarded to the CCAA, but they have not been referred to a family for adoption. Both category 3 & 4 are difficult to determine, but is seems likely that over the past five years a small and declining number of children would fall into these categories.
6. It is possible that this number is inflated. Since the finding ads started in July 1999, it seems possible that 2000 ads might have been partially comprised of “catch-up” ads from the previous year. However, there was no “catching-up” with the international finding ads – if a child’s paperwork was already in process at the CCAA in July 1999, no finding ad was required to be published.
7. It is widely recognized that the problem of infant abandonment in China is primarily a result of the implementation of China’s “One Child Policy” in 1979. This policy, simply stated, allows urban families one child and rural families one child if that child is male. Rural families are allowed a second child if the first child is female. This policy recognizes a cultural bias to male children. Families that violate the policy by having additional children are subject to fines, job loss, and in some rare cases, forced sterilization procedures (http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/onechild.htm). Many scholars have written about China's rising wages, and it is these rising incomes that allow more parents to pay the fines associated with violating the Family Planning strictures against multiple children (http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=2242; http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu10we/uu10we0l.htm).
8. Tuition has been free for Primary and Secondary students since 1986, but many rural families have been forced to pay “education expenses” for such things as text books, school heating, etc. The “Not One Less” program addresses these add-on expenses.
9. Families were located through the Guangxi Province newsgroups, as well as previous contact made to me for finding ads. We received health status from 72 of the roughly 1,288 children placed for adopt in 2005 from Guangxi. Sixty were classified as “Healthy”, while twelve had minor special needs.
10. In addition to contacting the orphanages that participate in the international adoption program, we also surveyed two orphanages that only adopt domestically. Both orphanages adopted only to local residents, and both had significant waiting lists of anxious families seeking to adopt.
11. Joshua Zhong, chairman of Chinese Children Adoption International (CCAI), believes that over 50% of the children in China’s orphanages are special needs. I view this estimate as very conservative, and believe it is much higher in actuality.
12. In many ways, this idea would reverse the adoption process that existed until 1999. Prior to that time international families were required to adopt a special needs child if they had other children at home or were younger than 35 years old (Karin Evans, “The Lost Daughters of China,” Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2000, p. 175). Currently, a special needs child will only be referred to a family that specifically requests one.
13. Monica Youngs, “Overview of Country Shutdowns,” Adoption Today, February/March 2005, pp. 14-17. Romania closed due to pressure from the European Union, while Cambodia voluntarily closed their program rather than face censure from the international community.
14. The Hunan story was disturbing because it is the first known example of children being trafficked to orphanages in order to satisfy unfulfilled domestic and international demand for healthy children. The high adoption fee reported by a majority of orphanages contributes to China’s baby trafficking, I believe. A recent study by Chongqing University’s Zhang Weiguo in the March 2006 issue of Journal of Family Issues reveals that of the 425 domestic families surveyed that had adopted children “50 percent obtained their children through intermediaries (including so-called traffickers), 26 percent from family members, and 23 percent obtained children who were abandoned directly or found by friends, family, or neighbors. Less than one percent of the children covered in the study were adopted from state controlled orphanages.” Given the financial incentives to adopt internationally, most orphanages continue to charge high adoption fees to domestic families seeking to adopt children.
15. Brian H. Stuy, “A Train Ride to Maoming,” Adoption Today, July 2002, p. 46.
16. Evidence of China’s treatment of women, especially in the countryside, is the suicide rate among women -- the highest in the world. China is the only country where more women commit suicide than men (Karin Evans, p. 73).

Video - Kai on Trike

Hello folks, finally got around to uploading one of the first videos of Kai. As you can see, he is learning some basic words in English. My wife's favorite is of course 'mama'.

Cool Story - Blog Entry- In China

I found a neat blog entry today, and it appears these folks are documenting their trip as they go in pretty good detail.

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Sunday, August 12, 2007
Guangzhou Day Three -- Continued

Scott stopped by our room late this afternoon after we had finished filling out adoption paperwork in Anli's room and asked if I wanted to go with him to the driving range. I was like "what driving range?" Turns out the White Swan hotel has a frickin' driving range on the hotel roof (you drive into nets but have an incredible view of the entire Guangzhou skyline and the river next to the hotel with big boats coming down it).

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This is just a tid-bit, you can read the entire blog entry here:
Rachel and Joseph's Adoption Blog