July 12 – Back Home Again in Xinyi City

Xinyi City is a county-level city within the Prefecture of Maoming. It’s about 100 km from downtown Maoming and reached by a relatively new freeway in about 90 minutes. We met Ben and Mr. O at 8:15 to begin our journey north into the rolling hills and small mountains that surround Xinyi and that border the province of Gaungxi (ironically we were pretty close to Xinyi when we were in Guilin, but we could not reach it because there are very few roads that pass through the mountains – it is faster to fly to Guangzhou and take the train to Maoming). The road to Xinyi reminds me a bit of the roads in Florida. We are at about the latitude of Mexico City and it is very hot. The road is flanked by rice paddies, banana farms, lychee and dragon eye tree farms, and mango, and large cattle (and an occasional chicken) are easily spotted along the roads. Maoming has fewer than 1% minority groups (most people are Han Chinese) but Eliza looks so much like Rose Corn and Eve Rosenthal (both of whom were from near Maoming) that we’re pretty sure that her birth family must be from the Yao tribe (or a related tribe with more Indian/Vietnamese-looking features).

Xinyi City has benefited from China’s economic successes, which is very reassuring to see. The City has 1.1 million residents (Maoming has 7 million) and there is a great deal of construction going on everywhere. We drove by the orphanage originally without recognizing it – but then immediately noticed the courtyard where we had parked 10 years ago. Back then the courtyard was riddled with chickens and trash – this time it’s much more like a parking lot. We were escorted to the 3rd floor, where the reception area had been remodeled (and air conditioned!). We were introduced to Mr. Hu, who has been the physician for the orphans since 1984¸ and who now also serves as Director (as well as an administrative position with the Office for Civil Affairs). He was accompanied by 2 women in their late 20’s/early 30’s – who now serve as Assistant and Associate Directors (the previous men have now moved to other positions). The Evans were much more prepared than we and brought photographs from 1999 – which we spent much time going through. Just about everyone from that time has moved on, though the Associate Director had been employed in 1999 and had helped bring the babies to Guangzhou (she indicated that she remembers the trip well because their van had gotten a flat tire).




We were presented with the ‘official folders’ for each of the girls, which contained copies of all of our adoption documents, medical records, and finding site information. We already had copies of all of these documents except for one – the police report, which Ben translated for us. Eliza was found on the Duotong bridge by a woman whose name is in the police report. She had called the police, and the police brought Eliza to the orphanage. Anna was actually found by one of the more senior nannies present in our 1999 photographs, who has since retired – this was a terrific bit of new information for her to find out. We took many photographs of these documents and the staff were very kind and generous in answering our questions. We were invited to visit one of the rooms where children were playing, but were asked not to take any pictures indoors- this was a huge treat and I think that Eliza especially enjoyed interacting with the children, some of whom spoke a few words of English. We were told that in 1999 there were about 70 children living at the orphanage – today there are about 50 (and 40 have been adopted in the United States – others have gone to Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, and Denmark). Most of the children residing in the orphanage today have handicaps, though many of these were correctable (there was a beautiful little girl who is being adopted next month who has a hand deformity – but who otherwise is perfect). The older girls were helping with caring for the younger girls and all of the older girls seemed very happy and kind. The babies cried quite a bit and some seemed quite delayed (which they probably were) – but it seemed that there were plenty of toys and food. In front of the orphanage, the staff had created a beautiful red banner which read ‘welcome back Yuxiang and Yuyu’ and we took several pictures there. Though I had been quite concerned about this visit, it couldn’t have gone better. We also learned that the older girl (of about 8 or 9) who held Eliza in 1999 in one of our pictures has now been married and is living in her own home with her own daughter – this was a great epilogue to our collection of pictures from 1999.

After leaving the orphanage we traveled to the Duotong Bridge (Eliza’s finding site) and the gate for the Ministry of Civil Affairs (Anna’s finding site) to take pictures. Both places were buzzing with people and clearly were ‘safe’ places in which babies would be found very quickly. I’m quite convinced that whoever decided that they couldn’t afford to take care of Eliza – whether it was a grandparent or parent – wanted her to be found quickly and brought to safety. We met an elderly gentleman at the Civil Affairs gate who was very happy that we had returned. He spoke to both girls at length and Ben translated that he was asking them to study hard and do well in school so that they could help to connect the US and China in the future. We received many ‘thumbs up’ signs and the director commented that they never worry about the girls who are adopted to the United States because he knows they receive good educations and are well cared for.




Following our tour of the finding sites we visited a beautiful hotel in Xinyi City that was built only 1 year ago. We first had tea in a private room, followed by a lavish lunch at which both Anna and Eliza were presented with beautiful jade necklaces (and we presented our own gifts to Mr. Hu, the Director). The lunch was lovely – though it was a bit surreal that a replay of the final game of the world cup was playing on a wide-screen TV in the background. We were able to continue asking questions of the staff…and the staff asked whether Eliza did well in school (yes), and if the babies were good babies and well behaved when we brought them home (yes, again). Eliza asked whether the children in the orphanage celebrate holidays – it appears that they do, and that local families and people from schools around Xinyi participate in these parties. Xinyi also appears to now have some foster families, which is great. Mr. Hu also indicated that most of the adoptions from Xinyi are domestic at this time – with children staying in China. We had several more toasts and photographs, and the girls were told that they would always be ‘relatives’ and welcome to visit/stay in Xinyi. The staff also seemed quite pleased that the 5 families who adopted from Xinyi in 1999 see each other every 2 years and have remained connected, even though we live far apart. We agreed that we would try to collect funds from our travel group to purchase a piece of equipment for the orphanage – they need both an air conditioner and a washing machine.




Following lunch, Ben and Mr. Oh drove us up to a beautiful pagoda on a mountain that overlooks Xinyi City for more pictures, and so that the girls could run around a bit. We also stopped at one of Xinyi’s many jade stores (Xinyi is famous for jade, fruit production, and mountain chickens). As Eliza needed to use their restroom, I felt obligated to buy something – I picked up a jade bangle for 500 yuan ($75) which Eliza thinks is fake…but that I think is a beautiful color. Hopefully she’ll like to wear it when she’s older. The tour guide (probably also worrying that it is fake) asked the shopkeeper to throw in a couple of rings for Eliza and Anna. I’m now trying to repress the potential fakeness…in a weird way, I’m a fake ‘Xinyi mother’ so maybe it’s quite fitting that my jade bangle is masquerading as well.
Back in Maoming my 2 weeks of trying to hold things together to make it through the orphanage visit completely collapsed and I have a full-fledged cold. We walked around the downtown area and found dinner in a little restaurant and looked half-heartedly for a suitcase, but gave up and returned for an early bedtime. My strategy is to drink a lot and sleep as much as possible to make it through the rest of the trip. Tomorrow morning we’re on a train back to Guangzhou and 2 nights at the incredibly lavish White Swan Hotel.