Love Wins

I was riding my bike from Kitchen Street today with a new wok to take to the US.  It's our last day in China it felt really good to ride through the streets one last time.  I was thinking about our little guy while I was riding.  The painful reality is that we don't have him anymore.  On Thursday, we packed up our friend's van with all of his stuff and took him to live with his ayi.  He looked quite puzzled as we pulled up and took his stuff in but his face lit up when he saw his shu shu (uncle).  That comforted me. We said our good-byes and left quickly. I totally broke down in the van and the tears have been flowing pretty freely. We will see him again tomorrow as he is coming to the airport.  At first I thought that was not a good idea but now I am so glad to see him again one more time.  My grief is so deep that I really can't even write about it.
When I woke up on Thursday, I thought-today your future begins. There is truth to that. His paperwork is getting done.  Things are moving forward.  We are leaving China with a sense of peace about his future. The day we found out about Paul's future position in the Pacific NW was the same day that we found out that the orphanage would allow him to be adopted.  That felt amazing!
Having this little guy in our life has been amazing.  But there has been a cost. Things that are valuable have a  cost. My life in particular has been rather circumscribed.  I spend a lot of time at home with him rather than out in the city.  My Chinese level is lower than it should be.   Our little guy is a special needs little guy-he needs supervision all the time.  He can't really walk yet and at 2.5 he is a little chunk to haul around. My back may never recover! We have paid in time, money and the focus of our work in China.  We worry that we haven't accomplished all that we set out to do here.  Yes, there is a cost.
There is also great joy.  We were looking back over past posts today to gather some pictures for a photo album that we will give him. We remembered the skinny little guy who came to us two years ago so dehydrated that he couldn't make tears.  He was bitten by a mosquito one of the first nights he was here and his immune system was so compromised that it took three weeks for the bites to heal.
But slowly he grew.  Round the clock feeding at the beginning.  One of his pediatricians told me that he was was an "unregulated baby."  That really resonated with me and I put him on a sleep and eating routine.  He gained weight pretty quickly and after a bout with pneumonia that landed him in the hospital, he began to get healthy.
We prayed for the milestones- turning over, sitting, self-feeding, holding his own bottle, standing. We prayed that he would walk before we left China and the morning that he left, he took steps back and forth between Paul and I.  That was a major moment.
For the last two years, we have been Mama and Baba. In his future there is a Mom and a Dad or a Mommy and Daddy.  Love wins for this little boy!
Our little guy is just one of so, so many who need families.  He is no more or less deserving than any of them to be going to a family. We are so, so thankful.
So love, joy, cost, sacrifice.  Was it worth it?

You bet it was!  Love wins!

28 years.

We sold the rest of our furniture this morning and spent the rest of the day packing and sorting.  It's our anniversary tomorrow so we went to the Shenyang TV Tower for dinner.

We biked over to the Tower, bought the 70 RMB tickets (the view and dinner) and took the elevator to the top.

It was a pretty hazy day but in the foreground you can see the "Y" building...the letter "Y"  not the YMCA.

The Feng Yuan Building-this building is pretty amazing.  It's completely circular.

Looking towards our aparntments.  We can see that bridge from our windows.

The revolving restaurant.  During our dinner, it made it about a quarter turn around.

The chicken head in our chicken. Honestly, this was the worst food we have ever had in China.  We should have just gone to the street market.

It was fun to go up and fun to see our city from the top.  It was our 28 year anniversary and a great way to celebrate.

Once more...The Great Wall

On our second day in Dan Dong, we took a city bus up to the Tiger Mountain Portion of the Great Wall.  This small section of the Great Wall was restored in 1992 and it is really lovely. When you climb to the top, you can see the Yalu River and into North Korea.
When we first came to China in 2007, we went to a section of the Great Wall outside of Beijing.  When we first saw the Great Wall from our friend's hired car, I felt really overwhelmed.  It really is magnificent. The section of the Great Wall that we went to in 2007 was touristy and crawling with people.  It was first full day in China and we were exhausted.  It was amazing but overwhelming.
This Tiger Mountain portion of the Great Wall is quiet and surrounded by farms, mountains and villages.  It was a lovely way to end our time in China.

Yes....that small building is what we walked up to.

About halfway there.

Beautiful greenness -refreshing since we live in a grey city of 8 million people and very little green.

Paul coming up the steep and uneven steps.

Me going down the steep and uneven steps.  

Different view of the same halfway point.

Elisabeth sitting in one of the windows.

View from the not-quite top.

View of China from the top...and part of North Korea.

View of North Korea from the top.

One more mystery in China....the willingness of people to all where the same outfit and follow tour guides.  There were masses of these people in turquoise shirts.  The umbrellas are no mystery to me-it is hot here and the sun umbrellas really do make a difference.

This was the third part of the Great Wall for us...I think it may have been my favorite.

A Quick Run to the Border

North Korea-there are kids swimming in the river and a small ferris wheel in the background that is rarely used.

 We live a few hours from the North Korean border and we've always meant to go to DanDong- a small city across the river from NK.  So over the weekend, we got on the long distance bus and took a quick trip there.  We rode for about three hours through beautiful mountains and arrived in DanDong in the afternoon.  Dan Dong is a small on the Yalu River.  It has an active water front with lots of dancers, singers, tourist type attractions and some historical sites. It is across from an NK city called Sinujui which looked mostly like not very active factories to us.  You can walk across the China-Korea friendship bridge and enter North Korea (if you have a visa) or go to the end of the broken bridge and see North Korea up close.  You can also go on a boat ride that brings you close to the other side of the river where you can see workers in the factories.  We saw young boys swimming in the river and several people on the banks waved at the boats.  There are some boat patrols but it looks pretty much like just a river...except it's not.  As you go up the river, you begin to see more cameras, boat patrols and towers on the NK side. The river is fairly wide and at this part, it would be  nearly impossible to get across undetected.

The factories and the bridge-that was about all there was to see.  We walked up and down the water front, had dinner and then went on a boat cruise.

Chinese Fishing boat-see how close it is to the NK border? That white building is NK!

As night fell, Dan Dong lit up and North Korea went black.  Electricity is turned off in most places and this was true of the city across from us. The contrast was pretty stark, especially from the boat.

Dan Dong at dusk.

One of the things that was saw that was oddly moving was the lighting of lanterns.  Basically, red paper lanterns are made.  Blessings are written on the lanterns and then they are lit and they fly across the river into North Korea.  You could see many lights in the sky flying there.  They are not purposefully sending the lanterns there-it is the direction of the wind that brings them there.  But seeing the light of the lanterns flying into the darkness of North Korea was quite compelling.

English Awesomes.

Here are a few "English Awesomes" that Elisabeth caught with her phone.

On the subway in Shenyang.  There are many spelling exceptions in English but double "e"s  in this word is not one of them!

The "l" sound is a hard one to say....but the spelling remains!

Little scenes to buy.

Me, too.

On the North Korea tour boat.

Not an English Awesome but an awesome white guy dressed up in Korean clothes...that is North Korea in the background.  He tried to get us to dress up too but we mightily resisted...as we do at every tourist site!

Why we don't step on manhole covers in China.

Yes, that's why.

Extra Chromosomes and Reverse Culture Shock

"Can I get an Amen?"...or a Peace Out?  Or "I am two."

 So we are in the final stages of moving back to America.  Elisabeth and I leave in just over a week and will land in the San Francisco area.  Paul flies a few days later as he has some things to finish up.  We are keeping our little guy with us until the very end then he will go to his ayi for about a year...we hope no longer.

It is excruciating to leave him but we do have great peace about his future.  That makes all the difference.

  After landing in the US,we will spend some time with family.  Then Elisabeth will fly up to Portland to spend two weeks a teen re-entry camp with kids from all over the world.  Paul and I will go to Central California to spend about a week at a re-entry de-brief.  Then we will drive up to our new city just over the river from Portland and begin to weave a new life.

   So why re-entry camps and de-briefs?  Well, for many reasons. There is no way you can live in another country and come back the same.  You come to another country anticipating change.  But when you go back, you are going to a place that is the same, yet different.  There are issues of grief and loss to deal with.      For us, we are leaving a place that we love, leaving a child that we love and getting ready to be empty nesters.  Plus, even though we are from the West Coast, before coming to China we lived in the MidWest for 12 years.  All huge changes.  Sometimes things that feel familiar can be stressful-the internet makes the world smaller but there are still movies, TV shows, cultural things that we don't know about.  We are coming back in an election year....and not looking forward to all that negatives advertising  and issues that goes with that!

  China is the third country that we have lived in.  We lived in Germany for a few years in the1980's. It was magic- no kids, two income and no debt.  We traveled, worked and just really enjoyed our time there.  We also lived in the deep South- outside of Savannah, Georgia.  That was our hardest cultural adaptation- so close but not quite the same as where we lived in California.  That sense of the familiar but not quite familiar can be disorienting.

  We came back from Germany with two paychecks and no jobs.  Paul went back to school and I went to work.  Now we are coming back with a kid in college, financial obligations and all that comes with adulthood.  We will need to buy a car...and at some point another car.  It feels massively expensive to come back to the US.  Fortunately we have a house to stay in until we find another.  That is a huge relief.

  So re-entry programs help you deal with loss, grief and re-adaptation.  We need to grieve well so that we can move on.  It's an emotional time for us.