Village New Year's

Yesterday we returned from celebrating Chinese New Year for five days at our very good friend Zhang Li's rural village, about an hour or so outside of Changsha. It was extraordinary. Only in dreams can you stay in a mud house on a giant hill above rice paddies in China during a snowfall.

Their house is on the lower ridge, at center. The home on the upper ridge, to the left, was Zhang Li's grandfather's. The family has lived on this land for generations.

The house was so cozy and comfortable, with thick mud walls and a bin of hot coals under the table to keep us warm. The home has dirt and concrete floors, electricity on the first floor only, one cold-water spigot out the back door, and a privy. Water is heated over hot coals. We washed our clothes by hand and dried them over the hot coals. Meals were cooked in an iron wok over a fire. It was like camping, and we relished the simplicity and efficiency of living here. It was absolutely sublime!

Zhang Li's dad is the 5th-born son. He grew up on this hill, farming the land. Now he is a migrant worker, building high rises in another city and returning here only on holidays. He's a kind man who doesn't smoke or drink (highly unusual) and he sings to himself and nods off after dinner while watching TV. I like him! He spent a lot of time taking Titus around to visit the neighbors.

Zhang Li's mom is the second of two daughters. Her mother died of an illness when she was one year old, and her dad never remarried. She cared for Zhang Li until he was four years old, then went out to work as a seamstress. She's small, feisty, and never stops working, cooking three meals over a fire every day and constantly serving the family. I really appreciated her help with the kids and her good example as a very selfless mother.

New Year's meal consisted of smoked-bacon-like-fatty-pork, oil tofu puffs, bamboo shoots, chicken meat soup, pig foot soup, fried battered meat and smoked spicy fish. The dishes were truly mouth-watering, wow, we ate way too much.

In the evenings we sat around drinking tea, snacking, watching the New Year's performance on television and talking. We shared some really great times with Zhang Li. He is a true friend. Can't say enough about how much we jive with that guy. 

Oh! And did I mention that Titus slept with Zhang Li every night? Is that not the sweetest thing? Mike & Jon slept between Drew and me.

New Year's day everybody goes out to visit neighbors and relatives, bringing wishes for a prosperous new year and leaving with a cigarette! Kids run around with bags collecting red envelopes with cash inside or candy. This village has a new tradition of giving kids milk boxes. Titus went out with Zhang Li's dad and came home with a bag full of milk boxes, candy and red envelopes containing 20 yuan.

Drew also dominated all the ten year-olds in a snowball war. We wandered around the village and the hilly country roads and trails. The boys lit off some fireworks. 

tomb

In sum, we had an unforgettable New Year's, thanks to our friend Zhang Li and his family. We hope to visit his village again in spring or summer.

I hope you'll find a moment to take in a few more sights from the village, on this slideshow:

Stories and pictures from past visits to rural China:

Happy Countryside Home 

- a friend's family runs a fish pond and they'll cook and serve your fish for lunch 

Countryside Weekend 

- we visited my good friend's home just a couple weeks before her grandmother passed away 

Dragon Gate 

- two sisters invited us to their home in a beautiful remote area

Heroines

Wang Zhao (center) doesn't have much to say about her seventeen years growing up in an orphanage. She is a content, amiable, smart girl. She's shy with new people, but once you've been around for awhile she lets her personality show. She's got a sense of humor...picking on our other mutual guy friend, attacking him with our nerf gun and locking him in our bathroom once. Last week she told me she wasn't coming to our house as usual on Saturday, then showed up at the door grinning, "Ha Ha! Surprise!" This year she is a freshman Clerical Studies major. She goes home to the orphanage on weekends. She was abandoned right after birth and says it left no impression on her.

Li Ci (right) has volumes to say, with tears, about her upbringing in the orphanage. But she's got such a heavy speech impediment that I can't understand most of what she says, and Wang Zhao seems disinterested in translating. But I do know that Li Ci is deeply hurt that she was not allowed to study, and she bears emotional scars from older kids bullying her. The Welfare Center gave her a job with a program called Half The Sky. She is a teacher's assistant for the preschool within the orphanage, meaning she helps students go to the bathroom, eat, change clothes, clean up, etc. Li Ci says that she got lost one day going from one relatives house to another, at about age two or three, and was taken to the orphanage.

Ok so! Again, these pictures were taken ten years ago when a little girl who had been adopted returned to see the orphanage when she'd lived as an infant. She met up with other kids from her nursery -- kids who had not been adopted and remained, including Wang Zhao.

she is so cute!

Wang Zhao says to me, "This is where I grew up!"
the building is still in use 

yep, this building is still there, though others have popped up around it
the wall is gone now... it says "Changsha is my home"

former entrance to the welfare center, now totally different
that's the adopted girl who returned for a visit, with her parents

these rooms are still in use

girl in blue/yellow is visiting -- former nursery mates still in the orphanage

the girl could no longer understand Chinese

 

 

I have been on this exact spot many times!

 

some of the older kids
by the way, there are notably more people in China with facial burns -- could be due to unsafe equipment (like the nice gas tank in our kitchen...) or lacking treatment. some children are abandoned because of their facial burns.

on the sidewalk outside the orphanage gates -- it looks completely different now!
Wang Zhao is on the left, in pink

What I am trying to say with this post?

I don't know, I suppose...

1. It's incredible to think how these lives diverged, as one baby girl was adopted abroad and another stayed in the orphanage for her entire life thus far.

2. I greatly admire Wang Zhao and Li Ci for their strength and courage, not holding a grudge against the world, but rather accepting their circumstances, enjoying friendships and moving forward. They are heroines in my book!


Unrelated...

We are headed to the countryside tomorrow, to celebrate Chinese New Year with Drew's best bud and his family! Probably returning on Tuesday. So see ya back here next week. Happy New Year!!!

The Baby Floor

Wang Zhao, a friend, showed me these photos yesterday. They were taken ten years ago at the orphanage where she grew up (and where our Jonathon lived for nearly a year). At that time a family brought their adopted daughter back to see the orphanage where she had lived as an infant. They recently emailed the pictures to Wang Zhao.

The scenes are of the baby floor, which has since relocated to another building. However, this facility is still in use for older severely disabled kids. It's the place where I first got started in the Social Welfare Institute (orphanage). 

I was moved, devastated really, by these photos and wanted to share them with you. I also have a few thoughts to share -- at the end. 

warming baby bottles

can you count how many cribs? green cribs

metal cribs ...  the girl in red stayed here as a baby before her adoption (above) ... iv meds (below)

standing stations

such a tiny human being

natural wood cribs

babies around a heater

toddlers around a heater

nannies at lunch (they still eat just like this -- I used to join them on Tuesdays)

play and trim toenails time

toddlers

meals

affection

walkers ... and head measurements

Thoughts.

1. The poverty in these pictures doesn't make me very sad. Although the conditions aren't great, the babies have food, clothes, shelter, warmth, beds and blankets. What breaks my heart is seeing rows of babies in cribs and lines of babies in standing stations. There aren't enough arms to hold the children. That devastates me.
2. I don't know how many babies reside on this floor, but the number of cribs we can count in the pictures is already an overwhelming number.
3. This was a special visit from foreigners, so I'm positive they presented the best of the orphanage. Chinese always labor to make appearances surpass reality.
4. Did you notice that all these kids look good? They will probably be adopted. 
5. But most children in the orphanage have a physical problem, which could be minor as cleft lip or major as severe cerebral palsy. It seems that the foreigners were not allowed to see the majority of the kids, separated into another area. That's my best guess.

Kids with physical problems are less likely to be adopted -- like Wang Zhao. I will show you more in my next post.

Now, your thoughts and reactions or questions, please.