Thoughts on China

I havent had much of a chance to post lately, Tom has been adding video and things.  Its been hard to get a chance to think clearly, much less get online. Six people sharing two computers and all seven of us in two hotel rooms gets a little claustrophic.  Its a lot more intense outside of the hotel.  Its hard to explain what happens when you walk out of the hotel elevator here, but I will try.  When the doors of the elevator open you hear the clatter of construction, the bustle of city traffic and the noise similiar to what I have heard when watching reports on television about the closing of the board of trade....a constant chatter that you cant distinguish what is said but there are a hundred conversations going on around you.  The sights are just as intense...when you walk through the streets you notice that they are fairly narrow, some meant for only walking through, but cars still seem to try and squeeze through the people, bikes, strollers and merchandise. Right outside of our hotel there is a four block walk to Shamian Island and you walk through two different markets.  The first one is a pet market.  Lining both sides of the street are shops with simple plastic bins filled with fresh water and every kind of small fish or aquatic plant, right next to that could be a shop selling dog food, fish food or cat food with large bags open with cups and prices listed in chinese.  There are small cages of hampsters, gerbils, kittens, birds, turtles, rabbits and even puppies.  The chinese really like small fluffy dogs, and the ones that we have come across in shops are named funny things like Money...(for good fortune).  After going through this market we come to the specialized chinese medicine market (I get that from the map).  It honestly smells like walking into a spice closet.  All sorts of things are in bags lining the street on both sides, and all are dried.  Some look like dried flowers, ginger, and different mushrooms but others are not as obvious and smell a lot like fish.  I recognized a type of lizard that was dried and its tail was pulled straight and flat so that it looked like a triangular flyswatter unless you looked closely.  More than any of the strange sights the hardest thing to see is the reaction of people around us.  I know that seeing an American in China is a sight to begin with, but we are really an extra strange sight.  More than once when I have been in the back of the line of all of us making our way through the crowd I have seen in people's eyes the confusion of trying to figure us out.  In a place where there is only one child in the next generation, we now have five.  In addition to that, Nick is as tall as Tom and both tower over most chinese people.  Even Caila gets odd looks from people with her red hair and being so tall for a girl.  I have held up my hand to show "5" a few times only to see the people smile and nod back at me because they realize I see that they are trying to count how many children we have.  Its amazement... we have had people take our picture in restaurants and across from us in parks when they think we arent watching.  Its fun sometimes and sometimes its just tiring.  

We have had a number of college age students come up to us and ask if they can practice their english.  One girl who called herself Alice asked for our email and she actually has contacted me once.  It will be nice to correspond with someone in China if it continues.   

I am really glad that we were able to spend our time here in Guangzhou at the Holiday Inn Shifu, because we have had more culture of China here than if we had stayed on Shamian Island at the White Swan.  Its like a haven on that side of the water, with so much of the area being catered to adoptive families (all adoptions have to go through Guangzhou from China) but there is something neat about where we are staying. I love walking through the small streets seeing the hanging laundry overhead, noticing the small insence shrines at doorways and trying to imagine what living day to day as someone born in China might be like.  

I see so many of the Chinese young people looking like they are trying to be westernized. They dye their hair, have English written on their tshirts and when you talk to them they are eager to hear about how life is for you in America.  They see us as having all the opportunity and success that in many ways in out of reach to them.  Alice was so awestruck at how much school it takes to be a doctor, and it wasn't about the cost of schooling as much as it was about the ability to continue on at school.  Most Chinese aren't able to continue on into high school, and regardless of their desire for more, few are able to attend college.  Competition is tough, and spaces are few.  In many ways its a miracle to be born in China, and even more of a miracle to become educated and wealthy.  These are things that as Americans we have just taken for granted and hoped for our children.  I am sure that the Chinese hope these things for their children as well...and so when I look into the eyes of the people on the street, I wonder what they really see.   I hope that they see more than just 6 strange Americans.  I hope that somehow because we are different they see a glimpse of Christ, a sense of hope in something that they haven't seen before.  I hope its a seed planted.