Hello from Guangzhou

We are now in Guangzhou (formerly Canton) for the U.S. immigration process before heading home later this week. It is Tuesday evening here and we have had a long day but Iris is sleeping soundly in her crib. She had been sleeping between us on a king bed in Nanchang but we have twin beds here so the crib is necessity. We were not sure how she would do, but she fell asleep so easily after her bottle that I just put her in the crib and all is well.

Guangzhou is a very large city (3rd largest in China) which was evident as we came in to land at the airport. The year-round population is 6 million which swells to 10 million from factory workers from elsewhere. It is located on the Pearl River delta and our hotel (the White Swan) is right on the river (which we have a view of out our window). Yesterday evening we were pleasantly surprised by a laser light show on the river while we were enjoying dinner near our hotel. The show was accompanied by a mix of very British-sounding music and Cantonese opera.

The U.S. Consulate offices are here and so all U.S. citizens adopting in China have to come through to obtain the U.S. Visa and immigration approvals to bring their adopted child back into the U.S. The White Swan is very popular with adopting familes and we are seeing many new parents in addition to our group. The White Swan is something you hear a lot about during the adoption process from the familes that have gone before.

Guangzhou is also much more of a tourist and business destination than Nanchang and so Westerners are a common sight here (as they are in Hong Kong). We really feel fortunate to have spent the last week in Nanchang which still has much of its distincitive Chinese personality. It is really humbling to be in a place that has such a long history and with people that have such a sense of pride in their history and distinctiveness. This was quite evident from our 2 local guides in Nanchang who could easily leave for the U.S. or Europe if they wanted to. Hopefully we can instill at least a small sense of this in Iris when she is old enough to appreciate that. We will also look forward to returning at some point in the future.

We should have some pictures of Guangzhou to post tomorrow after hopefully a good night's rest!

Charles.

Nanchang update

Hello again from Nanchang. We have been busy passing the time waiting for Iris's passport and other paperwork to be completed. We have one more day here and then we fly to Guanzhou on Tuesday to start the U.S. immigration process (which takes several days).

We continue to have some problems posting updates to our blog (http://irischina.blogspot.com/) but check it anyway (and please let us know the latest update). I have been able to upload a bunch of photos to flickr ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/15142220@N00/) although I still need to add some description which I'll try to do tomorrow sometime (Monday).

Iris continues to do well and we are adjusting to each other and figuring out how to do this parenting thing! She is eating and sleeping well and is mostly happy when she is awake. We have made some food mistakes and paid the consequences for that but no damage done. She seems very interested in whatever is going on around here and the daily trips out and about Nanchang seem to be most stimulating for her (and of course for us). We are enjoying the time here but I think are also starting to look forward to getting home and establishing a routine.

Nanchang continues to amaze and we learn more about it and the Chinese people daily. Today we took a trip just outside of Nanchang to a somewhat rural village. The living conditions are very poor but the people seem relatively happy and were very friendly toward us (especially the older women present). At this small village (photos on flicks site) there were mostly kids and older people. Apparently all the working age people are away from the village in the city working. Some of the people in our group took candy for the kids which was a bit of a scene! Also driving just outside the city we have seen what a toll the large population has taken on the environment. The land has been severely damaged near the city. I have been very surprised to see very few birds anywhere except just a few in the People's Park. It would be interesting to see what it like farther outside the city. (Also as I think I mentioned before the smog is quite bad here, ironically the increasing standard of living has much to do with this as there are many more cars on the road now.) Some others of our group went to Yujiang today, the rural town several hours from Nanchang where the orphanage is located, and we are interested to hear what there experience was.

A few other items of interest. Today is October 29 and yesterday the 28th, both lucky numbers in China and so there have been many marriages going on around town. The are often announced by large strings of firecrackers being lit off and we have seen many wedding groups around (including in our hotel). Also Nanchang sees relatively few westerners and so we draw crowds many places that we go. Some people want to practice their English and others just want to take pictures or have their pictures takes with us. In general they are very friendly although we do get some odd looks (perhaps of disapproval) and occasional clucks from older women if any of the babies in our group have any exposed skin. Also they think it odd for some of us to be wearing shorts in "winter" although the highs have been in the mid 70's the past few days!

Well I guess that is all for now. We'll try to post more photos as we can. Deb's email is not working well - send messages to Charles' gmail account below.

chaetura@gmail.com

Iris and Nanchang

We've been here for several days now and are enjoying getting to know Iris, and seeing Nanchang. We are staying at the Galactic Peace International Hotel.

All the babies saw a local physician on the 25th and Iris has a clean bill of health. She was a little constipated, so we offered her some mashed prunes (which she liked maybe a little too much), and Deb got to change her first blowout diaper on the morning of the 25th. On the 26th, Charles tried the local custom of holding the baby over the toilet and saying 'Ba-Ba mmm' at about the same time of the morning as her last BM, and incredibly, she pooped in the toilet!

She likes to eat Congee (a rice gruel) with a little hardboiled egg yolk in it, steamed bun, soft noodles, Cheerios, Fruit Puffs, and potato puffs (a local snack food), and is on a milk-based formula.

It took a while to get a big smile out of her, but now she's even had the occasional giggle fit.

We have been able to go on all of the optional 'tours'. We visited the August 1 Park and saw locals playing card games and Chinese Chess, as well as doing Tai Chi. We also visited the one major remaining historical landmark in Nanchang, the Teng Wan Tower, a pagoda-pavilion originally built during the Tang (Teng) Dynasty, around 650 AD. The Tower has been destroyed and reconstructed many times since then. Today's excursion was to the local zoo, which was actually pretty good – camels and elephants and a panda and a giraffe, etc. Our group attracted a bit of attention as well!

Our local guides have arranged a number of group meals which have been quite delicious. The cuisine here is Sichuan-like, though a bit less spicy. Here are some sample room service items: Pan-fried Fish Mouth ShunDe Style; Deep-fried Squid Beard with Garlic; Sauteed Ostrich Gizzard and Pig Stomach; Deep-fried Pig Intestine with Chinese Tea.
--
Charles Swift
Moscow, ID
chaetura@gmail.com
http://www.uidaho.edu/~charless

The first 24 hours

In a nutshell, everything has been great. Iris is adjusting very well and we are also adjusting well! She is quite healthy as far as we can tell and probably the largest of all the babies in our group of 11 (all of whom seem to be quite healthy overall w/ very few problems). Here is what we can tell you about Iris so far: - she likes to eat, she sucks her thumb (very cute but we will have to figure out how to stop eventually, as good as a pacifier for now I guess), she likes to be around the other babies in the group, she likes to say, "Ow-Woo," she likes to see herself in the mirror, she is just figuring out how to crawl (at the orphanage they use rolling chairs so they probably don't get to crawl very much - we had a photo of her in one of these with our referral, she likes to grab things, she makes gaga noises when happy, she is not too picky about toys (seems perfectly happy w/ a set of stacking plastic cups at the moment), she is teething (but we're not sure how many teeth she has at this point). Well I guess you get the point!

As to being in China, all I can say is that it is almost as amazing as having a child handed to you and becoming instant parents. It is so very different than back home in ways that are hard to describe. There are so many people here for one thing. Jiangxi is a fairly small province in area and population but has a pop. of 40 million plus. The fairly small city of Nanchang where we are has 2 million people (more than the whole state of Idaho). The people have been friendly, indifferent, or curious. Nanchang does not get many western tourists so a whole group of westerners is quite a spectacle and we have gotten some stares (more about this in upcoming posts). If you are interested in learning more I would suggest checking wikipedia.com - we learned a lot about Jiangxi & Nanchang from wikipedia (which quite impressed our local guide!). One point of particular interest is that Nanchang is where the Communist Revolution started in China in the 1920's. This is because Jiangxi is rural, agricultural, and a relatively poor province compared to the rest of China, conditions perfect for breeding revolution. Just down the street is the August 1 Square (People's Square), which is on August 1 Avenue (August 1 was the first day of the communist revolution).

We finished up some paperwork and met two officials from the Yujiang Orphanage, trying to get more information regarding foster care vs. her time in the orphanage.

I also I have to tell you that we went to the Wal-Mart Supercenter here in Nanchang on the 25th, which is fairly new and quite popular (it was a good place to get baby stuff, snacks, etc.) We ran into an American woman from Atlanta at the Wal-Mart who is teaching English language teachers at one of the universities here in Nanchang - she seemed quite pleased to run into us. Surprisingly there is quite a bit of English on signs, stores, etc. here. Most of the hotel staff understand and speak at least some English (some quite well). English seems to be quite popular here (the local dialect is "Gan" and most people apparently also speak the common Mandarin dialect).
--
Charles Swift
Moscow, ID
chaetura@gmail.com
http://www.uidaho.edu/~charless

THE BIG DAY

The last 36 hours have been pretty hectic and there has been little time to post (and I'm having trouble connecting to the blogger site here in China). In case our pictures don't post here, the latest photos are posted at the flickr site below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15142220@N00/sets/72157594338906649/

On October 24, we flew on China Eastern to Nanchang, in Jiangxi Province. Our group had a little time to settle in to our hotel (The Galactic Peace International), and a 2-hr informational meeting before the babies arrived from the Yujiang Orphanage.

The whole thing took place in a big conference room, and unfortunately for us, in alphabetical order by family name, so we waited through most of the process before we got to hold our little Iris!! The babies were all in great shape, with hardly any crying. It was the parents who did all the crying.

Hong Kong tour with the group

On the 23rd of October we went on a tour with our adoption travel group. It was really the first chance we had to meet everyone in person, though many of them we had known through a Yahoo group. The tour began around noon with an excellent dim sum lunch and continued up to Victoria Peak. We're glad we went there Saturday because the pollution haze obscured much of the view. Other stops were: a Sampah ride to see a floating fishing village near Aberdeen; and shopping at a jeweller's and at the open market in Stanley, on the south side of Hong Kong Island.

Sha Tin

We are actually about to receive our daughter in Nanchang right now, but will Blog this information later.

After staying on Hong Kong Island, we moved to Sha Tin to join the rest of our adoption travel group. Sha Tin is one of the "New Cities" designed to relieve congestion elsewhere in Hong Kong. It has a MONSTROUS shopping area, plus a very interesting Hong Kong Heritage Museum, which we visited to learn more about the area, and about Cantonese Opera. We worked our way through the shopping area via a fish market featuring VERY fresh fish (still flopping around on the tables) and an interesting assortment of other seafoods.

We visited a Buddhist memorial temple, with tiers of altars ascending up a nearby hill. People were leaving flowers, incense, and plates of food in front of Buddha statues and their relatives' memorial sites. The 10,000 Buddhas Monastery was a little farther up the hill - we did not count all the Buddhas. But we did see two monks, as well as at least three monkeys.

We topped off the day with an eye-popping, jaw-dropping evening experiencing the spectacle of downtown Kowloon, including the Temple Street Night Market.

Hong Kong Harbor

Hong Kong Harbor
Originally uploaded by Chas'Pix.

We are in Hong Kong and it is amazing! We arrived Friday, 10/21/06 (one day later as we crossed the intl date line). We stayed on Hong Kong Island and hiked up Victoria Peak ("the peak") on Saturday morning. We enjoyed incredible views of Hong Kong Harbor, Kowloon, Hong Kong island, and surrounding areas. It is quite humid here so we were quite soaked w/ sweat after the fairly strenuous climb. Also enjoyed walking through the the zoological gardens and the excellent aviary in HK Park.

We are now at our hotel in Sha Tin in the "new territories" where we will meet up with the rest of our group tomorrow. We'll post again tomorrow AM w/ some news of our adventures today around Sha Tin.

(entry by Charles)

Are We Ready?

Is it possible ever truly to be ready for something like this?

We have assembled all of the items recommended for travel by our adoption agency, as well as a few items we think necessary. These include: LOTS of baby stuff (or perhaps it seems like lots, because we've never traveled with a baby); gifts for various officials involved in the adoption process; and our own necessities. We are also considering taking our backpacking water filter, so that we can have plenty of cool water, rather than relying on hot, boiled water in our hotel rooms, or on bottled water of dubious origin. If there's room, we may take some decent coffee and our backpacking French press coffee mugs.

Looks like it will all fit into two small-medium roller bags, and we are each taking a daypack as a carry-on. Our own necessities are pretty minimal since we have washable/quick-dry travel clothes, AND all of our hotels will have laundry service.

We tested four different baby carriers, using a 10-lb bag of bird seed + a 7-lb bag of cat food (to roughly match her projected weight). We hope that Iris is a little more dense than this combination (we also hope that at least most of the time, she smells better). We selected one of the front-carriers, and a homemade sling (created by Emily Yates).

Hardware needed for assembling the crib arrived TODAY! I hope to have a chance to put it together before tomorrow's flight to Seattle. Our friend Judy is all set to watch the cats (and the house) in our absence. She is really good with both of them - she brushes them, plays with them, and brings them high-octane catnip from her yard. They will be spoiled. We will miss them. What a surprise they will get when we return!

Name is official

We finally decided, Friday morning, not a moment too soon, what our daughter's name will be.

Iris Lingyue Stenkamp Swift

A lovely name, isn't it? And full of character.

Thanks to our party guests for helping us with this one. Although we still like the idea of including 'Moon' in her name (Ling Yue means Exquisite Moon), Lingyue is more respectful of her current home and heritage. And she can always be 'the little Moon Unit' to us!!

Here's some additional information about Chinese names in general, and Iris' Chinese name in particular. Wang is her surname, and is the same surname as that of the orphanage director. Ling is the next name, and we learned (on Wikipedia), that this is the generation name. All of the girls being adopted from this orphanage by our travel group have 'Ling' in their names, making them all the rough equivalent of sisters. The next name is Yue, the most unique part of her name. Chinese people are known familiarly by the combination of the generation name and the unique given name. Correspondingly, most Chinese people who emigrate to English-speaking countries collapse two of their names into one, or hyphenate the name. We decided to combine Ling Yue into Lingyue.

My apologies to my mom for not including 'Margaret' as we originally intended. Two middle names seemed sufficient.

OUR GUEST BOOK

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Big Celebration!

On Friday, Oct. 6, we hosted an open house to celebrate the upcoming adoption, the completion of our house remodel, and the Chinese Harvest Moon Festival. We invited pretty much everyone (see invitation at left), and pretty much everyone showed up! There may have been 50 people in the house. I think a good time was had by all, but both of us lost track of things as we were showing people around the house, and getting absorbed in conversation about our adoption trip. The food went fast and we couldn't keep up! Thanks to those who brought more food - we needed it. Thanks also to those who brought gifts and wine. After the party, we kept finding little gift bags and bottles of wine around the house. We are doing our best to catch up with the thank-you cards.

One of the traditions of the Harvest Moon Festival is to enjoy the full moon while eating Mooncakes, sweet treats made of adzuki bean paste, lotus seed, and egg yolk. Those went fast, too. In fact Charles had to hide one for the two of us to enjoy when the party winded down.

We solicited opinions on the options we are considering for Iris' full name, and the biggest vote-getter was Iris LingYue Stenkamp Swift. We have only until Friday to decide on her name.

Baby Showers

This is Deb posting again (though the Blog will always say, 'posted by Charles Swift'). In mid-September we went to Boise for TWO baby showers. On Saturday, my high school friend Kim hosted a shower. The photos show two of the games: 'Pin the Iris on the Province' and 'Speed Diaper Changing.' For the first game we (Charles and I) provided several clues as to Iris' home province in China, Jiangxi, and everyone else tried to pick out the province on the map of China. Kay and Shannon were the winners. For the second game we tried to properly change the diaper of the teddy bear in the sleeper - as fast as possible. I requested this game because neither I nor Charles have ever changed a diaper in our lives! The second photo shows Charles taking his turn. He did not get a very good score. The winner was my sister-in-law, Tami. Kim made some excellent Chinese appetizers and we hauled in some magnificent baby loot!!

The second baby shower was on Sunday, co-hosted by my mom (Mardy), and my godmother, Shirley. It was really a 'grandmother shower' and mom was so pleased to use the ladybug theme (an icon of sorts for adoption in China), since she has always liked ladybugs. She took loads of pictures, but none are posted here because they were film photos. For this baby shower, I had neglected to mention a preference for gender neutral clothing, and WOW - what a collection of pink clothes Iris will have!!! She will look very stylish!

It was great fun to share the excitement of the adoption with friends and family. And before the baby showers, we had no baby stuff at all; we really needed EVERYTHING.

About Us

Charles just showed me how to Blog, so I'll add a few more details about us and about the adoption process. It's been a very busy month since we got our referral and so I will also try to catch up.

Charles and I (Deb Stenkamp) both work at the University of Idaho. Charles is a computer programmer in Advancement Services (fundraising). I am an Associate Professor in the Biological Sciences Department. This is a link to my laboratory's web page with information about my research program.

We like backpacking, rafting, skiing, bicycling, and birding, and travel in general. This is a link to the Palouse Audubon Society. We have not been to China but are looking forward to the trip, and yes, we do plan to do some birding while we are there. Above are photos that we included in our Dossier that went to China last summer. The Dossier contained about eight 'family life' photos like this.

In the 'extra' months while we waited for our referral, we went to Italy, we did a backpacking trip in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, and we did a multi-day raft trip on the Lower Salmon River. We also did a TON of work on the house, and as of this week, the 'monster remodel' is finally done.

New Pictures of Iris

These are more recent pictures of Ling Yue (Iris) we received just a couple weeks ago. This is Iris in early September, she is about 7 months old new. We also learned that she has been in foster care, living with one of the orphanage workers.

Referral - please welcome Iris!

This is the first image we saw of Iris upon receiving our referral in late August. Iris was born on January 24, 2006 and was found on January 25 and taken to the Yujiang Orphanage in Jiangxi Province. This picture was taken around June 1, 2006. The name given her at the Orphanage is Ling Yue Wang (or in the Chinese tradition Wang Ling Yue). Ling Yue means "exquisite moon". We are trying to figure out if and how to incorporate Ling Yue into her new name.

Introduction

This is a web diary of our trip to China to adopt our daughter Iris.

We started the process to adopt a daughter from China in January, 2005. Over the next 5+ months we collected the necessary papers, certificates, and approvals required by the Chinese and U.S. governments (known as "paperchasing" in the adoption community). This is an arduous process but is required to ensure the suitability and motivations of the prospective parents. We submitted all of the documentation to our agency (Chinese Children Adoption International) in June of 2005 and received word that our application had been accepted (or "logged in") on July 15.

At that point the waiting began for our "referral". This is when we learn who our daughter is and where in China she lives. The CCAA (Chinese Center of Adoption Afairs) is the Chinese psuedo-governmental organization that handles all international adoptions. They approve all applications and "match" the prospective parents with a child in one of the many orphanages (or "social welfare institutes") in China. When we started the process the wait to referral from log-in was running about 6-8 months. We finally received our referral on August 28, 206, after a 13 month wait.

We kept busy during the wait by almost doubling the usable space in our house with an addition and remodel. (Pictures of our remodel project can be seen here:
http://flickr.com/photos/15142220@N00/sets/1242804/)