The Two Sides of a Coin

One thing impressed me most in my visit to Changsha City, Hunan Province was the day when I was sightseeing Yuelu Hill. The hill was not very high, and was covered by various trees and plants with some old-fashioned gloriettes dotting among them, quite a view from distance. The hill embraced the Hunan University, whose history could be traced back to Song Dynasty. The original site was still a part of the campus and becomes a tourist attraction nowadays. When I entered the grand gate of the school, I found there were few tourists there, a situation I found both rare and pleasant, for almost every Chinese interesting spot seemed to be filled with enthusiastic tourists. I like to sightsee some less crowded places, where I can take my time and enjoy the view leisurely, without missing something important or worrying about how to fight my way to the sight or out of the crowd. So I strolled around the yard, read the craved words, examined the Chinese paintings on the wall, and studied various ancient buildings, imaging hundreds of years ago, students in the old time might study, work in the same place, I felt close to them. The buildings were beautiful and sparkling new, but if you had seen a lot of them, they would not attract you any more, these ancient buildings looked like each other. In the main hall of school I found an introduction of this site, which said all the buildings in this place were rebuilt around 1980s. If they were the source of the inspiration and thought you just had, it was a very strange feeling to know all these old things just came into being about 20 years ago.
When I was appreciating the highest pavilion, through the moon-shaped door on the left came out a group of westerners. They scattered around, talking, resting, and taking photos. It’s not unusual to see westerners in historical spots, but one thing attracted my attention was the way some of them carried their baby: they didn’t hold the baby in arms like Chinese parents, but used some special bag to keep it in front of the chest like a kangaroo mother. With a closer look, all the babies they were carrying looked like Chinese. I was curious and tried to observe them without being rude. They looked like four couples, aged from late 20s to early 40s, each couple had a baby to care. They listened to the English guide, attended the baby with love and gentleness. The babies were quite, some of them were dozing and some just looked around and listened. I was dying to know why they had a Chinese baby, but I was not bold enough to come up to one of the parents and ask the question. When I was hesitating about whether or not I should ask and find the answer, the guide mentioned them to move to the next place, my chance slipped away. I also had other place to see, so I went on with my tour. The following time was not as enjoyable as before, I was haunted by what I had just seen, wondering the reason, regretting about my shyness. It seemed like I always thought too much, weighted too much possibilities when I made a decision. Sometimes the chance just passed by.
I finished the sightseeing quickly, with all kinds of thoughts in mind, I did not have the right mood to the enjoy myself. On my way to the exit, I came across those couples again. Apparently they were taking a long rest. Some were sitting on chair; some were walking around with the baby in arms. Now or never, I gathered up my nerve and approached them. I came to the nearest man who looked very friendly, bended down to watched closely the baby in his arm. He was much cooperated, adjusted his arms so I could get a better look. He smiled warmly, proudly demonstrating the baby. The baby was very lovely with an angelic face, lying comfortably, peacefully in the strong, protecting arms, staring at me attentively. You know the feeling you have when you are looking into the eyes of little babies, you seem to find the answer to everything, or you maybe don’t see anything in their easy. Naturally I started with the praise of the baby.
“Your baby is lovely.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“Is it a he or she?”
“She.”
“How old is she?”
“Ten months old.”
“It looks like she is a Chinese girl.”
“Yeah, ----”
“So you adopt her?”
“Yeah, we adopt her through an agent, we find her in an orphanage in Changsha City. You know orphanage? It is a place for the children abandoned by their parents. ”
The man talking with me was tall and strong, I guess he might be in his thirties. But the gray hairs in his sidebums made me believe that he was older, about 40 perhaps. Seeing us talking, a woman came up to us and took the baby from the man, swaying her tenderly and told me,“Her name is Chuchu.”
“It is a lovely name. I guess most the babies you people have are girls?”
“All of them are girls.”
I felt shamed and tried to explained defensively, “You know, traditional Chinese people like boys more than girls ----”
“Yeah, we know, boys can do lots of heavy jobs, carry on the name, and boys can look after them when they are old.”
“Wow, you know a lot about Chinese history!”
“Thanks, I just read some books before we came to China”
“Why do you want to adopt a Chinese baby?”
“We want to have a baby, so we found the agency in our country and through it we are able to find Chuchu in China. It took us two years to finally arrive here.”
I was wondering why they did not have their own baby, but I was afraid it was a question too personal to ask, “I guess she must be very precious to you, because you take two years to find her.”
“Yes, indeed. And your English is very good.”
“Of course, you know I teach English in college.” I didn’t feel pleased by the praise; I did not need others to confirm my English level, but I felt embarrassed the moment I blurted out the sentence, I should say thank you. But they didn’t seem to mind, so I just carried on the conversation. “May I ask where you are from?” The mother told me a name unknown to me, seeing my confusing look, she added: “We come from New York.” “New York city or New York State?” I wondered, but decided to ignore it. I was more concerned how they plan to bring up the little girl.
“Are you going to let Chuchu learn Chinese when she is older?”
“We plan to, there are lots of Chinese language schools in the city, you know, especially in some Chinese towns, we want her to know the different cultures and make good use of the mixed cultures.”
“Do you plan to learn Chinese so that you can communicate with her in Chinese?”
“Probably, it depends, we know Chinese is very difficult to learn.”
“I guess Chuchu must be very lucky, she can have you two to be her parents, otherwise her life will be misery without the love of parents.”
“We are lucky to have her as our daughter, too.”
While we were talking, other couples either looked at us friendly or smilingly, or just took care of the little need of their baby, the look on their faces were beautiful with so much love, care and tenderness. All the others were in their 30s, the couple I was talking with might be the oldest one among the whole group. I wanted to know what kind of requirements were needed to adopt a Chinese baby, but didn’t know how to start. Instead, I began the causal talk.
“So how long have you been in Changsha?”
“Four days. First we should go to the orphanage to find our baby, get familiar with her, and then we have some time to do some sightseeing.”
“Do you like what you see in this city?”
“Yeah, the city is beautiful.”
Just then the guild announced the end of the rest; it was the time for them to go for the next historic spot. I wished them good luck and hoped they would enjoy their trip in China.
My feeling to this encounter was quite complex, I felt happy for those little girls, after being deserted by their biological parents just because they were girls, they met people who would pay some high price, both in money and time, to become their parents. I admired the big heart in these American couples; they offered their love and affection to these poor, abandoned girls. I had experienced the same feeling when I knew many New York people volunteered to line up in front of the blood station to denote blood after the tragedy in Sep 11th last year. On the other hand, I was much ashamed for those parents who could desert their own child just because she happened to a girl, only cruel and heartless people could do such things.
When I told this story to my friends, some of them have this unexpected reaction: “Good luck for those girls, at least they don’t have to pass TOEFL or GRE when they grow up.” Hearing this, I was speechless.

note:
This story is based on the true story I experienced in the summer vacation this year, I could remember the main idea of our conversation but not in the detail, the actual talk lasted for more 15 minutes.