More on Guiyang

So, I left off last night at our trip to the “ancient Chinese village.” We went to dinner that night at a restaurant near our hotel. It was pretty nice and the food was relatively good. Bayard’s favorite was the preserved egg. Really, he keeps asking when he can have more preserved egg. Nice to have an adventurous eater for a kid.

Wed…

We were off to another village. This time of the Miao (like “meow”) people, likely Amelia’s heritage (there are a large number of different cultural groups here within China). Bayard was a little resistant, and to be honest, I wasn’t that excited about another experience like the day before either, however, this was completely different. It was great actually. The people there were expecting us and dressed in traditional clothing and basically put on a show for us. Apparently this group likes to drink, a lot. Our guide gave us the lowdown on the bus before we got there. The tradition is to be greeted by a man with a water buffalo horn filled with rice wine. Each person is to take a sip. It was recommended that we each keep our hands behind our backs as if we touched the horn, we would be expected to “bottom up” or drink the whole thing! The people sang traditional songs and danced traditional dances in which they included people from our group, including me (Tracey)! It seems I am now married to one of the village men. Then, at the end, it was expected that we have a “musical conversation” – they sang a traditional song, then we sing one, etc for 3 songs each. On the bus we practiced three songs that we felt would best reflect our culture…. Picture a large group of Americans singing the following incredibly off key…Jingle Bells, Happy Birthday, and You are My Sunshine. It was pretty funny. They had all of us laughing. Bayard was much relieved and had his share of laughs as well. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

To comment some more on the pollution… the air is rarely clear. It is mostly hazy from pollution and it always smells of car exhaust and garbage and other more unfamiliar odors. On our way to the Miao village yesterday we saw coal mining and power plants set up right next to people’s homes. Many of the young children also wear split pants and no diapers, so when they need to “go” they just stop and squat in the middle of the city sidewalk, then, much of the time, their parents pick it up like we do for our dogs. However, not everyone is as conscientious… There are just so many things here that are so very different from home.

On wed afternoon, Bayard, Travis, Amelia and I took a walk a few blocks from our hotel (toward the Walmart!) and decided to head down this stinky alley way. You turned left off the sidewalk and headed down about 8 stairs into a market. A lady at the front of the market by the stairs was cooking stinky fermented tofu which is quite pungent. Then, we realized we were in a meat market. Clearly, refrigeration is overrated. The meat was all out on tables and hung on hooks. Once we got past the stinky tofu, the smell was actually better than out on the street. What struck me most was not the piles of cut meat, or the hanging ducks and pigs with bodies intact including heads, but the dogs that were hanging, skinned and cleaned, ready for purchase. Yes, I said dogs. I had heard that many parts of China enjoy dog meat, but I don’t know that I really thought it was a mainstream food until yesterday. Such a different culture. This is by truly an adventure. I have never been somewhere where I stand out so much not just in my appearance (I am actually relatively tall here!) but more so in my social understanding/social skills. I have been to other countries, other large cities, but never somewhere where I was this foreign. I keep thinking, there are 4 Chinese for every 1 American. Many more people live like this than how we do. Very interesting.

How is Amelia doing you ask? She is making progress everyday. She smiles more and more. She is very cute! Our day today has had little or no crying! Wahoo! She continues to sleep really well, all night long! And two naps a day! Bayard is very cute with her and wants to help so much! She definitely checks him out. She still prefers Travis, but is continuing to warm up to me. Travis is sleeping with Bayard and I am sleeping with Amelia. Last night she wanted full body contact all night, but slept really well—8pm-7:30am! She wakes up for a bottle at around 4:30 or 5 and then goes right back to sleep. It is great! As for her development, she is sitting up, but is a bit wobbly and can’t get herself there. She is definitely NOT crawling, but LOVES to stand and is pretty stable. We plan to nip that in the bud! No exersaucer for her! Lots of time on the floor when we get home and I am sure she will catch up. She doesn’t seem to have any health issues at all. We sent a camera to her foster family a few weeks before we came on the trip and we had the pictures developed yesterday. Wow. They really loved her. They had a lovely home and she is a beaming, happy child in those pictures. They gave our family quite a gift in loving her so much. I have no doubt that she will be able to settle happily into our family in large part because they made her such a part of theirs.

Today (Thursday) we had a down day. Just hung out and played. Talked to other people in our travel group. Went to the park by the Walmart that the enormous statue of Mao looks over with his hand raised high. There are some grassy areas, but none are available for sitting or walking on, only concrete paths. Again, just different from our concept of a park. Amelia is napping right now and Bayard is watching Dora (the DVD player was a good buy!). We have one more day here (we get our notarized copies of our adoption documents and Amelia’s Chinese passport tomorrow) and then Saturday we are off to Guangzhou for the US government part of the adoption process. We will meet up with a bunch of the other travel groups from our adoption agency. They all picked their children up from different provinces. We are more than halfway through our trip. We are looking forward to moving on to the next phase. Then it is back home. More later….