Guangzhou - Our Journey - Part 3

The in-country flight from Nanchang to Guangzhou was an interesting one to say the least. After the wonderful experience we had on China Southern coming into China, it was clear that the other airlines were far different. The flight attendants were not the least bit pleased by the vast number of new families with their needy babies on board. When the local Chinese newspapers were being passed out to businessmen on the flight and I kindly asked for one, I was given a look that is forever burned in my soul. Undaunted by the daggered-look fired my way by a puzzled woman wondering why this westerner with no obvious Chinese language skills would want the local paper, I happily accepted one for my daughters' scrapbooks, where it rests to this day.

Alas, and thankful to the person who invented Cheerios, we finally landed in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, for the next phase of our adventure. We arrived at the luxurious White Swan hotel where we had further embedded ourselves into debt to upgrade to an executive suite. It was worth the cost, as we had an amazingly comfortable suite with plenty of room and peace for the girls to take naps, play, and to be our retreat for the rest of trip.

Above is a photo of the waterfall in the White Swan Lobby. It was a beautiful hotel, nicer than any we'd stayed at in the USA; and we were so pleased to be there. In the hotel itself is a vast array of restaurants and shops; and shopping and sightseeing abounded within walking distance.

The hotel was so comfortable with much softer beds than in our hotel in Jiangxi, so it was a welcome change.

Even though we traveled alone, we did meet many other families and were able to go on several day trips with them to see some of the attractions that Guangzhou had to offer, and we made some new friends.

We enjoyed walks along the Pearl river and shopping for souvenirs and other keepsakes. We bought several Chinese dresses in many sizes that they could grow into over the years, that they have worn at annual Chinese New Year celebrations through our local Families with Children from China. We visited many tourist spots, and it was just an awesome experience to be there and learn more about China and its people.

We attracted a lot of attention wherever we went in Guangzhou, as people were fascinated by the twins. In both Jiangxi and Guangdong provinces, people wanted to touch them for good luck.

The people of China were kind and hospitable, and we wished we could have stayed even longer and seen more. But the time for us to return home quickly approached. After the girls getting their required medical exam and receiving their visas and passports, it was time for us to head home to America, and we bid a fond farewell to China, promising to return again to visit with our daughters when they were older.

Jiangxi - Our Journey - Part 2

After a few mishaps with the baby bottle, baby bath-time, and pushing sleepless girls around the room in strollers all night to entertain them, the following morning, still sleepless, we officially became the girls’ parents. Documents were sealed with our thumb-prints in red ink. They were now our daughters forevermore!

The next night – sleep, at last! Everyone slept. I was so exhausted that I didn’t budge all night. But sleeping in the same position on my side on a bed as hard as plywood wrapped in a blanket, I woke up with a bruise on my hip the size of a saucer! Gee, when they say the beds in China are hard they aren’t kidding.

The rest of our journey in Jiangxi province was both amazing and overwhelming. Although we had traveled alone, our wonderful agency had a full-time guide for us who was an essential help as we made the abrupt transition into parenthood. We were very lucky to be invited to visit our daughters’ orphanage a couple of days later, where we were warmly welcomed by the caring staff we had mistaken for our daughters’ family the night we first met them. Seeing the little village and people there was incredible, and I wished we had been able to spend more time visiting.

It was a requirement at the time for families to stay in the province for about a week before going to Guangzhou for the children’s visas; so it gave us a chance to see more of our babies’ home province and do a little sightseeing. One of our first stops was the Teng Weng Pavilion, a beautiful, well-known tourist location in Nanchang – here are some photos of the pavilion and yin yang garden.

Our touring was cut a bit short; however, by Marty breaking his toe on one of the cribs in our room. Luckily our guide did some shopping for us for souvenirs we had wanted to get before we travelled on to Guangdong province. Marty didn’t even hesitate to take the Chinese pills prescribed to him, nor balk at the stinky black paste applied to his foot to ‘take the blood out’. It was remarkable that a foot ten shades of black and blue looked perfectly normal within 24 hours – that stuff really worked! As they say, ‘When in Rome…’

We ended up spending a lot of time with the girls and relaxing in our hotel suite; and even enjoyed a daily Chinese soap opera as the girls napped called ‘Family’ with English subtitles that we made a point of never missing. It was so intriguing and we got so involved the storylines and characters that we wished there was a way to watch it from the USA when we got home.

Finally, we bid a fond farewell to Jiangxi province and headed south to Guangdong, where we would get the girls’ passports and visas…

Jiangxi - Our Journey - Part 1

Situated in Southeastern China, north of Guangdong, lies Jiangxi province (江西). Nanchang, the capital city, is located in the northern central part of the province and is well-known to adoptive families as this is the city in which most parents who adopt from Jiangxi will meet their children for the very first time.

Northeast of the Nanchang city center is Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in all of China. Into it flows one of Jiangxi’s major rivers, the Gan Jiang (Jiang means ‘river’) which traverses the entire province from the south to the north. Poyang Lake also drains into the Yangtze river.

Abundant in mountains, forests and wildlife, and rich in natural mineral resources, Jiangxi is still among China’s poorest provinces. Its main crops include rice (we saw many rice fields and workers in rural Jiangxi) as well as rapeseed and cotton. It is famous throughout China for its quality porcelain, which we brought plenty of home with us – some of it still in boxes waiting for our daughters to be old enough to appreciate.

The people of Jiangxi are primarily Han Chinese, whom are considered to be the world’s largest ethnic group. About 19 percent of the entire world’s population is Han Chinese, and around 92 percent of all people living in China are Han. Nearly 43 million people today call Jiangxi province home. It borders six other provinces: Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong. It has a subtropical climate, and was incredibly hot and humid when we were there in the late spring of 2001.

In Nanchang city the Lakeview, Jiangxi and Gloria Plaza hotels are popular places to stay among families adopting. In fact, it was in the lobby of the Gloria Plaza hotel where I walked past my soon-to-be daughters and commented to my husband at what an ‘adorable little family’ was sitting in the lounge. They had surprised us, of course, as we were not expecting to meet them until the next morning. Looking nothing like their referral pictures taken months earlier, once I realized that this ‘family’ was really my twin daughters and the orphanage staff I could barely contain myself.

Unprepared, sleepless for more than 48 hours and with cameras packed away in suitcases, we met the two little Jiangxi Girls that would change our lives forever…

Introduction

Welcome to the Red Thread Maps Blog! I’m Hendrika (Heni), a very lucky mom to my twin daughters from China, who are the inspiration for all of my work. I decided to start up this blog to show a little more about my work and family than can be found on my main website, Redthreadmaps.com.
Here I will pick different topics and places to focus on weekly, such as different cities, provinces and countries that may be of interest to adoptive and multicultural families; and will also highlight my latest map works and designs. And I may even include some photos and tales of my own family.

Currently I have two websites: www.Redthreadmaps.com – where I feature birth country, province and orphanage location maps and map gifts of interest to adoptive families; and www.Henimage.com which showcases my other graphic design work on a variety of t-shirts and gifts.

My map work is truly a labor of love – something I began years ago to show my daughters their hometown and connection to their home province in China, which has blossomed now into a business where I create unique personalized maps and gifts for other adoptive families. Each of my original maps takes between 100 and 200 plus hours to create, and each begins with a hand-rendering in ink!

One series of my work features China provincial orphanage location maps – showing the general locations of orphanages that participate in international adoptions. Many provinces are now completed, with more being added as I get them done. I also have China and South Korea country maps that can highlight your and your child’s journey. I am working on more countries as well.

I hope you will enjoy visiting here and reading my little blurbs…