A Day With Tate

Now about Tate.  The orphanage representative brought him up to our hotel room promptly at 11:30.  There he stood, wide-eyed in the hallway, holding the woman's hand.  Mom picked him up and brought him in the room, cooing sweet words to him.

The orphanage rep had another little boy (5 years old) with her whom, Cindy explained, she was delivering to another family "later."  The word "later" in Cindy's vocabulary seems to mean anything from "2 minutes from now" to "tomorrow."  The boy had a moment of confusion where he seemed to think that I was his new mother, logically, since I was the only other American lady in the room without a kid in my arms.  When he learned that I wasn't, he took to happily bouncing around on my bed while we got to know Tate and asking the rep our questions.

Tate, however, was not happy.  He began to cry.  He wailed.  He slumped limply against my mom while the tears rolled down his cheeks.  In a heartbreaking way, he lifted his hand to cover his mouth while he cried.

This was all very scary for him.  He had never been out of the orphanage before, or seen blond-haired, blue eyed people before (aside from the photo album we sent to him).  The orphanage rep assured us he had been talked to about getting a new family--prepared him--but really, how can you truly prepare a two-year-old for such an alien thing?

Tate continued to cry as the representative left with the other little boy.  He continued to cry as we tried to distract him with toys and food and a diaper change.  Mom removed one of the two outfits he was wearing. This was his outer layer.  The Chinese firmly believe small children should not get cold.  Even when it is 82 in the room.

His inner layer consisted of an entirely separate outfit of thick quilted material.  You can see it in the picture above (yellow).  Needless to say, he was sweating while doing all his crying.

We decided it was time to get some business done and see if fresh air and walking around would help ease Tate's sadness.  He cried all the way down to the lobby from the 7th floor.  He cried at the front desk while we exchanged some American dollars for Chinese yuan.  But... there was a dish of hard candies at the desk.  Cindy Lee popped one in his mouth, and presently, the tears began to subside as we walked out the front door.

Oh thank the Lord for that bit of candy.  How conspicuous it would have been for two American women to walk down the street carrying a screaming Chinese baby!  People stare at us enough as it is.

We entered a nearby photo shop to take the required photos necessary for the adoption.  It was a place that seemed like a hole-in-the-wall shop that I would be afraid to enter in the United States.  But everything seems to look like that here.

Tate managed not to cry while they took pictures of him and mom together and even just him alone.  He looked adorable in the photos, actually. Mom had had to change shirts because the previous one was soaked in tears and snot.  A proper initiation, right?

Our next goal for the day was to go to a bank and exchange the large portion of money needed for the adoption fees into yuan.  Cindy Lee explained that this would be difficult because today was Sunday and not normally a business day.  But the people had just celebrated a week-long national holiday and there was a good chance the banks would be able to do it.

We walked to the nearest bank.  They were open.  Cindy spent a long time talking back and forth with man behind a counter.  There was a problem.  They didn't want to exchange so much money today.  They wanted to know where we got so much money.  He asked us to prove that it was our money!  Cindy Lee grumbled something about "these small cities...never would have this problem in Beijing!"  We left.

We found another bank.  A much bigger bank.  Okay, no problem they said.  But, one person can only exchange $2000 dollars today.  We needed more than that.  So, between the three of us, we each took a stack of bills and exchanged the money.  After about an hour and a lot of haggling between Cindy Lee and the bank employees, we got the money.  Tate ate a piece of banana bread (we bought at the photo shop) and sat in mom's lap through it all.  It seems the way to his heart is through his stomach.

Our bank communication experience can be summed up by this sign I found at the cashier's counter:

It says, " Please keep your password, alert others to steal! For your financial security, please show ID. Cash, please leaving the checkout."

Yep.


Cindy Lee and I dropped mom and Tate off at the hotel and went to the supermarket for some food, water, and milk  now that we had some money.  We entered what looked like a department store through a tunnel under the street  and wound our way through people, clothing, perfume and shoes.  Suddenly we were in the supermarket.  This is the confusing way stores are often set up.  Not one big store, but a million small ones set up in the way Macy's or Dillards would look (only tighter) and connected to a maze of other stores.  I could never find it again on my own, I'm sure.

 We bought our stuff and hauled it back to the hotel where Cindy bid me goodbye until tomorrow.  Back in the room, I found that Tate had been crying the entire time.  However, as I said before, the way to his heart.....?  His stomach.  Mom filled his sippy cup with milk.  He guzzled it.  Then began to play and even smile a little.   These strange people aren't so bad after all, right Tate?

Next up...... Dinner....(oh yeah, you know you wanna see some real Chinese food!)