musings

I have loved our visits to China. It's a fascinating country with an incredible amount of history to see and explore. We've seen things here on our trips that you would NEVER see at home--things like the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City, the Buddhist carvings at Dazu, the LongMen Caves (well, tomorrow!) the ancient alleyways of Beijing... It's an amazing trip, one that will stay with me forever. The sights, the sounds, the smells--all the things that make it unique are the things I will take away again this time. Last time I was certain I would never forget those things, and yet once I was back at home they quickly receded from memory. Not forever, I discovered. Some things you just don't forget forever! The smells especially are unforgettable...

And yet, as I watch the construction here, the basic daily maintenance, the things like street sweeping and basic paperwork, I wonder how it is China is where it is. For an American, so much seems totally backwards!! We watched on Monday as 8 or 10 workers dug--with shovels!--a huge hole in the street so they could repair some broken pipes. Once the hole was dug, they proceeded to slide bricks down a bamboo ramp into the hole and hand-set each brick in the hole to support the new pipes. They built a cage-like structure out of the bricks, then refilled the hole, again by hand. (Yes, we were at the building several times over the course of the day!) It was so strange. The streets are swept by individuals using straw brooms and makeshift dustpans... Construction seems haphazard at best, with no apparent plan, and generally involves much hand labor rather than machines. We watched a woman in patent leather dress shoes digging a trench for a water pipe--by hand with a pick-axe and trowel. It seems so crazy! As China continues to become a world power, much of what they do seems stuck in the 19th century. And nowhere is there safe tap water! The amount of bottled water used in this country must be staggering! I know that for our family of 7 we go through significant amounts of bottled water...for everything from drinking to brushing teeth. To my (uneducated!) mind, it only seems appropriate that having safe clean drinking water readily available at the tap should be a priority. But...what do I know? Just don't get me started on bathrooms and sewers!

And our adoption paperwork processing...OY!! Let's just say that yesterday's 6 hour adventure would have been handled in the US in about 20 minutes. It was a horrible day of "hurry up and wait" for what seems so straightforward and simple. It's not wrong, and I truly am not complaining, but I simply don't understand why it is so difficult. Furthermore, I probably never will. :)

Like I said at the beginning, I have LOVED both our visits to China. I will return at least one more time: when the boys are old enough to appreciate a visit but still young enough to enjoy a long time with Mom and Dad. Jim has been here for business, and there's a (very slight) possibility that we could spend some time here while he worked for Boeing in China. I would love that! Even so, I know that I will never understand the way this country works. That's okay. But I can say for certain that our two visits have fostered a new appreciation for just how fortunate I am to live in America. I would live in China for a time, but I would be hard-pressed to consider living here permanently. I am spoiled--I like clean water and western bathrooms and streets without open sewer lines...