Traffic jams jolt Americans

Saturday, April 1, 2006, 6:55 a.m.
Two days until we get Cao Ai Hua

By Terry R. Cassreino

BEIJING - You think Hattiesburg’s traffic is bad since Hurricane Katrina added 10,000-plus people to the city’s population?
Well, come on over here to Beijing, a city of 18 million people who live in 5,000 square miles of space and drive at least 1,000 cars a day into town.
Come visit one of the largest cities in China where people drive cars and busses without regard to striped lanes on streets, traffic signs and stop lights.
Come visit Beijing where, as one family about to adopt a child put it, motorists participate in controlled chaos.
And you know what? Chaos is an accurate description for a town in which it takes a taxi ride of 30 minutes or more to reach the other side.
Pam and I have held our breath often during the several taxi and bus trips from the hotel to shopping and tourist areas.
Drivers will cut in front of you for no reason. Motorists weave in-and-out of expressway laness without regard to other people.
And traffic throughout town is often at a standstill just about every hour of the day. Vehicles often creep along at 10 mph to 15 mph or less.
I have yet to see any road rage - and I hope I don’t. To be honest, I don’t know if I could hold out for a long time if I had to drive in this day-in and day-out.

Eating in China

The food.
You haven't had Chinese food until you've had Chinese food.

Chinese fascinated by Americans

Friday, March 31, 2006, 7:15 p.m.
Three days until we get Cao Ai Hua

By Terry R. Cassreino

BEIJING – An elderly Chinese lady reached up to Pam’s face, gently patted her cheeks, smiled from ear-to-ear and spoke in Mandarin.
Pam, who was touring the Summer Palace with me and a group of parents from Holt International Children’s Services, knew immediately what it meant.
“I thought it meant that I had nice skin,” Pam recalled later. “She was fascinated with the skin. And my cheeks. She touched her cheeks first and then she wanted to touch mine.
“She spoke some Chinese that I didn’t understand. But it was positive. She was smiling and laughing.”
And that’s the way it was all day Friday as a group of about 30 people – Holt families like us who are adopting children in China – toured some of the city’s most historic sites.
We toured the Lama Temple, a Tibetan Buddhist religious site. We visited the Chinese emperor’s retreat, the Summer Palace. And we ended the day at the Temple of Heaven.
We also mingled and crossed paths with residents from Beijing and tourists from other parts of China who were here on a holiday and to see historic sites of their homeland.
As I’ve written before, the Chinese we’ve seen on our trip here are some of the nicest, happiest people Pam and I have ever met. And they are fascinated by people from the West.

Friday tours

Our day began Friday with the Lama Temple, an impressive series of buildings that attracts hundreds of faithful on a daily basis wanting to spend some time in prayer.
The temple’s Pavilion of Ten Thousand Fortunes houses an incredible 85-foot Maitreya Buddha carved from a single sandalwood block. This was absolutely beautiful.
At the Summer Palace, we strolled along the banks of a part natural, part man-made lake that serves as the centerpiece for a complex that dates back to 1153.
At the Temple of Heaven, one of the city’s biggest attractions, we visited the Round Altar, the Imperial Vault of Heaven and the Echo Wall. The entire attraction features classic Chinese architecture and beauty.
I don’t understand the significance of the many of the buildings Pam and I toured on Friday – the day went by way too fast – but I can say what we saw was breathtaking.
This is what I pictured in my mind when I think of classical Chinese architecture. To think that I was seeing in person what you read about or watch in movies is way beyond comprehension.

Amazing fascination

The only thing as amazing, at least to me, is the fascination many Chinese have with people from the West and the United States.
Consider this: Dana, the 7-year-old American daughter of one of the Holt families, was the star attraction at the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven.
I don’t know what it is, but many Chinese people are blown away by fair-skinned children with blond hair -– just like young Dana.
At one point during our day trip, a group of about 30 Chinese women crowded excitedly around Dana. Then they spent 10 minutes posing and taking photos with the child.
The same thing happened a couple of hours later at the Temple of Heaven. Another group of Chinese women posed and took more pictures with Dana.
Thankfully, Dana didn’t mind the attention.
Now, Pam doesn’t have blond hair. But she does have nice black hair, a good complexion and smooth, fair skin – which was enough to draw the attention of the elderly woman.
“She was very nice,“ Pam said. “I was smiling the whole time. I was flattered that she was so fascinated.”


Note: If you are reading this Blog or have enjoyed keeping up with our Chinese adoption trip, drop us an e-mail at cassreino@bellsouth.net or terry-and-pam@cassreino.com.

Text and photos copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino

Preparing for the baby's arival

Friday, March 31, 2006, 6:34 a.m.

By Terry R. Cassreino

BEIJING – It's early morning Friday, just three away days from getting Cao Ai Hua.
Pam and I are starting to get a little nervous. Actually, Pam has been nervous and antsy for several weeks and I'm slowly starting to reach the same point. I don't know what to expect, what I'll see, how I'll feel. I have a feeling it will be an emotional moment when we see Ai Hua, but I'm not quite sure how emotional.
The scene likely will take place at our hotel in Nanchang. The staff of Ai Hua's orphanage will arrive with the babies who will be matched with approximately 10 U.S. familis rom Holt. We'll all gather in a room at he hotel for the hand-off and from there I'm not sure what happens next.
Unfortunately, we won't be able to visit the orphange.
One couple Pam and I met on Thursday said the last time he and his wife were here – this is their third adopted daughter and second from China – said the scene was chaotic as orphanage workers brought a large group of screaming, crying babies into a room at one time to meet their parents.
That same family said their daughter took to dad quicker than mom, something I've read happens to a lot of times in Chinese adoptions. I guess the baby is still upset that her birth moher abandoned her and is looking for help from someone other than a woman.
Anyway, Pam is starting to fret over baby supplies. Do we have enough? What about formula? Should we buy some now to have it available when we get Cao Ai Hua? Should we get milk-based formula? One family recommended soy milk based formula because you don't know if the child will have an alergic reaction to milk.
I discouraged Pam from buying formula backome in Hatiesburg before we left. It just didn't make sense to get there and transport it all the way to China when the country has Wal-Maert SuperCenters that most assredly stock baby formulas we can use.
So when we visited the Wal-Mart in Beijing the other day, I again advised Pam not to hold off purchasing baby supplies. But after talking with a few more Holt families on Thrusday, we bought some soy milk based formula at a small grocery store near the hotel. I think the price was about $11 in U.S. money.
I know we could have bought the formula and other supplies when we visit the Wal-Mart SuperCenter in Nanchang (yes, they are all over China), but we aren't scheduld to go there until Tuesday and we needed something for the baby for Monday night.
As we continue to meet other Holt families, I'm sure we'll get some more ideas about what we need and what we can expect.

Copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino

China photo selections

Thursday, March 30, 2006, 6:08 p.m.


Photo Selections

PHOTO 1
This is from Wednesday night. One of the restaurants at our hotel, the Kunlun Hotel, was featuring an Indian buffet. So Pam had her photo taken with the two hostesses.











PHOTO 2
Here I am video taping Thursday afternoon at the corner of a busy intersection. But don't ask me where I am because I don't know.









Text and photos copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino

Downtown Beijing bustles with life

Thursday, March 30, 2006, 6 p.m.

By Terry R. Cassreino

BEIJING – Live scorpions squirmed while impaled on wooden sticks that sat upright in a bowl atop a counter as a group of workers urged passersby to buy them for a snack.
And if that didn't whet anyone's appetite, then maybe they would want the starfish on a stick, or the sea horses on a stick, or the grashoppers on a stick. And inside the case was squid on a stick along with the more traditional Western favorites as chicken on a stick and beef on a stick.
Welcome to downtown Beijing where hundreds of residents, business people and visitors cram the streets, huge four-story department stores and back alley shops and restaurants everyday looking for a bargain or just taking a break from work or life.
Pam and I joind the crowd on Thursday. We didn't dine on such delicacies as scorpions, starfish, sea horses or grasshoppers. We didn't even go for the chicken, a personal favorite of mine that I could literally eat every day ofgthe week.
We just walked, talked and watched. And it was exciting. This truly is an international city with folks from all over the world including other parts of China, Asia, Europe and the United States. Many are here as tourists, while others are here for the same reason we are: to adopt an abandoned child.
Some people are even here on business – incuding Jay Moon, the head of the Mississippi Manufacturers Association in Jackson who I just happened to literally shock when I ran into him accidentally outside a hotel near downtown Beijing. Talk about conicidence.
Jay and I go back alomost 20 years when he was head of the Community Development Department for the city of Gulfport and I worked for The Sun Herald in Gulfport-Biloxi. Jay, wearing a Mississippi jacket in the chilly afternoon weather, just happened to be in Beijing on a business trip.
Whatever reason people are here, one thing was certain: They enjoyed the thriving life of this historic, huge, growing city. There's an electricuity in the air here and everyone feeds off of it; people are friendly, outgoing and helpful.
Pam and I even found that to be true in the back alleys where we wandered looking for bargains among vendor after vendor displaying his or her crafts. Chinese workers stopped to chat and practice their English; some were excited that we tried to talk to them in Mandarin.
And everyone had something to sell – from classic, floor-legth Chinese dresses to kitschy ceramic and marble paper weights depicting the Great Wall; from caps with braided pony tails in the back to magic tricks that seem complicated but are simple; and from fried fish balls to live grasshoppers.
Welcome to Beijing.



Text and photos copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino

The Big Day approaches

Thursday, March 30, 10:22 a.m.

By Terry R. Cassreino

BEIJING – This is just a reminder to everyone reading this Blog: The reason Pam and I flew halfway around the world will happen in just four short days in the city of Nanchang in Jiangxi Province.
Sometime that afternoon we will meet our daughter for the first time, take her in our arms and welcome her into our family.
We'll have paperwork and meetings to do the rest of the day and through much of next week. And we'll fly to Guangzhou to the United States consulate the final week to complete the baby's travel requirements.
But for all practical purposes, we'll have Cao Ai Hua beginning Monday.
Now, for everyone wondering about the time factor, I'll try to help. So pay close attention.
Normally, China is 14 hours ahead of Mississippi, Louisiana and all other states and cities in the Central time zone. With Daylight Savings Time kicking in this weekend, you'll jump ahead an hour beginning Sunday. So, that means China will be 13 hours ahead.
Here's the deal: We plan to leave Beijing on Monday, April 3, 2006, at around noon local time. Translate that into Central time, and we will leave Beijing at about 11 p.m. Sunday night. That, therefore, has us getting Cao Ai Hua sometime in the middle of the night for you (early Monday morning) but late Monday afternoon for us.
Got it?
Let's try again: We leave Beijing around noon Monday (about 11 p.m. Sunday in Hattiesburg). We'll get Cao Ai Hua on Monday afternoon shortly after we arrive at our hotel in Nanchang (early Monday morning in Hattiesburg). We'll try to update our Blog with photos Monday night (late Monday morning for you).

Families arrive

We've been meeting several families from Holt International Children's Services as they arrive in town for their own adoption. Some are adopting their first child, just like us; others are adding to their own family of adopted children.
Either way, they all feel the same way we do – that this is what God has led us to do. We couldn't have children naturally, so we believe after much thought and prayer that this is what God wants us to do: Help children who otherwise would be left parentless.

Welcome arms

The Chinese people are some of the happiest and friendliest people Pam and I have met on our travels.
They are extremely helpful. And they seem thrilled when we try to speak the limited amount of Mandarin that Pam and I know.
We have been using the Pimsleur method of learning a foreign language, a compact disc course that stresses conversational Mandarin and trashes workbooks and reference books. Lessons are 30 minutes long and come two to a disc.
As you learn words and phrases and repeat them over and over, you actually walk away with an pretty good Chinese accent. Then when you repeat some phrases, your speech is so good the Chinese people think you are fluent and start chattering away to your complete dismay.
It happened that way in Mexico after we used the same method for Spanish. And like the Mexicans we met in Cancun, Cozumel and Nuevo Laredo, the Chinese seem to love that you actually have enough respect for their culture that you took time to try to speak their native language.

Copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino

More photos from China

Thursday, March 30, 7:05 a.m.

By Terry R. Cassreino

BEIJING – Good morning. It'sThursday morning here.
Ever try finding an English language newspaper in an Asian country? Well, it's difficult at best. And what's available has news I'm not particularly interested in. I could try the Internet, but the connection is slow and sometimes unreliable. I can't even rely on CNN because we get CNN International.
Oh well, such is life.
Here are a couple of extra photos I thought I'd post.


PHOTO 1
Here is a shot of our room at the Kunlun Hotel. As I said earlier, this is a nice hotel with good service and accommodations. Right now it is hosting some kind of business meeting/seminar with, I think, Polish and Chinese companies. I don't quite understand exactly what it is about.






PHOTO 2
Here is Pam outside the hotel. She liked the sign in Chinese. I did, too. Pam also thought it might make an interesting photo. I agreed.










Well, I've got to run. I'll check in a little later.


Text and photos copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino

Jet lag, shopping and photos, too

Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 10:05 p.m.

By Terry R. Cassreino

BEIJING – It's amazing what a little jet lag will do.
Spend 24 hours in the air crossing a zillion time zones and the Intenational Date Line, then you'll probably wind up like us: drained, tired and not up to full speed. Pam seems to be taking it harder than me. But, to tell you the truth, I'm starting to feel it, too, tonight.
Now that I think about it, Holt International Children's Services was right when officials there suggested people consider leaving a few days earlier so we can be fully rested and over jet lag by the time we get our child. Besides Pam and me, a few other families took that advice and came here early.
As for the adoption, Pam and I still have a lot of work to do. I have to complete some additional paperwork (I thought I had finished last week before we left, but apparently I didn't) and Pam and I have to buy gifts for the orphanage staff when we met them and Cao Ai Hua on Monday in Nanchange.
I guess we'll go gift hunting on Thursday, possibly at the flea market across the steet from the hotel. The flea market is similar in many ways to the ones Pam and I visited in Cancun when we were there for a week about five years ago. Vendors can be pushy at these businesses,but they are still fun.
Not much else to report today, so I'll leave you with a few new photos we took Wednesday.


PHOTO 1
Here I am sitting at the table at the reastaurant in the Hotel Kunlun just after breakfast on Wednesday. This was an impressive meal that kind of reminded me – but on a much smaller scale – of Kalby's at the Hilton on Poydras Street in New Orleans.










PHOTO 2
Here is the scene just outside our hotel, the Kunlun Hotel. The construction cranes are common in Beijing as many new buildings are being built all over town as we speak. Ths is a growing city.











PHOTO 3
Pam stands outside our hotel, the Kunlun Hotel.


















Text and photos copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino

Always low prices – even in China

Wednesday, March 29, 4:02 p.m.

By Terry R. Cassreino

BEIJING – Hattiesburg has two, Jackson has two, Meridian has one.
We’ve visited them in nearly every place we’ve been including Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas – and even Mexico.
And now we can stand up and proudly say we’ve visited one in China.
What am I talking about? That sales giant that has re-written the book on how to be a major worldwide success in retailing, the company that has helped change the face of America and now has its sights set on the world.
Wal-Mart, of course.
Pam and I took a taxi from our Beijing hotel for a 45-minute drive darting in-and-out of bumper-to-bumper expressway traffic to spend a couple of hours exploring that ever growing monument to Sam Walton's business prowess.
And after stepping inside, the first thing that struck me was it looked exactly like the Wal-Mart in Hattiesburg not too far from our Lamar County house. Sure, the exterior is a little different with Chinese characters beneath the English name.
But just about everything else is the same, including large signs that hang from the ceiling proclaiming that Wal-Mart has the lowest price always. And the store also features the Great Values generic line of products.
There are, however, a few cultural differences – some of which seem, and are, obvious.

• American products dominate the shelves, from Nestle products to Budweiser imported beer. The only catch is that Chinese characters replace much of the English labels, giving them a strange, surreal look.
• Coca-Cola products don't dominate the soft drink shelves in Wal-Mart like they do in Hattiesburg, Jackson, New Orleans and other parts of the South. Coke shares a small but equal space with Pepsi products.
• While Coke's English names are replaced with Chinese characters, the company managed somehow to retain its trademark “wave swish” in its name. And the 12-ounce cans are a throw back to the 1970s with pull-tab pop-tops.
• Potato chips are the only snack chips you can find; don’t look for tortilla chips because you’ll be there forever. Lays even has flavors you can’t find in the United States such as Swiss cheese potato chips, beef potato chips and chicken potato chips.
• Rows and rows of ramen noodles line the shelves along with more brands of soy sauce then you thought existed. I thought La Choy was the biggest brand name; heck, you can't find any La Choy products here.
• Want really fresh seafood? You came to the right place because Wal-Mart has two rows of tanks filled with live fish, eels, lobsters and crabs swimming around ready for you to buy, scale, gut and cook at home.
• One display case had fresh shrimp sitting on piles of crushed ice. As I stood and watched, one shopper casually searched through the shrimp and hand-picked the perfect dozen for some dish I imagine she planned to cook that night.
• Piles of small baby octopus sat open in one bin waiting for shoppers to take them home for dinner; fresh fish sat on dislay atop ice much like they did when Pam and I visited the Wal-Mart SuperCenter in Cancun, Mexico, about five years ago.
  
• And don't forget about the roasted ducks. While Wal-Mart has found a niche in the United States selling roasted chikens for less than $5 each (or something like that), here they sell roasted duck complete with the neck and head (but no eyes) for about the same price.

While some visitors head for the commercial spots – which I'm sure Pam and I will do before we leave China – we also like to get a taste of local life, find out what people buy and eat on a daily basis, look at some of the items you can't buy back home.
We've found that fascinating whenever we traveled to Mexico, Roatan, Belize and Jamaica on cruises we’ve taken since we've been married. And even though it's easy to take jabs at Wal-Mart, its Beijing store nevertheless offers a different glimpse at Chinese life.
One thing is clear, though. As much as we complain in the United States about how we are losing our identity, our own brand-name products have a strong presence on shelves in China, Mexico, Belize, Roatan and other countries.
That also goes for American pop culture. Flip on the television in a Chinese hotel room and you likely will see the latest episode of such American TV hit series as “Alias,” “Lost” and even reality shows like “Fear Factor” and “The Amazing Race.”
As for Wal-Mart in China, the Beijing store won’t be the last one we visit.
Holt International Children's Services plans to take us to the Wal-Mart SuperCenter in Nanchang on Tuesday so we can buy supplies for our baby – and Pam and I more than likely will keep our eyes open for any interesting differences between that store and the one in Beijing.

Text and photos copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino.

Notes from our China adoption trip

Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 7:01 a.m.

By Terry R. Cassreino

BEIJING – Here are a few notes and observations from the first two days of our adoption trip.

Quiet airport

We arrived in Beijing on Tuesday night to a eerily vacant airport.
I think we were one of two or three flights that arrived about 9 p.m. to the airport. Nevertheless, most of the retail stores there were closed, leaving travelers with few options to buy a Coke or bottled water.
We also had a little trouble finding our representative from Lotus Travel, who was supposed to take us to Hotel Kunlun. That, however, was my problem: I forgot to pack the tags from Lotus we were supposed to wear on arrival, which would have made it easier to spot us.
We found here and arrived safe.
But it was the airport that struck me, especially after stopping in the extremely busy Tokyo and Detroit airports. In fact, the Tokyo airport was so busy Pam and I found it difficult to navigate.

Freeway ride

Traffic on the freeway from the airport to the hotel was heavy.
That didn't come as much of a surprise to me, though. A gentleman who sat next to me on the Tokyo-Beijing flight is an American who lives in China. He told me the traffic can be so bad that a trip from downtown Beijing to the airport can sometimes take two hours. Two hours. To put that in perspective, the airport is no farther from downtown than the New Orleans International is to the French Quarter.
Our drive from the airport wasn't quite that long. But I was surprised by the heavy traffic.

Nice hotel

The Hotel Kunlun so far is nice.
We were told our rooms in China would be smaller than those in the United States. But based on the Hotel Kunlun, I disagree. Pam and I have a nice size room with a king-sized bed, a desk, Internet access and a color television.
Reception, by the way, is nice.
We can get CNN, a movie channel caled Star, the Chinese version of HBO (with movies in English and subtitles in Chinese) and several Chinese stations. We likely won't get "The Spranos" and "American Idol," so we'll have to play catch-up when we return.
We haven't tried the food. But the hotel has several restaurants (including Chinese,Korean and Indian cuisine). I understand the breakfast buffet fatures Chinese, Japanese and Korean dishes. We'll find out soon enough.

No adoption news

No news yet on the adoption front.
We did ride back to the hotel with another couple from Portland, Ore., who is adopting through Holt (although through another province and not Jiangxi like we are). And I ran into another family this morning in the hotel lobby who are adopting through Holt.
As the families begin arriving, I'm sure Pam and I will meet more of them. Apparently, Holt may have as many as 30 families here this week.

Text and photos copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino

24-hour plus trip ends with Beijing arrival

Tuesday, March 28, 2006, 11:55 p.m.

By Terry R. Cassreino

BEIJING – We made it.
After a long, tiring 24-plus hour trip that began at 9 a.m. Central Time on Monday (well, actually 5 a.m. when we left Hattiesburg) we arrived in Beijing and checked into our hotel, Hotel Kunlun, at about 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Here's where the concept of time gets tricky, so bear with me.
Beijing is 14 hours ahead of Central Time. So while Pam and I arrived at 9 a.m. CDT on Tuesday, it actually was 11 p.m. Tuesday Beijing time. That's correct: We lost a full 14 hours on the trip over.
Pam and I are tired, drained, exhausted and full from all that airplane food. We were in such a hurry to get to the hotel to sleep that we didn't even have time to take photos marking our arrival.
The photo you see on the left was taken at about 3 a.m. CDT in the Tokyo airport. We had just arrived from Detroit and were waiting in the stifling heat (I guess the air conditioner was out at the airport) for our connecting flight to Beijing.
As you can tell, Pam's already exhausted.
The thing is I couldn't tell if she was tired from sitting; tired from trying to recline in an unreclinable chair between Detroit and Tokyo; or tired from counting the number of endless, prefabricated airplane meals the flight attendants (who weren't that friendly, I might add) passed out every 30 minutes.
Curious about plane food? Well, here's a sample of what we dined on.

• A snack on the 9 a.m. on the Northwest flight to Detroit.
• A diet drink and pretzels 45 minutes after our 12:45 p.m. flight left Detroit.
• Dinner at about 1:30 p.m., featuring terriyaki chicken with white rice, green beans and rubbery chocolate cake.
• Snack time at about 7 p.m. featuring a turkey sandwhich and a Diet Coke.
• Breakfast at about midnight (which actually was late morning Tokyo time) featuring chicken fried rice (don't ask me why they served fried rice for breakfast).
• Snack time at about 6:30 p.m. (Beijing time) on the flight from Tokyo to Beijing.
• Dinner at about 7 p.m. featuring chicken noodles, a salad and another slice of rubbery cake.

None of the food was remarkable. Nor was it sutiable for serving at a nice, posh, upscale restarant like Commander's Palace in New Orleans. It was airplane food -- whatdo you expect? It's not like they have a chef in a kitchen cooking the stuff.
Besides the food, the sound system was out the entire 13-hour flight from Detroit to Tokyo -- which meant that we couldn't watch and enjoy such top-notch films as “Pride and Prejudice” and that Dennis Quaid hit “Yours, Mine and Ours” (all of which were pan-and-scanned anyway).
One thing of note: Pam did watch “Walt Disney’s Chicken Little” on the flight from Tokyo to Beijing . She gives the film a big thumbs up. Now that was a nice flight. We each had our own television monitor mounted on the seat in front of us. Along with that, we had access to our own video-on-demand system (I watched part of “Rent”).
Well, at least we are in Beijing. And on tap for today: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm drained from traveling. I need to rejuvenate. Pam needs to rejuvenate. And we need to get ready for the big moment of the week: Gotcha Day on Monday, April 3.
On my next post later today, look for more photos.
It’s 11:51 p.m. Tuesday. And I’m going to sleep.

Text and photos copyright 2006 by Terry R. Cassreino

Chinese adoption trip begins today

Monday March 27, 2006, 5 a.m.

By Terry R. Cassreino

HATTIESBURG – The cardboard, letter-sized FedEx envelope quivered in Pam’s hands as she delicately handled the documents inside – which included the first glimpse of our new daughter.
As we stood in the dining room of our new Lamar County home, Pam’s expression quickly turned from nervous shock to stunned disbelief. Her trembling hands held three color photos of Cao Ai Hua.
It was 11:45 a.m. Friday, Jan. 27. A day I replay in my mind over and over again. A day we thought would never happen. A day when we realized our dream of raising our own family actually will happen.
We were matched with an orphan baby girl in China.
FedEx delivered the envelope from Holt International Children’s Services shortly before 10 a.m. that day. Pam asked me to call her as soon as it arrived so she could drive home to open it.
But Pam’s cell phone wouldn’t work; my calls immediately went into her voice mail. So I waited and waited and waited – until she called just after 11 to see if the letter had arrived.
As soon I told her, Pam rushed from Thames Elementary School where she teaches, jumped in her Toyota Camry and raced 10 miles along Lincoln and Oak Grove roads to our home.
Nothing was going to stop her from seeing our daughter for the first time or enjoying the photos of Ai Hua, including one of her sitting among toys and another of her in a walker.

Momentous trip

Today, Pam and I leave for Beijing on a nearly three-week-long trip that will forever change our lives, both individually and together. We leave as two and will return as three.
Pam and I married on May 15, 1999, at the Catholic church in Madison, Miss., where we met two years earlier. I, a New Orleans native, was 38; Pam, a Madison resident, was 30.
We were older than most first-time married couples, but we shared many of their same hopes. We wanted a strong, lasting marriage. We wanted to keep God at the center. And we wanted children.
My own desire for a family has deep, personal roots. I cherish long-ago memories of what seemed like weekly gatherings of my large, extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins.
We had all-day barbecues in the spring and summer. We watched the New Orleans Saints on television every Sunday at my cousin’s house. We celebrated every holiday together.
And we spent many a week each summer living in a wood-frame fishing camp over Lake Pontchartrain, swimming, fishing and crabbing in the brackish waters while enjoying each other’s company.
I wanted to do some of those same things with our own children and create lasting memories for them. But after five years of attempts – and untold hundreds of dollars on fertility treatments – we failed.

Adoption decision

Fast-forward to Labor Day 2004.
After a lengthy discussion that afternoon with a social worker at Catholic Charities in Jackson, we decided to adopt. And after learning that baby girls are often abandoned in China because of its one-child policy, we knew what to do.
The next month we began a lengthy, complicated and sometimes intimidating process of assembling documents, completing applications and waiting. Then, 16 months after we began, we were matched.
Cao Ai Hua’s story is typical of most abandoned baby girls in China.
Ai Hua is from Jiujiang City in Jiangxi Province. A narrative the China Center for Adoption Affairs sent to us said that Ai Hua was found by residents and brought to the Sanlijie Police Station.
Officials estimated that Ai Hua was born April 5, one day before she was abandoned by her mother. She’s been at The Social Welfare Institution of Jiujiang City in Jiangxi Province ever since.
That will soon change.
On Good Friday, April 14, Pam and I are scheduled to arrive at the Jackson International Airport after nearly 24 hours in the air and capping a trip that will take us to Beijing, Nanchang, Guangzhou and Hong Kong.
With us will be Ai Hua, no longer an abandoned orphan and, instead, safe in the arms of a loving mother and father.
Until then, we continue to wait anxiously. And every time I see Pam pick up our only photos of Ai Hua – copies she framed and placed on the bar in our house – I continue to replay in my mind that fateful day in January.