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| In Wuhan seven years ago on Gotcha Day |
Several years ago we were able to find out who Lydia's foster parents were and where they live (Qichun County, about 2 hours outside of Wuhan). I won't go into the whole story, but will say that it's highly unusual for adoptive parents to get access to that type of information. An intermediary worked on our behalf and got the foster family's permission for us to contact them. We did. Since then, we've been corresponding with them through their adult daughter. Through that communication, we became certain that the family was indeed Lydia's foster family and our instincts told us they were good people. We asked if we could visit them and were extended an enthusiastic invitation. We were excited, but felt a bit of trepidation - it seemed like a good idea...but what if it wasn't?
Less than a week from our travel date we had a major setback - the person we'd hired to take along with us as a translator had emergency surgery and couldn't go. The list of people who could speak Mandarin, would be comfortable going on this trip, and would be available on short notice was really small. Dave and Lydia have a good foundation in Mandarin, but we didn't want to rely on it for such an important trip.
We got very lucky. The very first person we asked, a fairly new friend (I'd met her once!) from Beijing who lives in HK, said she'd be happy to go along. A few days later, the four of us were on a plane together to Wuhan!
We arrived in Wuhan around 7:30 pm. We saw a small group of people waiting at the
arrival gate and it was clear who was waiting for us. Mr. Fan, Lydia's foster father, was practically jumping up and down. He held a sign that said “Welcome Dave, Molly, and Lydia. We love you”.
He was obviously very excited, especially to see Lydia. As we walked out of the airport, she took his
hand and looked very comfortable.
Mr. Fan drove us to Qichun. Actually, this was the part of the trip I was least looking forward to – after
reading Country Driving, I feared that:
a) he wouldn’t know how to drive, and
b) he’d be driving some tiny, beat up car that would either
be unreliable or we wouldn’t all fit in.
Fortunately, all my fears were allayed as Mr. Fan had a
nearly new Honda Civic and from the start was a very cautious driver. However, he wasn’t very familiar with the
roads in the big city (Qichun County, where we were headed, is rural). While he intended to take us a
route that wrapped outside the city, we took a few wrong turns and wound up
going through it. It’s a very busy, high-traffic
city even at night. The trip took quite
a bit longer than the expected 2 hours.
Mr. Fan did not speak any English, but our friend/interpreter Florie did a
wonderful job from the start translating for us. She and Mr. Fan appeared to have an easy
rapport – if I didn’t know better, I would have thought they’d known each other
for a long time.
Our hotel was “the nicest in Qichun” according to Mr.
Fan. It was modern and clean, but our
initial trip into the lobby wasn’t particularly impressive – the lights were
dim and there were men smoking with women wearing dangerously short skirts. Yikes. However,
to our surprise and delight, Mr. Fan’s wife/Lydia’s foster mother (Mrs. Xu) and
his daughter (Hua Jun) were there to greet us.
While Mrs. Xu was stoic and seemed a bit shy, we could tell she was very
happy. She told Florie that Lydia looked
the same “but skinnier”. For those of
you who don’t know, Lydia was a very round baby!
Mr. Fan was keen to make sure that all the details were handled
properly with the check-in - it was almost comical. I say this with the kindest intentions, but I think Mr. Fan is be a big fish in a little pond. The whole family then escorted us up to our
rooms. Mr. Fan advised Dave and I that we should
stay in our room and not go to other parts of the hotel, especially not the 3rd and 5th floors. Read into that whatever you wish. We said good-bye and
were happy to hit the sack on Night #1 in Qichun.
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