By Emily Laur
This summer, through CC’s Conversational Chinese two-block course, Emiko Smukler ’17 and I were presented with the unique opportunity to travel to our cities of adoption: Changzhou and Nanjing respectively. We started our journey in Shanghai, took a high-speed train to Nanjing, and then continued on to Changzhou. Our original plan was to travel to the orphanage where I once lived and meet Dr. Lu, a representative from the Hand in Hand International Adoption organization. Due to a number of reports in the past on poor conditions for infant care in China’s orphanages, the Chinese government has barred foreigners from visiting these facilities without an appointment. For that reason we were not allowed to visit Emiko’s orphanage. However, through Dr. Lu, we were both had a similar experience. This is a short narrative of our orphanage tour.
Visiting Nanjing was difficult. Upon our arrival at Nanjing’s main train station, we struggled to find a cab driver willing to take us to our destination. After a few failed attempts, we convinced a driver to take us where we wanted to go. Little did we know, our driver dropped us off at the wrong address. We were left wandering the streets of Nanjing. Desperately, we asked local merchants where we might find an orphanage nearby. Luckless, we found ourselves lost in a labyrinth of alleyways. There, we met a kind woman who recognized the address and offered to take us to the main entrance. As she led us through the neighborhood, curious eyes began to follow us. By the time we arrived at the entrance gates there was a small crowd of the neighborhood’s residents motioning us to go in. Because of the restrictions on foreign visits at orphanages, we were nervous to enter without Dr. Lu. Luckily, after a few minutes waiting she emerged from a nearby taxi, identified us from the crowd we had drawn, and quickly ushered us through the main gates.
The entrance opened on a spacious courtyard with two large buildings. Dr. Lu explained that the larger building of the two was the administrative building and acted as a hospital for the mentally disabled. The other, more colorful building dubbed “the Rainbow Building,” was the new infancy center. It was strange to walk around the place where I had spent the first five months of my life; a place I had absolutely no memory of. Dr. Lu pointed to a section of the courtyard where a few cars were parked and said that 20 years ago a building had stood there. In that now demolished building, the old infancy center, I had been cared for. As we walked around the open space she explained that the orphanage looked after children from infants to teenagers, most with disabilities. She further explained that other disabled children visit the hospital from outside the orphanage to use its resources.
Eventually, Dr. Lu led us into “the Rainbow Building.” The entrance opened onto a corridor with rooms on either side. The doors of some rooms were open, we were able to see a pair of children playing a badminton game. At the end of the hallway, Dr. Lu led us through a door into the infancy center. The center was composed of two rooms: one colorful, with a television, toys, and multiple cribs, the other filled with three or four nurses. Through windows that looked in on the playroom we saw a nurse tending to three or four disabled infants. We stood for a while to take in the scene; it felt like traveling back in time. A silence fell over us as we reflected on our past. At one point we had been where those infants are now.
As we left the room, Dr. Lu explained that domestic adoptions of healthy babies were increasing due to improvements in China’s economy. More couples want children and turn to adoption when conception is not possible. She told us that the government had funded a new orphanage in the suburbs of Nanjing where they would move in the following year. The new facility would have more space for the children to play and spread out, and she told us that they were all looking forward to moving. Even though I have no memory of the first time I was there, I felt deeply connected to the site and was glad we had gone to see it before it was relocated. As we left the orphanage we walked with a different energy. We explored the city while wondering what could have been.
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