Malia, Mao, and the sites of Changsha

On Tuesday we made the adoption official with the Chinese government by, among other things, paying all of the required fees (we are done!) and stamping Malia's foot in ink on the decree. We also said one last goodbye to her orphanage staff. We met a few other couples adopting at the Civil Affairs office as well, from Wisconsin, Quebec, and Washington state.

The rest of our time in Changsha has been (and will be) spent getting to know Malia & the city. Tuesday afternoon we took a long walk to the Changsha City Museum, where an imposing 1968 statue of Mao was built during the cultural revolution. Changsha was completely destroyed by Chang Kai-Shek in the 1930s, so it feels very new with few relics from China's past. It is also, like many Chinese cities, experiencing tremendous....almost unrestrained....growth. And all of this is occuring on the banks of the Xiang river, a tributary of the Yangtze.

While walking to the museum, I asked Dianne what American city she'd compare it to. What industrial, fairly non-descript city on a river in the heartland is most like Changsha? While I was thinking of my answer, Dianne blurted out the same guess. Cincinnati! Yup, we got our daughter in China's Cincinnati.

Wednesday we met up with our guide Amy and toured Martyr's Park, dedicated to Hunan's contribution to the 1949 revolution. Much of it was devoted to Mao's family. He had three wives, the first of which was murdered by Chiang and the last of which was associated with the Gang of Four. He also had children from all three. One died in 1950 in Korea fighting the Americans. One died in Beijing in 2008 around the time of the Olympics. It was National Children's Day in China when we walked through the park, and we got to enjoy the immense crowds. Now this is China. It certainly felt like a nation of 1.4 billion.

After the park we spent an hour at the Hunan embroidery museum. China is known for silk, which comes from the silkworm, which calls Hunan its home. The work is tremendous; in fact, it's hard to distinguish between the thread portraits and a picture portrait. We watched the staff work, picked up a few embroidery gifts, and headed back to the hotel for the afternoon off to play. The evening activities involved us caving into a McDonalds crave, which Marc volunteered to take care of since he enjoys walking around unknown cities speaking unfamiliar languages with multitudes and ordering a fish sandwich knowing only two words of Mandarin (and zero words of Xiang / Changsha dialect). Dianne ended the evening with the hotel's traditional Chinese massage, which was different but enjoyable.

Today we head to the Hunan provincial museum. Friday we hope to visit the huge "young Mao" monument on an island in the Xiang river. The monument is Rushmore in size. We will also get Malia's passport, say goodbye to Amy, and head to Guangzhou. Amy has been wonderful and a tremendous help. She has visited the northern U.S., and we hope she will visit the south one day and pay Malia and us a visit. We will miss her, but we are excited to get to Guangzhou, see all of the other American families with kids on Shamian island, and begin the last part of this journey.