The boys have gone swimming in the pool that in the evening is opened to the bar on one side for a little night-time ambiance.  T has told Kman that the pool closes at a certain hour in the evening because, as he says, “no one at the bar wants to see me in a bathing suit.”  Which is why I’d rather let them just tell me how fun the pool was, lest someone decides to invite me in too and traumatize the locals.

The hotel guests represent a United Nations of cultures but by far the most visible group are the Americans adopting babies.  They congregate in all common areas, strollers parked rakishly across walkways, with daddies who, when not used as pack animals, are held together by a network of straps that criss-cross over backs and bellies in an in an unattractive fashion, all designed to hold a little baby against the body so that hands are free to carry and drag luggage this way and that while older siblings dance around trying to keep themselves busy and noticed.  There is a Spanish contingent, a German group and only one Canadian family that we know of, and that’s us.  Throughout the week as we go from Adoption Centre back to Adoption Centre, to Police Headquarters, to hotel and we keep running into the same group of families, but we don’t see them anywhere outside of the hotel.  Not even at the parks that surround us.

Yesterday we took a walk into Liuhua Park which is one tunnel walk away from our hotel (they use tunnels here for pedestrians under large and complex intersections).  It was Zen-like, or Chan-like (which is a Chinese path to enlightenment that’s much easier to achieve than Zen Buddhism – if it’s easy, I’ll take it).  The park is full of banyan trees with their long reeds that hang down from the upper branches, palm trees with horizontal or diamond-shaped convex rings and lovely pink-flowered trees whose name escapes me.  We were the only westerners in the park, and for that I’m certain:  I almost laughed out loud when I realized that we had set ourselves up for the kind of thing that we hate – being the centre of attention.  Yes, we were la curiosité du jour as were we stared at, pointed to and descended upon (we read about this kind of thing but never expected it to happen to us).  The park was mostly full of older men and women and younger couples with babies Juno’s age.  People came up and asked us (using sign language, of course), where that scratch came from under her eye? and we dutiful mimiced our daughter scratching her face with her sharp, long and ragged fingernails that we’re too afraid to cut, lest we traumatize her. What we left out was, of course, that Juno scratched herself in a fit of rage for not being aloud to do something she wanted to do – like leave us.

Anyway, it was a gorgeous place, and the greenery was so beautiful, and we wondered why no one from our hotel was there.  I don’t think westerners venture out much from the hotel and for those adopting it’s hardly surprising since there’s so much to do but isn’t a walk through a beautiful, elegantly decorated park with three lakes in it, tai chi, fan dances, and winding paths just what the soul needs?

This morning we went to Shamian Island which, I gather, is the site that was leased to the British and French during the 19th century Opium Wars. It’s apparent that they shared the island but didn’t speak to each other, keeping their distance and pretending that the other wasn’t there.  (Given the history of the British and French throughout the centuries, that was probably just as well).  The island is not that large and it’s maintained the original colonial architecture that now houses restaurants, shops and, well, houses. We know people live back there, down the pretty laneways because of all of the laundry that hangs out of the windows, like everywhere else we’ve been in China.  It’s beautiful and maintains a very European feel,

almost village-like, with parks, a school, the US Consulate and the famous White Swan Hotel which houses most Americans as they finalize their Chinese adoptions. It reminded me of Savannah, Georgia, except that everyone is Chinese.  Understandably, it’s one of the most popular sites in town for grooms and brides-to-be to take their wedding photos, so they’re in front of every fountain and stone step, along with their entourages.  Shamian Island also houses a Subway, a Starbucks, and a 7-Eleven.  Of course.

Tomorrow we have no plans while we wait for the intrepid Hailey to collect Juno’s Chinese Visa.  Saturday we leave for Beijing, the Great Wall, Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City, and the finalization of the adoption.  Hopefully some non-hotel food awaits us because, as good as it is here, it just seems too easy.