Wish You Happy Forever (17 page)

ZZ went on, her expression unchanging, her voice lowered only slightly. “I explained the purpose of Half the Sky is not simply to donate money but to share love and training. When I listen to him, it seems that for the volunteers to come in October is difficult, but not impossible. Anyway, there is no point for him to go to Guangzhou. That part is nonsense.”

I stood up.

“Thank you, President Red Sun Liu, for the information and advice. We will certainly think this over carefully and make a decision about this difficult situation as soon as possible.”

We smiled and shook hands all around. I murmured to ZZ, “Tell Old Yang to meet us in the morning. We're going to Guangzhou.”

That night, while ZZ pleaded with Madame Miao and Old Yang to join us on an emergency trip to Guangzhou, I wrote letters to the highest-ranking officials among our very small arsenal of influential friends, begging for their help. The sponsors' money was in the bank; the volunteers' tickets had been bought. We couldn't lose Guangdong.

Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

By the time ZZ, Madame Miao, Old Yang, and I checked into a hotel in Guangzhou, the letters had been translated and hand-delivered, and phone calls had been made. Over the next twelve hours, we shuttled back and forth between hotel rooms and government offices, pleading with every government official who'd talk with us. ZZ and Madame Miao worked the phones. Old Yang complained about how hard his job was.

“If you would quit reporting in and asking for approval at every step, it wouldn't be so hard,” Madame Miao said.

“You don't understand,” he grunted from behind his hand.

“I understand your boss is not helping,” she said.

“If you let him control the funds, he will be responsible if there are any problems like this,” said Old Yang.

Then all three were talking at once, outshouting one another in the Chinese style of friendly debate. Everybody talks; nobody listens. No hard feelings.

Finally Old Yang got back on the phone, muttered into it a bit, then looked up with a shrug.

“Mrs. Wu, the division chief, says that the two sites are not suitable,” he said.

So much for our dear friend “Call me Jane.”

“Tell Jane we would be happy if her boss selected different sites,” I said.

“Her boss is out of the country,” Old Yang said.

“Then who's making these decisions?!”

“Mrs. Wu says that Guangdong Province isn't ready.”

“But is it all up to
Jane
?” I asked.

And the shouting started all over again. Miao chimed in with news about a letter from the Ministry of Civil Affairs (
our
ministry!) to all institutions forbidding the establishment of any new foreign programs. Then there was something about American spies, but Miao said that none of it applied to Half the Sky anyway because we were already approved partners with the government. ZZ called Jane. Finally, perhaps just to make us go away, Jane said we couldn't have an answer until after the National Holiday.

That weeklong holiday was two weeks away. Our volunteers were scheduled to fly in just two weeks after that. Unlike yours truly, most Americans don't blithely hop on airplanes bound for China at a moment's notice. Plans had been made—and they were set in concrete.

“SO DO THEY
love us or hate us, Norman? I'm confused—and it's not just jet lag,” I said.

In town on one of his monthly adoption trips, Norman invited ZZ and me for
yexiao
—Guangzhou's
famous
midnight breakfast. Breakfast at midnight?—why not? My body clock was permanently out of whack by now anyway.

“The problem has nothing to do with Half the Sky,” he said. “It is quite serious.”

Then he rattled off a whole new story in Chinese. ZZ grunted a few times but didn't translate. Not fit for foreign consumption, I gathered. I didn't press until we'd waved goodbye to Norman and our cab door was safely shut.

“So?”

“A short time ago, an American couple received a referral for a baby in the southern area. When the couple traveled to meet their new daughter, they were given a different child.”

“It happens,” I said. “Maybe the first baby didn't survive?”

“This couple was upset and suspicious. They took their complaint to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou. The Consulate start investigation. The Chinese government then also start investigation.”

“So the orphanages are closed for the investigation?”

“For now, the whole province is closed to adoption,” ZZ said.

“And closed to Half the Sky,” I said.

“That is not clear. After the holiday we will know. It may be that we can come to Guangdong but to different part of the province.”

“Ugh. Okay. I'll have to tell the volunteers. And the sponsors. And the board.”

“In such situation, it is best don't say too much,” ZZ said.

“But they think they're coming back to help their own children's orphanages,” I said.

“It may be, at the time of adoption, that the parents of the first baby came to the orphanage to get her,” ZZ said.

“You mean the birth parents changed their minds?”

“Maybe they never abandon her after all.”

“She was kidnapped?”

“It is not certain. Maybe stolen by family member. Maybe sold to be a wife or servant. And maybe there have been other problems in the area. We cannot know. It is better not to worry the volunteer families.”

I sat silent in a dark cab somewhere in China. Completely lost.
What was I doing in this place? This China. Kidnapped. Stolen. Sold. Thrown away. Those little girls . . . their dear faces.

“ZZ? Norman always takes adopting families to the Temple of Six Banyans to have their new daughters blessed. Do you think anybody would be awake there now?”

“No.”

“Can we try?”

“Certainly.”

At the Temple of Six Banyans, we woke the night watchman, a wizened monk with not many teeth. He listened to ZZ, then turned and walked away. ZZ took my arm, and we followed him inside.

We found a small, carved-stone Guanyin in a rear chamber of the temple. I knelt on the cushion before the goddess.

“Hello again,” I whispered. “Okay, now we really do need some help.”

Before I boarded the plane for California, ZZ and I stopped in the jade market. We purchased a little dark-green jade Guanyin. I wore it always after that. One year I returned to the Temple of the Six Banyans and had my little Guanyin blessed by the monks. It was probably overkill, but, as ZZ told me once, “If heaven drops a date, be sure to have your mouth open.”

ONCE HOME, I
cautiously informed the board, sponsors, and volunteers that there was a problem in Guangdong Province but that we were still trying. ZZ toiled through the holiday. She brought wine and fruit to the homes of important people. The officials wouldn't say yes or no. It was all too familiar.

“Is there any other way you can move them, ZZ?” I fretted on the phone, twisting the little Guanyin on my neck.

“We say, ‘Can you help the grass grow by tugging on it?'” ZZ said.

“I don't get it.”

“You say, ‘Even when you pull him to the well, you can't make the horse drink the water.'”

By the end of the holiday, there was still no definitive news. I couldn't keep people in the dark any longer. I first contacted the sponsors and board. Then I wrote to the volunteers and told them that Guangdong was off.

I do understand the importance of this trip to many of you who have children from Yangdong and Huazhou, and I'm so sorry to have to make this decision. It may be small comfort, but I have an alternative proposal to make:

Many of us have nonrefundable plane tickets and other paid-for reservations. What if we travel as planned, meet in Guangzhou as planned, and then Half the Sky takes you to work on another new site in another new province? Think of it as a travel adventure! You may not know where you're going until you're already there, but I guarantee that you'll be helping kids who need our programs as much as the kids in Guangdong. . . .

They were crushed. Almost every person on the crew had volunteered for the Guangdong build specifically so that they could visit and help the orphanages that had once housed their daughters. Not everybody was in Big Picture mode. Still, every one of them stood by us, as did one of the two sponsoring families.

The very next day, ZZ called to tell me that we had permission to work in Chenzhou, Hunan Province, a struggling orphanage that we'd visited early in the year. Perched at the juncture of three provinces—Hunan, Jiangxi, and Guangdong—the town of Chenzhou received children left behind by migrant workers on their way to find work in the far south. Somehow, despite the poverty and sorry conditions, the little orphanage community of 135 girl-children (as usual in those days, not a single boy) did have a special sort of charm. I was delighted that Chenzhou would be our fallback, but now we had a new problem. Our policy was to have two years' worth of funding committed before opening a new center. We never wanted to open a program that we might have to close for lack of funds. And we didn't have enough to support work at this new, larger center.

I made an emergency plea to our supporters and explained our dilemma. There were children who needed us; we had the opportunity to help, but we couldn't do it without them. Once again, our Half the Sky family rallied in a big way. They donated more than enough for us to set up shop in Chenzhou.

But now the board of directors was on edge. Terri wrote to our newest member, her friend Evelyn. She confided that, while she'd still lead the build, my fumbling in Guangdong and my public plea for funding for the new site was frustrating and embarrassing. I'd upset our volunteers and the Guangdong sponsors and probably all our supporters. I was endangering everything we'd built. Evelyn accidentally sent her commiserating reply to all fourteen of us on the board. Apart from Dick, who was always ready to rush to my defense, the other members were silent. Maybe they thought Terri was right.

Chenzhou, Hunan

The old fortune-teller wore a red Nike baseball cap and at least three layers of sweaters, all with tattered sleeves. I watched her practiced fingers sort through the plastic-covered flat sticks of bamboo. She was calm. As if she saw foreigners in her tiny cement-block apartment every day. The Chenzhou orphanage director, a nervous little man with hair like unmowed grass, had told me about her the morning we arrived, and I'd begged to go see her at once.

“She is the
most famous
fortune-teller in China,” said the Chenzhou director, as he lit one cigarette off another. “High-ranking officials come from Beijing to see her.”

“Really? Fantastic.” I fanned the smoke from my face.

“Of course, everyone knows Chenzhou is magical because it is the
famous
Eighteenth Blessed Land—the place that gave birth to nine immortals and two Buddhas!”

The fortune-teller laid a handful of bamboo sticks on a red board painted with Chinese characters. Then she placed a cardboard circle over them and asked me to rotate it. Then again. At her direction, I selected some sticks. Then more.

“It is
Yijing Bagua
. . . most powerful method,” ZZ said as we watched the fortune-teller sort and re-sort with endless patience.

“She was a doctor,” said her gentle, bucktoothed husband. “I was a teacher. But in 1957, I was branded a rightist. The students turned against me. I could not teach. She could not work. So she began to study
Yijing
.”

The fortune-teller smiled at me.

“
Chun.
It is good,” she said, “but you must be patient.
Chun
means difficulty at the beginning. Rain and thunder. Don't be intimidated by the storm. We must remain firmly centered within. Perseverance furthers. Persevere, but not too much. Know when to retreat. Small perseverance brings good fortune.”

It poured every day we worked in Chenzhou. ZZ told me that the Chinese believe rain is lucky. The paint wouldn't dry, but we kept on painting. Small perseverance.

LIKE MANY ORPHAN
homes in smaller towns, the Chenzhou welfare institution began as a home for old folks. In large cities, before
Jiefang
(China's 1949 “Liberation”), orphanages were more often run by foreign missionaries and continued to be fairly well maintained post-revolution. This was not such a place.

Our volunteer crew arrived at a dumpy little compound that was brimful of extremely
senior
senior citizens, assorted ragamuffins, and over one hundred scrawny but adorable baby girls. The place was falling apart and far too small for its swelling population. The crew fell in love, and I think it was mutual. By the end of the week, we were one big family.

Ancient balding ladies grinned from their dark little rooms each morning as we traipsed by in the rain. “Rain is good luck,” they trilled daily.

One toothless old gent routinely shouted instructions to the crew as they passed; he must have been a factory boss once upon a time. Nobody, not even the locals, understood a word he said.

 

DESPITE THE CONSTANT
downpour, each afternoon the eight Chenzhou “big girls,” eight to thirteen years old or so, splashed their way over to what would become our new preschool to practice their English on the volunteers.

“Hello! How are you today? My name is—” And they'd fall apart with giggles. The director would come and whisk the girls away whenever he caught them with the foreigners, but the girls would dart back the moment he was gone.

They helped paint and sometimes brought babies and toddlers for the volunteer crew to cuddle. Even though those big girls couldn't understand a word said to them, they just couldn't seem to get enough of the room full of foreign mommies—and vice versa.

Shibi, a blind girl of about nine, had never been to school, and although the new preschool was designed for younger children, she adored it. It was her first chance to experience a school of any sort. She spent her days with the volunteers, making little Play-Doh figurines and textured collages from feathers and shells.