Stories from Other Kids Like You
 

Hello from Australia

MY GREAT ADVENTURE IN CHINA

By Molly F., age 11 1/2, Vienna, Virginia.

I had a blast in China. My family went there in July with the China Ties group. It was made up families with girls from China. There were more than 40 people altogether, including about 20 kids.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to go. I had so many worries before the trip that something would happen. I thought the plane would crash, or I would get sick from drinking the water or something. But none of the bad things happened.

I thought China would be ancient, but it was very modern. Always when I see things in books, everything is ancient. But that's not what China is really like. For example, I thought the hotels would be really gross, but they're like hotels here. They had nice beds, great buffet breakfasts and TVs with American shows. I even watched The Simpsons, in English. The pools were great. They were all heated, and huge. The kids in our group always went to the pools and played after we got home from seeing stuff.

I was never bored on the bus rides because there were always the kids on the tour to play with. We talked sometimes about what we would see. We played hand games and we sang. We played Gameboy Advance a lot. I met a really good friend, Jenna, from Boston, on the trip and we usually sat together. We talked a lot about our favorite TV shows, movies, my cat, about the trip, and just everything. Since I have been back, Jenna and I talk on the phone and e-mail each other a lot. We've talked about our trip and our visits to our orphanages. I think we'll be friends for a really long time.

We saw lots of things in China. We went to the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and my orphanage, and lots, lots more. I also really enjoyed all the plane rides. We went on 12 altogether. The longest plane trip was about 14 hours. I thought it was great because I was so excited and you got to watch lots of movies. You could just think about what was ahead of you, and play and talk. The view out the window was great, too.

I really liked the Great Wall (outside of Beijing), but it was really, really hot that day. I thought the Great Wall was so cool because I had been hearing so much about it. The steps on the Great Wall were so steep that it almost felt like you were going to fall. There were lots of people there, but a lot of them weren't Chinese. We also saw a camel on the Great Wall!

One of the fun things we did in Beijing was take a ride in a pedicab. It was nice to ride along, seeing all the houses. Some of it was kind of like old shacks and stuff, but when we went in a house it was really nice. Some of the rooms were really small, like the size of a closet.

We visited an orphanage and a school in Beijing. The school was so fun because they gave us a lot of stuff. We had lunch with some of the kids, and they knew a lot of English. I didn't really like the tour of the orphanage in Beijing because it was sad to see the mentally challenged kids. I knew they wouldn't be adopted. They had a party for us with a lot of food. We danced with them and popped lots of balloons. We also gave them some presents.

The terra cotta warriors (in Xi'an) were really neat. They had been there for thousands of years, and you read about them in books and everything. It was so cool to have read about all this stuff in books, and then to see the real things.

I didn't really enjoy the trip to my orphanage (Changsha), but I thought it was so cool that it was my orphanage. It kind of felt like they didn't like us, and I didn't get to see the woman who took care of me when I was a baby. It did look like they had some nice toys for the kids. I wish I could have understood the people at the orphanage more. We also stopped at the police station where I was found. That was neat.

It was really cool to see the town I was born in. I could have lived in that exact town! I think it would have been a good place to live. It kind of looked like Washington. It was really modern!

One night we got lost in China. The tour guide didn't tell us how to find the restaurant, so we had to start walking back to the hotel. After a mile or so, we stopped at a hotel to talk to the workers there. They tried to talk to me in Chinese! They didn't understand the name of our hotel, but they eventually told us how to get back. I wasn't really scared.

The thing I didn't like was that all of the Chinese people stared at us. They even wanted my sister's picture, and she's not even Chinese. But it was because they're not used to seeing Americans. Some of the Chinese people looked friendly, but some didn't. We took some Chinese lessons before we went to China, but we really couldn't understand much. I think if I took Chinese lessons now I might understand more.

I also didn't like seeing the duck heads in the restaurants. I didn't eat any. Also, they served too many vegetables, but I tried most of the food and it usually tasted really good. I really liked the pecan dumplings.

Sometimes we ate at McDonald's, or Kentucky Fried Chicken (it was really spicy). We also had a Domino's pizza party.

Hong Kong was the most modern. I didn't see any bikes at all. We took a big trip up to the top of the mountain – we rode a shuttle, bus, a trolley, a ferry and even walked. The view was great. It was kind of like New York with all the skyscrapers and stuff, but with lots of ships. We also stopped in Hawaii on the way home, and it was cool. I got my hair braided there. We also went to Pearl Harbor.

I really hope I go back soon. I really got to love China in the short period we were there.

Hi!

My name is Leiah and I came back from my group trip to China. When I got to China it was very hot. The first place we went to was also the longest place we stayed, which was Beijing. Beijing was very modern and Chinese. My mom says she likes it. We had some free time and I liked going to the supermarket store with Mama, my sister and friends. We had different tour guides. We went to Guilin and had a boat ride. I liked looking at views of the mountains, caves, waterfalls, houses and fields. It was also fun going to Wuhan on a train! We were in first class and I celebrated my adoption day! I had fun playing on the top bunks, singing songs, opening presents and eating sweets. My favorite gift was the moving panda and it was fun. The grown-ups made a mistake because they thought we would have a long time to get off the train, to dilly dally, but we only had 6 minutes and we had to rush and rush to get off the train quickly. I liked the rain when I got off the train and arrived in my province. I liked the cool weather. We went to my orphanage. There were babies, kids and teenagers. There was a baby who liked me, who cried when I left. I think I would like to go back but not right away, perhaps in a year.

Leiah, 7 years old, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina

"My advice is that if you ever go to China, don't expect to see everything perfect."

By Katie Chun S.-B.

When my parents asked me if I wanted to go back to the orphanage where I was adopted from, I didn't know if I really wanted to go back. I didn't know what to expect. When we got to Changsha after our long tour of China, me and my friend Lizzie and her family went to look at the orphanage.

The orphanage in China looks a lot different from orphanages here. It was three stories of a big building, one story for each age of children. There was a little girl about four who had a problem with one eye. Lizzie and I asked the lady who was giving us the tour about this girl and why she had the problem. The lady said she was getting adopted pretty soon by a group who had come to adopt babies from the orphanage. She said that her adoptive parents would take her to America and get her the treatment she needed to get her eye fixed up. She may not see through it again but at least it would look better.

On another floor there were tons of babies, little teeny babies about five to twelve months old. They were all crawling around playing, and there was one baby who was in a crib getting some medicine. Hearing how the orphanage was when I was adopted and how it is now that they have all these new things--like medicine, toys, strollers, cribs, and a lot of people helping make these children happy--made me feel really good, especially because we have contributed some money for this.

After I left the orphanage I felt a different kind of feeling, like I want to help the orphanage people buy new cribs, clothing, and toys and afford all the food to keep all the kids happy and healthy.

My advice is that if you ever go to China don't expect to see everything perfect. Just like I saw that little girl, not every single baby is born just like you were. You were very lucky to be born and not have any problems like the babies there sometimes have. And here's some more advice: If someone makes fun of you for being Chinese, just smile and say, "You can call me all the bad names you want but I'm still proud to be Chinese."

Reprinted with permission from the newsletter of FCC-New England.

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