One of the things I like about adopting from China is that it's a bit like a biological pregnancy, inasmuch as it takes longer than you want it to and you're sort of surprised at how the baby turns out -- and, quite often, at how well the child matches your family. It's like genes, only, well, not.

This isn't an accident. The CCAA has a matching room, a much-fabled chamber where each individual child is matched with a waiting family.

There are a lot of rumors about the matching room in the adoption community. It's where the magic happens.

I kind of prefer the version of the story where there's this room deep in the CCAA where they keep a staff of old ladies trained in the ancient art of "face reading". (To really make sense of that, you might need to know something about the bagua, or "eight changes", as seen on the Korean flag. More on that later....) In this dream-version of the room, I kind of like to think there's a faint smell of incense, very bright flourescent lights and a small bell that our Professional Face Reader uses to aid her concentration as the gazes intently on a table with a neat grid of photographs. Ding! She holds her breath and slowly, eyes wide in crystalline concentration, points a gnarled finger. This one... this is the family for this child.

Anyway, this may or may not be more or less true. If you really want to know how it works, check out this report from somebody who's been there. How my awful, awful passport pictures (how can a non-drinker look so very hung over?) wound up seeing my family matched with such a gorgeous little girl will always remain mysterious to me.