Other People’s Journeys

If you’ve already adopted a child from China – or are just considering adoption from China – you’ll probably be interested in reading as much as possible about the process. Not just the dry “fill in this form, then make this appointment” stuff, but the actual experience of taking a journey from your own homely house to that country over there (the one between Russia and Thailand) and coming home with a small human being in tow.

I’m quite fascinated by the story told in Cindy Champnella’s The Waiting Child, although I haven’t read the whole thing. There are excerpts online at Google books that give you enough of the flavor of the tale. It’s the true story of Jaclyn Champnella, who was adopted at age four. She’d been taking care of a younger boy at the Social Welfare Institute, and refused to forget him even after coming to live with a new family in America. Until finally, she got her new aunt and uncle to go to China to adopt the little boy. Amazing. It’s not the story of one trip to China, but two.

Less adoption-centered, but more this-is-what-it’s-like centered is this sample from a comic book that’s about as good a preparation for traveling to China as anything I’ve ever read. It’s Guy Delisle’s Shenzhen: A Travelogue From China.

The graphic novel tells the story of a Western animation director going to direct a cartoon show being animated by a Chinese studio. This might not seem too similar to travel for the purpose of adopting, but he’s got the hotels *down*, and the scenes of city life seem just right. That’s what it’s like to be there. Do you remember that? I do. Pictures worth a thousand words.

And speaking of journeys, good luck to the Chang’e One lunar orbiter, set to launch this week. It’s going to spend a year mapping the moon’s surface in preparation for a 2012 lunar rover expedition – which I think will make China only the second country to send someone to walk on the moon, won’t it?

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