Thursday update

Today, we basically had a quiet day. I went on a tour of a pagoda (I'll show pics) while Jamie and Noelle stayed in to avoid the cold to try to get well. (Noelle is fine, Jamie and I are still battling traces of the cold with a cough - although the smog is not as bad here as it was in Beijing it is still an issue and people smoke cigarettes everywhere so that is always in our face as well)

The pagoda is several hundred years old and six stories tall. It is the fourth largest pagoda in China. I think it used to be a worship site for Buddhism but now it is a total tourist trap - but it was still neat to see. From the top of the pagoda we had a really good view of the "Gan" river which is a busy river for transportation. We also had a good view of some more up-to-date and growing areas of the city of Nanchang we had not seen. And, we also had a good view of the "8/1 bridge". The communists re-named this bridge the "8/1 bridge" after the start of the cultural revolution in China which started on August 1st 1966 and lasted ten years. Although the Communists gained power in China in 1949 the cultural revolution was an attempt by Chairman Mao to regain some power and prestige, to purify the country of vestiges of capitalism, and to emphasize in every area of life a purer socialism - it is now seen as a disaster. (I read about that here: http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/China1972/brief-intro.html)

Our guide has been as vocal as he can safely be about his feelings concerning the Communist Chinese government. We learned today that most of his family are now in the U.S. and Canada. He used to question if the tragedy of the government crackdowns at Tiananmen Square really happened. Something happened in his family that changed his mind about the government and erased his questions. His family abroad had sent a great deal of money to his elderly grandmother to build a house. It ended up being enough money to build a 5,000 square foot home. In China that would have been a lot of money and a huge house. Well, the Communist Chinese government came in and decided they wanted that land and so they bulldozed her house, took the land, and now she is living in a 300 square foot apartment. They offered her less than $100 USD which she promptly refused. She took them to court and lost three times. He has pretty strong feelings now about the government and considers it a dictatorship- he's right. He mentioned being aware of protests in a village and the army will come in and seal off the village and no one ever hears anything about that again. I personally saw evidence of this in a Beijing newspaper- something about protests at a village and the village being sealed off "to look for the protesting offenders"- I had a sick feeling from just reading that headline.

It is hard to be thankful enough for our Constitution, Bill of Rights, courts, and due process- not to speak of the wealth.

Tomorrow morning at 10am I have to bring our Chinese adoption paperwork and passports and go pick up Noelle's Chinese passport so she can leave the country. Then, we leave here for the airport tomorrow at 2pm to fly to Guangzho to attend our U.S. consulate appointment for some medical tests and paperwork to bring our girl home. There is quite a bit of waiting between these various appointments which means that our time in China to fulfill the process is fairly lengthy. We left on 12/6 and we don't return until 12/22. However, there are 2-3 extra days in there that were not needed - we saved 50% on our plane tickets by taking the travel dates that we did.

Guangzho is supposed to be very Westernized - for example there are a lot of Starbucks and other American places. I guess I can have Starbucks again so my wife can "get her husband back"- geez!

Hey, I thought it would be funny to include a picture of Noelle ripping the glasses off my face- funny!