smokerblog

Reality Strikes

[SHENYANG, 1/17 11:00PM]

It was a beautiful but very cold day today in Shenyang. This seems to be a very prosperous city. I image it is inicative of the other major Chinese cities: much new construction, wide roads packed with cars, vast wattages devoted to neon, etc. We saw much of the city today while spending the entire morning traveling to different offices to sign and fingerprint and notarize and get stamped (yes, Seth, in quadruplicate) Ben's passport application and the papers that make the adoption official in the eyes of the orphanage (we still have to make it official in the eyes of the Chinese and US governments). Here is a picture with his teacher from the orphanage--the red dot on his forehead is from where we got a little too carried away with the fingerprint ink.

After getting back to the hotel, Ben and I had more fun eating, taking a bath, playing with cars, and sumo wrestling (the hotel carries one Japanese network). At one point I had to reinforce our authority structure in a way that Ben did not appreciate. Ben wanted to take a bath, which would have been his third of the day, and I refused. He pitched what, in all honesty, was a pretty mild hissy-fit compared to some that I have seen (not mentioning names...). After calming him down, I decided we should go for a brief walk.

Right away, Ben decided that I should carry him. We had gotten no more than half a block from the hotel when a small child, almost certainly Ben's age, made a beeline for us through the thin herd of pedestrians. I think one of my mistakes was to have looked at him in the face. What I saw was the dirtiest, most grime covered four-year old face I had ever seen in my life. He (I think it was a he) was dressed in rags and carried a pitifully small plastic cup that he waved in front of me as we went by.

Now (a) I didn't want to haul out my wallet in the middle of the busy street and (b) I sure as heck wasn't going to let go of Ben, so I tried to brush the kid off. This American-grade brushoff did nothing but encourage a series of bows and greater degree of insistence from the boy. This escalated until I had to literally pry his arms from around my legs with one free hand and shove him away roughly. I may have knocked him down. I don't know. I wasn't looking back.

This is easily one of the most heart-breaking things I've ever had to do. This kid had less than nothing. I'm sure he was starving, and here I was with a few hundred yuan stuffed into my back pocket, all the time holding another boy whom I will be bringing back to the US with me. Last week, Ben's life and this boy's life were not all that different in terms of status and long-term opportunities. Today, Ben will have every opportunity that a prosperous American family can provide, while the other boy will likely spend the rest of his life living in squalor.

Now I noticed, as only a new father can, that the whole time I was struggling with the boy, Ben was quietly taking the whole thing in. I think that the experience really had an impact on him. He was immediately quiet and, I think, thoughtful and contemplative and he seemed to have utterly forgotten our earlier spat. That incident, more than any words he may have heard, may have shown him exactly what it means for him that he is being adopted.

I have no idea whether or not Ben feels fortunate, but Kari and I sure do. As painful as it was to push aside a grimy urchin on the streets of Shenyang, if I thought for a second (as I did today) that Ben's safety or well-being was going to be compromised, I'd do the same thing again in a heartbeat. I guess that's the paternal instinct.