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Chenzhou
Childrens Welfare Center
Chenzhou, Hunan Province, China
by Mrs. Yannie
Fan
(Edited by Mary Lynn Hodshire and Tom Chen)
2000 June 22
 The
foster family of a little girl named Qiuxia, from Illinois, picked me
up at the train station. The foster "grandmother" and her newly
wed son came to the railway station to pick me up on the afternoon of
June 21.
The grandmother started sobbing as she got a glimpse of the pictures I
had brought of "her" little Qiuxia and Qiuxia's American family. She
said she had been thinking of Qiuxia night and day for over three years
since the little one had left for the United States.
I asked the whether it would be possible to go directly to the orphanage
and was told that it would be no problem. It turned out that the
grandmother knew everyone at the orphanage. The first woman that
we met at the gate was one of the three formula makers. She ran
upstairs to report our arrival without even finishing the conversation
with the grandmother.
Dr. Zhang and her staff were in a meeting when we arrived. Within minutes,
Dr. Zhang and a number of her staff (over 10 people) joined us. They delighted
in looking at all of the pictures from the Chenzhou families. I will try
to recount some of the conversations and comments that were made concerning
the children. Unfortunately the time period was short and all of
the women were talking at the same time. More than once I wished
that there had been another person with me to take notes as I was asking
and answering questions, observing the goings on, taking pictures and
videos.
The staff commented on the pictures of a child named Kaihua, nicknamed
Wanwan and marveled at how big and how pretty she looks now. They
also commented on a child with the Chinese name of Ying Xi whose name
means to greet happiness. Two young girls pointed to the picture
of Zaozao, Heping, Xueqin, Qiuxia and one other child (I can't remember
her Chinese name). They said that SIX children went to America in
a group that day, how come there were only five in the picture? I
had to guess that one girl might not have come to the reunion on the day
that the picture was taken. (Editors note: Yannie was right, one
of the little girls did not make it to this particular reunion. The
amazing thing is that this was a picture of the Chenzhou Six Pack who
met their Forever Families on July 27, 1997 - three years earlier! - It
is one thing to remember the individual children but, to remember exactly
which group traveled together is incredible, especially after such a long
time.)
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