Skyping with Lukai

So yea, Skyping with my new son from China.  Which was great.  I can hear him crying from the other side of the world.  Oh the wonders of the digital age!

And boy can he cry!  Still all things considered - the little guy is doing great.  I don't think we can even really begin to imagine loosing the only parents you've known your whole life, and being tossed into the arms of someone else, who looks so different, sounds so different, smells so different, and can't even talk to you.

But on an unexpected note, the Foster Family IS going to meet with the Wife!  Turns out it was the Guide (possibly) who did not want them to meet.  But in an hour or two, the Wife will get to meet the foster family. Which is great.  I mean, now they can sit face to face, and stare awkwardly at each other while neither group can speak a common language.  Should be great!  :-)

Oh, and on that note (aince I'm just kind of unwinding the old nogg'n here, and emotionally discharging) the place where Lukai is from has been translated by some as "Hard to Find".  The name of the area in english (pinyn) would be spelt YingZe Qu.  Now, Ying can be 硬， 英， 迎， 应， 赢， or any one of the other 247 Ying's in the Mandarin dialect. Really, c'mon!  Anyway, yes, one of those translations can be "Hard".  Ze and Qu can eventually be translated into something what when you stick it all together sounds something like "Hard to Find".

But, when you look on the Chinese Map, it is really YingZe Qu ( 迎泽区 ), which really is, just a name with no real meaning.  It is literally translated into Pinyn (romanized spelling of chinese words) as YingZe.  Not, hard to find.  That would have a different Chinese Spelling.  硬赜区 vs 迎泽区 ... see?  TOTALLY different!  Hmmmm... if your computer can't display chinese characters, both spelling probably just looked like 3 empty boxes.  Trust me, they are TOTALLY different!  :-)

But how symbolic of adoption anyway.  No longer symbolic in the "hard to find" way (as we have found him), but still, adoption is so mis-understood and mis-labeled.  People "think" they know it.  Some "think" that adoption children are "this way" or "that way", but really... it is so often our rigid views which cause us to see something as our filters dictate and not what really as they are.  Did that make sense?  I'm kinda sleep deprived.  Maybe stop reading... or I should stop typing?

My child is probably still crying, and  my wife is probably trying to do her best to console him.  And I'm sure the lovely couple staying in the room right next door to my wife and child are thinking "What is WRONG with that kid!"  Are we going to mis-label him, or any of the other 147million orphans, as some horrible child who is going to be a handful?  Or are we going to take off our filters, look at reality and realize that this little boy has just lost the only parents he ever knew... and by good golly, give these hurting children enough love to grow.

Anyway, go back, look at the cute pictures up there, and ignore the ranting above...  G'nite.