Observations about China

Having spent a week in China so far, a few things have struck me.

First, driving here seems completely insane. Horns are constantly blaring, and the lines painted on the roads are apparently merely suggestions. Also, everyone's driving extremely fast on really bad roads. I think I understand now the stereotype about Asian drivers in the United States, if this is what they're used to over here. But I have to tell you, I haven't seen a single automobile accident, so there must be some virtue to the way they do it.

Second, the Chinese seem to be investing huge amounts of money into massive new construction projects, but next to nothing on upkeep of what's already been built. As a result one sees gleaming new skyscrapers next to what are essentially ruins of buildings that, based on their architecture, could not have been constructed more than thirty or forty years ago. Moreover, there are people living in those ruins.

Finally, Chinese women seem almost obsessed with children--particularly babies--keeping warm. They cover them with something like ten layers of clothes, so they look like bloated ticks, and it's not even all that cold here (temperatures in Nanchang have been somewhere in the 40s, Fahrenheit). And they certainly disapprove of the fact that we adoptive parents aren't putting so many layers on our Chinese babies. A few of them have even come up to us and tried to adjust the clothing that we put on them!

We have new photos! These aren't of Stanzi; they were taken during our two days of sightseeing in and around Beijing, including the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City.