CHINESE VISA J23

August 1st, 2016

I have just received my Chinese visa—10 years instead of the two that I asked for, which is a welcome surprise. All the documents I had to send came back in one piece as well, and I’m very grateful to the company that handled the visa processing; I wasn’t sure if the source records would make it back at all, since the Chinese Embassy (from what I’ve read) has a habit of keeping files. Having the visa arrive is making this trip feel a lot more real than it was before. Even though I’ve already booked my lodgings, the visa is tangible proof that I’m about to be in China for six weeks.

I’ve thought a lot about the expectations that I have for this trip. I’m trying not to make too many assumptions, but it’s difficult to avoid. Mostly, I think I’ll stand out because I have American ‘habits’ and clothing, and people will be curious about me. Because I don’t intend to look for my birth family, I want this trip to be more of a chance to see how my identity manifests itself in China. Discussions about ‘living in the hyphen’ are maybe less common nowadays than they were a while ago (early/mid-2000s), and more and more often people are preferring to omit the hyphen entirely (i.e. Asian American vs. Asian-American), but I think it’s an easy way to begin describing my own identity politics. I’ll save that essay for later, though; I think it may be more interesting to write when I’ve been in China for a while.  

I selected four cities in China to visit. The first, Guangzhou (广州市), is the capital of Guangdong province, with a long and rich history as the major southern port city in the country. This was the last place in China my parents visited, in order to finalize the adoption. The U.S. Consulate used to reside on Shamian Island, a sandbank island whose architecture and gardens are in the colonial European style, and was solely responsible for processing and finalizing American adoptions of Chinese children. Before their move to Zhujiang New Town in 2013, the Consulate headquarters was next to the White Swan hotel, the place where many adopting American families stayed (colloquially the hotel was known as the “White Stork,” highlighting its importance in adoption). Although my parents did not stay overlong in Guangzhou, the city, and Shamian Island, are fascinating to me because of what they represent for so many adopting families. Often, the island is the first place that American parents see their new Chinese child. It’s a location that foreshadows, I think, the confusion of culture and identity that many adopted children end up facing—it is a place that looks and styles itself after Europe, but it is set in the middle of a city unmistakably Chinese. Guangzhou is also the only Southern location I’ll be visiting, and as a prosperous, Cantonese-speaking, richly historical city, I’m looking forward to exploring.

The next two cities I’ve selected, Huangshan (黄山市；or Tunxi， 屯溪) and Shanghai (上海市), are mostly for my own benefit: my parents didn’t stop here on their trip to get me. Huangshan is a middle-sized city in Anhui province, most famous for its mountains—classical granite peaks, sturdy green pines, and clouds that wreathe the rocks in delicate fog. Because it’s not as big a city as Shanghai or Guangzhou, I hope that I’ll also get the chance to go out into the countryside while I’m there, or at least have more exposure to areas that are similar to the China my parents visited. I know that might be pretty tough to find considering the way that China has developed since 1995, but the clash of the traditional and the modern is fascinating to me, and I expect I will learn a lot—and enjoy some beautiful mountains in the process.

I’m visiting Shanghai next, just for a few days. I’ve booked a place to stay that’s within walking distance of the Bund, and going from mountains to a neon hotspot of modern China is probably going to be quite the experience. I’m not there long enough to get a good look around, but I wanted to visit one of the top cosmopolitan cities in China, especially since I’m not going to Beijing. I put this stop between Huangshan and Jinhua intentionally; they’re both comparatively small, and I want to see that contrast, and be shocked by it. It’s been discussed a lot in things I’ve read or people I’ve talked with, but it’s hard for me to imagine just how diverse China is as a country. Though I’m staying near the coasts and not traveling into central China, I’m hoping that by visiting different regions and cities, I’ll begin to understand just how large the country is. It also, happily, gives me an excuse to take trains everywhere.

My final destination is Jinhua (金华市), my birth city. I’m purposely visiting it last, both for drama’s sake and also because I hope that by the time I arrive, I’ll have been in China long enough to acclimate/get over any culture shock and I can focus all my attention on the city. I have an address for the orphanage, which I found through some intense web searches, and I know the town (it goes prefecture-level city of Jinhua > county > district > towns) where I was found. I hope to visit both, in addition to traveling around the city and seeing what it’s like. In another timeline I might have grown up here: I want to imagine what that would have been like. Jinhua, like a lot of Chinese cities, seems to be focused around industry, with Yiwu (a city in the prefecture) famous for its production of commodities. I haven’t done a huge amount of research on the city, only read up on some background information, because I want to arrive with as few preconceptions as possible.

After Jinhua I take an overnight train (on a soft sleeper, no less! Otherwise I’m taking G trains) back to Guangzhou and fly out the next day. It’s a busy schedule, but I’m looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to work Hangzhou (the place where I was brought to be adopted, and where my parents first met me) into the trip as well, but hopefully I can do that on another visit—maybe with my family. On this trip, I hope to be doing a mix of tourist things and local things, and I’ll rely mostly on walking and taking public transportation to get around. All in all, I’m excited and trying very hard not to be nervous. The questions that I asked in my proposal, and that I hope to answer with this trip, still haven’t changed, but I guess they can be summarized: Do I have any right to claim the Asian side of my identity, after being estranged for so long? Will I be welcome in China? Maybe going to China isn’t the most logical or easy way to look for validation of my identity, but I also want to see the country with my own eyes, form my own opinions, and do my own learning. I want to define what “being Asian American” means for me.