Fortress of Solitude

Every adoption completed in China evenutally comes through Guangzhou. The U.S. Consulate here is responsible for overseeing visa and naturalization paperwork for adotpions from China, so all adoptive families must petition the Consulate, in person, for the magic visa that allows them to take their children home and make them U.S. citizens.

The vast majority of U.S. parents who come to Guangzhou to adopt stay at the White Swan Hotel on Shamian Island. While the island is a tourist destination in its own right, and the hotel is a well-known 5-star establishment, it's no understatement to say that a large fraction of the revenue of both depends on international adoptions, and specifically American adoptions. The place has been engineered to cater to the needs of new, nervous, harried U.S. parents; to provide them a safe haven, a Western oasis in the chaos of China that they need not leave and that will provide for their every need. All over the island, the buildings themselves date back to a colonial period when the Americans, British and French sought mastery over Chinese commerce -- so even architecturally speaking, the island is more Europe than China. Automobile traffic is limited, and the broad pedestrian walkways are beautifully crafted with cobblestones and flower beds and bronze statuary. The restaurants are high quality and all have English-speaking staff and high chairs and children-sized utensils. The stores sell diapers and formula and baby food and darling outfits for small people. The play room at the White Swan alone is worth its weight in gold -- you wouldn't find anything else like it at any other hotel in Guangzhou.

In short, Shamian and the White Swan provide a buffer against the stresses of travel in China, a kind of blessed home retreat you can rely on for Western creature comforts, and that you will only have to depart sporadically and then always in the company of an English-speaking guide and a personal driver, in air-conditioned style.

I kind of hate it.



It took me until today to put my finger on just what irks me about it. Let me be clear: I am not immune to the charms and conveniences that come with staying here. The White Swan is as advertised. The breakfast buffet, the views of the Pearl River, the lovely pool, the service, the aforementioned play room, and yes, the waterfall in the atrium -- one can only say well done. Shamian is also beautiful, with plenty of places to walk around without having to worry about getting run over, and it's nice to have a dozen stores within spitting distance of the hotel entrance all clamoring for the opportunity to do your laundry for you, cheaply and well. I'm not sure there's a better place in Guangzhou to stay while you complete an adoption.

Trip to Up and Down Market

I may be irascible and a bit of a crank, but I'm not a completely incorrigible crank. I can set aside, or at least ignore, my inner grumblings for the sake of my family's comfort and convenience.

But what bothers me about Shamian and the White Swan, and their role in the adoption process, runs a little deeper than that, and may take a bit of explaining.

The first problem I have it with is how isolated it is, both geographically and culturally. Physically speaking, the island is a bit "out of the way" of most of the rest of the city. There's only one way on and off the island for cars, and when traffic gets bad it can take quite a long time just to get to it. Culturally speaking, the island doesn't even feel like China to me. It feels like a Western outpost within China. I get why that's nice for adopting families, but at the same time, I'm not thrilled that we spent a considerable amount of money and effort to bring our children half-way around the world to one of the world's most ancient and interesting civilizations, so that they could spend two full weeks hanging out in the one part of it that feels a lot like... downtown Montreal. They're not being exposed to authentic China, to the parts of it that would make their eyes widen and their minds expand, give them a sense of their new sibling's heritage, challenge their perspectives and, perhaps, plant a seed of interest and intrigue that they would carry back home with them. They're just hanging out at a resort-style pool and eating grilled cheese sandwiches in a pretty familiar environment, where the people happen to speak another language but also know English.

Money well spent?

Cute much?

But I have an even deeper-seated problem. Shamian, beautiful as it is, represents a period of history when the West was not necessarily showing its best side in China. The U.S. and Europe used to push China around, take its resources for themselves, treat its people as racially inferior, and basically use the justification of Manifest Destiny to set themselves up as titular overlords of a proud and storied people. Western factions traded in opium, incited wars when it suited them, and appropriated as much wealth as they could get their hands on. Shamian Island was one of the epicenters of this process, and was designed as an enclave of Western style and power that would buffer foreign traders and diplomats from the rest of China.

So it's fitting, perhaps, that Americans now use Shamian as a base for insulating themselves from the rest of China, while they are here to acquire some of China's children to take home with them. As Americans overrrun the island, shaping its commerce to their tastes and needs, and walk around here patronizing stores and doormen and pool boys and their guides and drivers with an unconsciously outsized sense of entitlement, it's hard to ignore the common thread of history that's still on display. For all that the reason we're here now helps China deal with (rather than creates, as of old) a social problem, we're still not meeting them where they are, trying to understand them, or really even coming in that close of contact with them. We take it as a matter of course that they'll even change their very names for us, giving themselves English nicknames like "Helen" or "Edward" or "Candy," to make it easier for us to remember and pronounce them.

So I have some issues with all of that. But they're my issues, I guess. As Allison says, maybe I'm just not capable of liking anything. I'm not equipped for it -- I always have to be finding the downside to things. She gets exasperated with this. But in reality, I like a lot of things. Staying on Shamian to complete our adoption just hasn't been one of them.

But I'd probably do it again if I had to. Like I said -- I'm not sure there's a better place in Guangzhou to stay while you do it. I just wish there was.