Wish You Happy Forever (8 page)

Madame Miao smiled and completely ignored the question. Even a China dummy like me could see from that smile that there was no point in pushing for an answer. Nobody had ever said we could actually do what we proposed.

I first became aware of the China Smile at an ever-so-brief meeting with a government official the morning before we left for Shijiazhuang. Ministry of Civil Affairs Section Chief Ma, a small man with a perfectly round face and perfectly round eyeglasses, came to the hotel to join us for breakfast and see us off.

Before the meeting, Mrs. Zhang had told me he was an important connection from the very government ministry that would be essential to our work. As she explained it, the Ministry of Civil Affairs sounded like a cross between today's U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, among other things: “It is responsible for welfare—for old people, poor people, mentally sick, handicapped, veterans, and orphans. Also NGOs and funerals and disasters and riots. This is a good sign, that Section Chief Ma wishes to meet you.”

It was only day two, and already anything that woman told me was golden. I did my best to charm the section chief. I told him my story and about my desire to help. I explained what I understood about the developmental stages of children and about how we might help at each stage. The whole time I talked, he smiled. The smile was fixed; his eyes, behind their round frames, were absolutely blank. I could read nothing. Suddenly paranoid, I wondered whether Mrs. Zhang was actually translating anything I was saying. She assured me she was. It was kind of like the old song lyrics, “Your lips tell me no-no, but there's yes-yes in your eyes.” Only in reverse. The China Smile.

IT SEEMED PRETTY
obvious that the ministry had selected Shijiazhuang for our first visit largely because it was in the north, close to Beijing, and easier to keep an eye on us there. In the end, I was grateful they had, for I'd been able to get a glimpse of orphanage life close to what it really was. The south was a different story.

For reasons I wasn't China scholar enough to understand, abandonment (and infanticide) of girl-children had been going on south of the Yangtze River long before institution of the one-child policy in 1979. Even when unofficial policy was relaxed in rural areas to permit a second child if the first was a girl (boys were needed to work the land, provide for the family, carry on the family name), orphanages in the south continued to fill with little girls, likely second daughters.

Before the bad publicity of
The Dying Rooms
and the Human Rights Watch report, those southern orphanages were fairly easygoing and accessible. “The mountains are high and the emperor is far away,” as the saying goes. But, as the subject of both the film and the report, those orphanages had paid dearly. They were still feeling the sting when I showed up with my bright idea.

So despite the fact that they had been ordered by the ministry to allow our visit, orphanages in the south were not about to be stung again. The banquets were as lavish and frequent as in that first town, but caution was most definitely in the air.

Here was the routine: When we arrived at the gate, the “normal” children and staff were all outside, applauding. Everyone was dressed up and adorable. Cute little girls with lipsticked smiles brought us flowers.

First stop was the scale-model-of-our-future-orphanage exhibition. Usually that was in a giant glass box in the lobby. “Everything that we see today will be torn down soon,” they said. Although they definitely did look the worse for wear, most of the buildings were no more than five years old. (Mrs. Zhang told me that China is the land of instant antiques.) We spent more time looking at the models than visiting the children.

Then there would be the standard reception room visit, with fruit and speeches.

Finally, we'd make a quick pass through the children's rooms. All was clean and orderly. The children were perfectly washed and combed. No less-than-perfectly-formed child specimens were on display. A brand-new toy had been placed in front of every child. It sat untouched, a foreign object. Most of the children had been given sweet treats to keep them in line. There were few caregivers present, though, and nothing could disguise the blank faces of the children.

A couple of the little ones escaped from their assigned chairs and clung to my legs, demanding to be picked up. The
ayi
s grabbed them away with a nervous, apologetic laugh. The babies were snug in their cribs, each with a bottle propped at her mouth. When I picked up a bottle that had rolled away from a newborn too small to grab for it, it was quickly snatched up by someone and popped back into the tiny mouth. All shipshape.

Sometimes there'd be a little performance in our honor. We sat in little chairs. Wee tots wearing paper bunny ears sang a song about pulling carrots. The slightly older kids offered a Vegas-esque fashion show to a disco beat. The staff might treat us to a song or two. We applauded with great enthusiasm.

It was a year or more before I was able to walk into an orphanage in the south on a first visit without encountering some version of an orphan's Potemkin village.

The one exception to the carefully staged but warm southern welcome was in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, and Maya's first home. The week before, while we were visiting two orphanages in southern Jiangsu Province, the Chinese government had begun a ferocious crackdown on the Falun Gong, a fast-growing sect of seemingly ordinary middle-aged citizens who engaged in qigong-like exercises and meditation and who had lately been staging public demonstrations, some drawing tens of thousands of followers. The government declared that the evil cult's founder was pursuing a hidden political agenda. Police in several cities detained the group's leaders. Thousands started gathering to protest the arrests—most visibly, in Beijing.

While we were in the air, flying south to Guangzhou, there'd been an emergency meeting, and by the time we landed, the government had announced a nationwide ban on Falun Gong on the grounds that it engaged in superstition and disrupted public order, thereby damaging social stability.

So instead of an escort to the orphanage, a phone call was waiting for us. All government workers, including those at the institutions, would be engaged in reeducation meetings. There would be no visits allowed that day.

WE WERE ORDERED
instead to spend the sweltering day at the Bird Park on White Cloud Mountain. Wen went off to visit some Guangzhou cousins (she appeared to have cousins in every town in China), and I had an opportunity to begin to get to know Mrs. Zhang.

“I really feel very positive about your plan,” she told me. “I can tell from the questions you ask that you are sincere. When you are talking, I am feeling there is a light in the darkness.”

“What great good fortune that we found you!” I said.

“I should tell you,” she said, “that I am an orphan myself. Both my parents died when I was young. My aunt raised me and my sister. People often said my aunt should send us to an orphanage, but she would not. So you see, I know how sad that is to not have a mother and father.”

“Oh, Mrs. Zhang—”

“Foreign friends usually call me Joan. Zhang Zhirong is a difficult name. Not only that, do you know it's a name for a man? When I went to college, I found they'd assigned me to the boys' dormitory!”

The screenwriter in me knew she wasn't a Joan. I tried it for a while, but eventually I just called her ZZ. It stuck.

“Do you remember when Herb called and you first heard about Half the Sky?” I asked her. “What did you think? That I was just some crazy foreigner?”

“Not at all,” she said. “The timing is good. China is just starting to open up. It may be possible. When later I speak to you on the telephone, I know for sure.”

“Why?”

“I can feel you are sincere. This is something different than the others. Not just sending money. You know, I've been doing foreign affairs for years. I talk to you and I know you don't want to invade us or make trouble for China. You just want to make friends and help the children.”

“So what did you do after that first call?”

“I discuss with Miao. I tell her I can feel the seriousness. And I know the situation about the conditions in the orphanages.”

“You knew?”

“CPWF works with Family Planning Commission. A great number of babies are abandoned in these times. Besides, I work at UN International Women's Conference in 1995. Foreign Affairs Office prepares us. They tell us about
The Dying Rooms
movie. They say women coming to Beijing from all over the world will criticize us. Be prepared, they tell us. Not everybody says China is good.”

“But you weren't nervous about me?”

“No! I want to do this. I took a very active part. We are very close to Vice Minister Wan at Family Planning. He has friend, Madame Jiang, at Family Planning, formerly of Ministry of Civil Affairs. Madame Jiang has good
guanxi
with Civil Affairs Welfare Department Director General Yan. Short man, very nice. I personally bring letter to Director Yan explaining the purpose. He is expecting me. It's kind of a friendly talk.”

“You made it happen.”

“
The Dying Rooms
is a bad situation. We say bad things always have a good side. This is a turning point. China wants to turn the page, but gradually. At the same time, they need help from outside. Of course, you have to have a friend or you can do nothing. Still, it is sensitive. When I take you on tour of orphanages, I must not say anything wrong. Not say too much straightforward with officials. Not too much detail because I don't want to give them any chance to say no.”

As long as they don't say no . . .

This I understood.

And I was smitten. What good fortune to find this woman, this ZZ! I adored and trusted her already. She would become my best friend, my big sister. My better half in China.

With ZZ beside me, I felt new confidence when we arrived at Maya's orphanage the next day.

THE RECEPTION WAS
anything but warm.

I'd been surprised when ZZ told me that Guangzhou was on the approved list of sites. I hadn't even considered trying to launch Half the Sky there. Sure, the children were in dire need of help; Maya was proof positive. But from the little I'd been able to learn, Guangzhou seemed too big, too secretive, and too troubled. Despite Norman's glowing report on that first telephone call—“best orphanage in China”—I'd learned from media reports and rumors that weak babies had a slim chance of surviving, let alone thriving, in that orphanage.

One thing was certain—this little dream of mine had to succeed and quickly. We had to begin with conditions where success was at least imaginable. That eliminated Guangzhou. But I was in no position to argue.

“I'm so pleased to meet you,” I said to the closed face of Guangzhou Director Zheng, a compact fellow whose pocket protector held a single pen. Despite his controlled demeanor, a forelock of hair refused to stay in place and his shirt kept coming untucked. I concentrated on good thoughts: I was really trying to like him. “I was here two years ago to adopt my daughter.”

He grunted and frowned even further if that was possible. “No pictures,” he said.

He glanced down at the big bag of toy musical instruments we'd purchased the day before—“the Chinese way,” according to ZZ.

“And you can't bring those toys inside,” he added.

He led us into what appeared to be a spanking-new showroom. The walls were lined with photo blow-ups of the children with various celebrity officials and assorted highlights of orphanage life.

One display featured three medals that had been won by older children competing in the Paralympics. “It would be great if the kids could hang those medals in their rooms,” I said. Then wished I hadn't. Director Zheng appeared to be considering whether he should have me arrested.

Instead, he whisked us through a lightning-quick tour of one floor of one building in the massive complex. It was spartan but clean, and the many dozens of children looked physically healthy. That was all the opinion there was time for. Then we were outside. He couldn't get rid of us fast enough.

“So Director Zheng,” I said as he ushered us out, “might you be interested in hosting some programs that are designed to provide nurturing care for orphaned children?”

I think he may have physically shuddered, insulted that we thought perhaps his institution might be improved upon.

“There are procedures that must be followed,” Director Zheng said.

And so we said our thanks and goodbyes.

SOUTH OF GUANGZHOU
, near Hong Kong, Shenzhen was our final destination. It was, in those days, a long drive from Guangzhou through miles of lychee and banana groves dotted with new high-rise apartment buildings and construction cranes.

ZZ told me that this was the richest farmland in the nation.
Soon it will be gone
, I thought, just as the apricot orchards of my childhood had become Silicon Valley. Make way for New China.

We stopped at the border crossing to the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and secured an entry permit for ZZ, required for Chinese nationals only. A dozen or so years earlier, before Deng Xiaoping's policy of “reform and opening” established it as China's first SEZ, Shenzhen had been a poor fishing village. Now the government feared that, without entry restrictions, all of China would move there.

No wonder. Shenzhen was another Hong Kong but, in that uniquely mainland way, flashier and tackier. Tucked between brand-new skyscrapers were budget hotels, job boards, streetside barbers, and vendors hawking junky bright clothes, cheap bus tickets, phone cards, and snacks. Factories of every kind encircled the city. And nobody was
from
Shenzhen. The place, at least in 1999, was overwhelmed by a steady stream of young migrant workers from every rural corner of China, making their way from farm to factory to take care of their families back home. They were China's “floating population.” “You are a Shenzhener once you come here,” the saying went.