LangSon and the Giving &Receiving Ceremony

We want to tell a bit more about our June 14 trip to orphanage and our Giving &Receiving Ceremony. For the next blog entry we have a video clip to post, but I’m not sure if it is going to work—so please email me either way so that we know.
The journey from Hanoi to Lang Son starts with a drive on the highway north, which passes through a major lowland rice production area. The view was impressive with paddies in varying shades of green for miles and miles. Even more impressive is to think that most of those paddies are plowed with water buffalo (water buffalo are like the donkeys of the lowlands—surefooted in a difficult terrain and are used all over Southeast Asia to plow rice paddies) and all of the rice is harvested by hand. Both activities could be seen throughout the travel through that enormous valley. Mixed within the rice paddies were plots of vegetables, fruit orchards and duck farming and fish farming facilities. Some of the crops that I recognized were yard-long beans, “upo” (Filipino name) a large greenish squash, papaya, mango, and I think cashews. After about an hour into the trip the road climbs into a very impressive mountainous region, which I can only describe as pillar like. In the upland regions corn production replaced rice. This is a shift that is common in many Southeast Asian countries. The shift not only represents a diet change, but also an income discrepancy as farmers with irrigated rice lands are relatively "wealthy" while upland rain-fed corn farmers are considerably poorer. (We intend to write a bit more about our observations of the agriculture and economy of the hill region in a separate post, since we were really impressed with the complexity of the agriculture and the seeming robustness of the economy in that region of the country.)

It would have been nice to stop for pictures because the ones from the van cannot do justice to the awe-inspiring views. The only time that we stopped was when the driver pulled over for a smoke break—I’m including this picture because it was rather funny as he didn’t say a word, simply suddenly pulled over and stopped and got out of the van, so at first I thought the van had broken down. He did this again on the way back to Hanoi.

The Lang Son orphanage is in the middle of the city with the entrance to the facility off of a dirt road from a major road.

This is a picture of Peggy, Neil’s mom, walking from the entrance to the orphanage.

(We have more orphanage pics, which we'll post later since blogger only allows 5 pics per post)

Finally, the most important shot for two “waiting to travel” families is this one of the care packages delivered by WC staffer Kenny (who is next to Ken, or at least part of him!) to the orphanage. While we were at the orphanage, the WC staff took photos of children.

Ken is writing this section:
When we arrived at the orphanage everything was very low-key. I really didn’t know what to expect, not having read any of the blogs and messages written by other parents. But if I had thought about it I probably would not have anticipated how low-key it turned out to be. In retrospect I think it was a really good way to handle a very emotional time, and in fact I think the way the entire morning went showed a sensitivity to all the families, both those giving as well as those receiving children.
We were led into a meeting room with two big conference tables and were asked to wait. Shortly after that and with no fanfare a caretaker arrived with Neil, Peggy’s baby. It was actually kind of funny. One moment it was just the three of us (Peggy, Donna and me) and the next moment there was a woman standing in the room with a baby in her arms. It took a few moments to register that Peggy’s baby boy, Neil, was there in the same room with us! But there he was, and what a healthy happy, lively, fun-loving boy he appeared to be. A few moments later, Phoebe and her caretaker also materialized, in the same manner. We won’t bore you with our thoughts and feelings on seeing Phoebe for the first time.
The next hour or so was filled with laughter, tears, photos, “posing” on the part of the two caretakers, and lots of questions of the caretakers by the new parents.

From this room all of us including the two caretakers piled into the van and headed to the Ministry of Justice, where the interviews and the G&R ceremony were held.
The Interview (This section will most likely be of more interest to adopting families): If we are able to get the video clip embedded you’ll be able to see the door to the room where the interview actually takes place. While we were in the interview the caretakers took care of the two infants. We were the first to go so while we were in the interview Peggy waited in the room where the ceremony was later held.

Each receiving family was interviewed by the Chief Officer of the Ministry of Justice, Mrs. Thuy. I was really impressed with this woman. It was easy to see that she took her job seriously, and that she cared what happened to these children of Viet Nam. Throughout that interview as well as during the actual G&R ceremony, which she also conducted, she did everything with professionalism.

The actual interview was straightforward, with questions that everyone should be able to answer. Which means of course that I was not able to answer the most obvious one: What is the Vietnamese name of the baby we are intending to adopt? Oh well. Fortunately Donna knew the answer to that one.

While we were in the interview two additional people were brought into the room and it became apparent that we were being introduced to the birth parents of Phoebe Jade Huyen Trang. After the introductions they were asked a series of question in front of us, the main points being to demonstrate that they were willingly giving up their child, and to give the birth parents an opportunity to see the people their daughter was going to be raised by and let us know what they wanted for their daughter. Both Donna and I came away from our interactions with Phoebe’s birth parents with a strong sense that these are two very good people. There is so much more behind that statement but in the interest of their and Phoebe’s privacy we will not write more about this.

After the interview we were directed to the room where the G&R ceremony was held, and we waited while Peggy had her interview. Peggy returned and all of us (birth families, caretakers, infants and receiving families) waited for a lengthy time period before all the parties were assembled. Then the ceremony was officially begun by Mrs. Thuy, with Kenny interpreting throughout the ceremony. .

The ceremony itself was anticlimactic, again low-key and in keeping with the effort to play down the potential for outward emotional displays. Each receiving family was asked again to answer some questions, and to indicate that they indeed wanted to adopt the children in question. Each receiving family in turn went up to sign the registry as well as quite a few copies of the adoption papers. After the receiving families complete the signing a representative of the entire group of receiving families is asked to speak and in this culture it is expected that the representative would be male. Being the only male in the group I was designated to speak, and I did, thanking everyone concerned and promising on behalf of all the families present to raise our children with a love and appreciation for Viet Nam and Vietnamese culture, including making efforts to bring our children back to visit Viet Nam.
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Then the birth families were asked if they wished to say anything, and Phoebe’s birth mother stood up and repeated the message she had left us with in the interview, and then a representative from Neil’s birth family spoke as well. With the conclusion of their remarks Mrs. Thuy reminded us that we are to report on the care of our adopted children to the Ministry of Justice on a regular basis until the children reach 18 years of age, and then pronounced the ceremony officially over. One final remark about the ceremony: I think it spoke volumes about the strength of Phoebe’s mother that she stood up and spoke when the birth families were asked if they wanted to speak. Apparently no family members spoke at the last G&R ceremony that took place two weeks previous, so just having a family member speak was already out of the ordinary. But in addition she was the only woman to speak during the ceremony other than Mrs. Thuy.
As soon as the ceremony was finished we drove back to Hanoi so that we could get to the Ministry of Immigration to start the process for getting her Vietnamese passport. We made it back in great time and sailed through the ministry process and now expect to have her passport by the end of this coming week. We also arranged to have our first of two interviews with the US embassy on MONDAY afternoon.