My trip to China - July 2007

by Hannah

My trip to China felt very short, but my mom, Rosa, and I were there for three weeks.  First we visited the school for the blind in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province.  I got to read some Chinese Braille, but I couldn't understand it.  The school was large and it had all kinds of people there with all different disabilities.  I was surprised to find that they didn't have any Braille typewriters to use and instead they used a slate and stylus to do their work.  Most of the students knew English, but they were very shy to speak it because they were afraid that theirs weren't as good.  But after a while, some of them talked with us as we were leaving.

I was amazed that a lot of people spoke English in the larger cities.  Everywhere we went, there was a least one person that spoke English.

The streets in Changsha were very busy and people with all kinds of vehicles even drove on the sidewalk.  It was a very difficult city for us to get around and I felt like I was in a very huge crowded farmers market because people were selling things everywhere.

After a few days in Changsha, we went to Anren which is a pretty small city divided into many parts.  First we went to visit my orphanage.  I lived there for a year.  I saw all my nannies and friends. 

Then we went to visit my foster family in one of the rural parts of Anren.  I lived with my foster family until I was eight.  My grandma lived in a small farm village and the houses there were built completely of brick.  There were farms everywhere and the village had changed since I last saw it because they built more houses for relatives and children.  Also my favorite orange tree was cut down in order to built a house for my uncle and his family.

My grandma came up to my waist due to shrinking with old age.

Everyone from the whole village came to see me and they watched us as we ate lunch and talked.
We stayed there for about 2 hours and took many photos.  Then we went to Chenzhou and stayed in a very nice hotel.  The next day we went to my other orphanage.  I lived there until I was 12 and a half.  I saw everyone there that I knew and we did many things together because we were in that city for 3-4 days.  I hung out with my friends that I knew and we went to dinner with the staff.  Despite the warm and sticky whether, I had lots of fun.

After Chenzhou we took a train from Beijing to Baotou, Inner Mongolia.  We stayed with our friends and her family for 5 days.  Our friends took us to the Yellow River. We had delicious fish from the Yellow River for lunch and walked on the Yellow River bridge.  They also took us to the Gobi Desert and we played in the warm sand.  They had camels there and I wanted to ride on one, but when the camel stood up, I felt like I was in the sky because it was very scary and the camel was very tall. That was my highlight in Baotou.

The last part of our trip, we spent in Beijing.  We saw some friends and spent our last day at the Great Wall.  The weather in Beijing was very hot and we had to hike up long flights of very uneven steps to get to the top of the Great Wall. As we stood on top of the Great Wall, I was surprised how windy it was.

After the Great Wall we went back to our hotel and got ready to depart.  On the plane I looked back on the trip and realized that I enjoyed it in many ways (for example seeing the Yellow River and the Gobi Desert that I had studied about in school).  I think it was important for me to see my grandma and the place I lived for most of my life.  My most favorite part of the trip was seeing all my friends and favorite staff at the orphanage.

Hannah's Writings | Photos from China