Every 2.2 seconds another orphan ages out with no family to belong to and no place to call home
These were police sitting in the middle of the road. They would point at people who broke the law and the person had to pull over. We were actually in a taxi that had to pull over. Our guide told us our driver did get a ticket and "as soon as he dropped us off" had to go pay his fine. The driver appeared to be very unhappy. I'm sure the taxi driver was poor enough already.
As long as I live, I will never forget how about the only thing I saw was little, red, dirty taxis with the exception of commercial white trucks.
Driving has greatly improved since 1998, but then again they literally had few driving rules. It was like the lines on the streets meant nothing. We were in total shock.
OK, a few other colors, but not many. During the middle of the night I would look down out of our hotel room. The drivers would be washing their taxi in the road with only a bucket of water.
You could, and still can, walk around the roads (alleys) and watch people eating their dinner, brushing their teeth etc... They didn't like us staring at them, but sometimes it was hard not to.
Lael wrote a paper for school the other day. She wrote about her memories of being an orphan. She was almost 4 years old when she got out. Back then most everyone was adopting the "young as possible healthy infants." The people above were Canadians staying in our hotel.
Lael (Bian Yuhong) is now a freshman in college. Lael's paper is below.
Tiananmen Square
This purse proves it was 1998!!
We were in one of the red little taxis, when I heard our guide let out a scream. The motorcycle beside us just fell into our taxi.
Mike thought he was so cool. : - )
Lael was totally intrigued this cup did not leak.
We finally made it to Guangzhou and the beautiful White Swan. Back then it was so nice!
It is estimated there are between 143 million and 210 million orphans worldwide (recent UNICEF report.)
The current population of the United States is just a little over 300 million… to give you an idea of the enormity of the numbers… (The current population of Russia is 141 million)
