Unraveling the Past

Miao baby with her silver crown. Photo from Tribaltextiles.com

Just some thoughts here:

I am looking at Luci's official papers from those white folders we got at the end of the adoption in China and it says she was found at the doorway of the All-Around Shop in Saji Town, of Liupanshui City. And it lists the name of the man who found her! Here it's been 2 1/2 years since we got her and I never even noticed the name of the man who turned her in. It even lists the name of the shop where she was found. Those items were not in the referral we received before adoption. I guess I was in a daze when we got all this info while in China, and I don't pull it out, ever. (Except to carry to the basement safe room when there's a tornado--but I don't read it when down there!) Bouyei baby on her mother's back. Traditional headgear has some silver on it, too. Tribaltextiles.com. This baby looks a lot like Luci did when a baby, but the mother has a face that is not as round as most Miao faces are.

Hearing all the latest on the Bouyei people on the Guizhou yahoo group makes me really wonder about Luci. She looks so much like the Miao women in the photographs at the Minority Museum in Guiyang. I wonder if she is half-Miao and half-Bouyei and that is why she was given up? That would make sense to me, since she looks so much like Miao (with a round, flat face.). Not giving her up, I mean--but that they don't usually like children who are "mixed," and that might be the parents' reason for letting her go. Besides the fact that the Bouyei villages are very poor and a son could provide for their later years.

What a pity. If they'd only known what a pretty, smart, nice little girl she is, they never, ever, ever! would have let her go.

Luci with the silver crown her daddy and I can afford.