David Kawada's Home Page

I learned this morning that the Lakeview Hotel in Nanchang, Jiangxi, China no longer exists. The hotel was purchased by new ownership in 2007 who closed the hotel for renovations but then decided to demolish the 4 star hotel instead and replace it with a brand new 5 star hotel.

We first met Emily in the lobby of the Lakeview Hotel in December 2002 before we even had time to check in. I remember trying to deal with check-in paperwork at the front desk with our guide, the orphanage director, and a couple of nannies surrounding us. Susan was already holding Emily by that time. We spent a week at the hotel while working on the adoption paperwork at the province level. The hotel was circular. The walkway on each floor was circular so you could walk one direction away from your room, walk in a large circle, and end up back at your room. The rooms were only on the outer side of the walkway. The inner side of the walkway faced the open center portion of the hotel. Kinda of like a circular version of many Embassy Suites.

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to go back to the Lakeview Hotel when we eventually go to China to retrace our route for Emily’s adoption (San Francisco-Beijing-Nanchang-Guangzhou-San Francisco). This trip won’t be until far into the future (when Emily is an adult and if and when she wants to retrace her route/roots).

Here are links about the demolition of the Lakeview Hotel which happened a few days ago:

http://english.cri.cn/6909/2010/02/07/189s548513.htm
http://china.globaltimes.cn/society/2010-02/504144.html

I am making changes to the website behind the scenes in the hope that the changes will make it easier and quicker to update the website and thus make updates more likely. I am shifting my photo albums to Flickr and my videos to Youtube. There will be links on the website to the content on Flickr and Youtube so it will be just as easy to get to the photos and videos from the website.

In the meantime, as my kids are getting older, for the sake of privacy, there will be fewer pictures of them on the website.

Los Angeles Times: Adoptive families’ quests to trace Chinese roots often meet dead ends

By Martha Groves and Barbara Demick
December 28, 2009

More families are traveling to China to unravel the mystery of where their adoptive children came from and who their parents are. For the few who are able to make any headway, luck is a big factor.

Emily was awarded Citizen of the month at her elementary school.

In this Sunday’s Los Angeles Times (link), there is an article titled “Chinese babies stolen by officials for foreign adoption”. While I suspect the stories in the article represent a small percentage of Chinese international adoption cases, even a small percentage is too many. I hope that the United States and Chinese governments look into this situation to ensure that this is still not occurring.

Learn how Julia Norris, the mother of her Chinese adopted son, Christian, helped trace his roots in China from this article from the Baltimore Sun.

An American teenager adopted from China reunites with his birth parents in Beijing. Read the story by clicking on this link to the Los Angeles Times article: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-adopt30-2009aug30,0,3703559,full.story

On Monday, National Public Radio’s (NPR’s) All Things Considered had a radio news story on a new rule from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that has some Americans leaving China and Ethiopia without the children they adopted there. Click here to read a NPR article and to listen to the news story.

There is discussion about the Scruggs/Litchford family who had to leave behind a 4 year old daughter whom they adopted in China because she had been diagnosed as having TB.

An Adoption Becomes Official from the New York Times

Latest on the China adoption controversy that has taken place in Guizhou.

China punishes officials after babies taken (AP)

Link:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hWw3Uoi4aU_Xpnob6jMvHShSaBAQD997IV3O0