I'd wake at dawn, whenever the sun rises, wash up and maybe pull a jacket on, because it might be freezing. Then I'd have a breakfast of steamed bread or congee. Maybe before breakfast, I'd feed the chickens. During the day I might work, doing laundry on the big flat rock near the stram or hauling water to the field, but probably there would be school, too. At night, in the dark, I'd be pulling up the sheets wishing for a heating system or air conditioner. This might have been my life if I had stayed a foster child in rural China. Instead, I was adopted by my mother and taken to the United States. That wasn't a bad thing, but I like the countryside, too. I might have been happy staying in China.
~"Three on the Road in South China" by Lorena GuiFeng Lyon
published in From Home to Homeland ("Adoptees' Own Experiences of Returning to China")
