Will is from the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in the north central region of China. Like Anna’s home of Guangxi, Will’s is classified as an autonomous region rather than a province. Autonomous regions (there are only 5 in all of China) are provinces that have been granted more legislative authority than other provinces because of their high population of a specific ethnic minority. In Guangxi, that minority is the Zhuang; in Ningxia, it is the Hui.
Ningxia, or “peaceful summer”, was named by Genghis Khan in the 13th century when he conquered that area of China. “Xia” is an ancient name for China, and in the 11th century, a Tangut king revived this name in an attempt to create an empire in this area to rival China itself. Ningxia is on the banks of the Yellow River, about 600 miles west of Beijing. Formed in 1958, it is a relatively small province, with only 5.3 million people (by contrast, Anna’s province of Guangxi has a population of about 41 million.) Ningxia rates all of 10 pages in my big China guidebook of 980 pages. The capital city of Yinchuan has a population somewhere between 700,000 and 1,400,000 depending on the internet source. Here are some links to various travel-planning websites with information about Yinchuan. We do not know what Will’s hometown is, but we know he was brought to the orphanage in Yinchuan on April 10, 2004. There is only one government sponsored orphanage in the province: the Ningxia Children’s Welfare Institute. In Chinese adoption lingo, we use the abbreviation SWI for orphanages, which stands for Social Welfare Institute. I don’t know why Ningxia uses a slightly different terminology.
Most of the population of Ningxia are Han Chinese, but the 1/3 that are Hui are Chinese Muslim. It will be interesting to see the influence that will have on things like architecture and food when we go. The official language of Ningxia is Mandarin, thankfully, as the few Chinese words we know are in Mandarin. The most famous handicraft of the region is the Ningxia carpet. Unfortunately, I suspect they are not magic.
Ningxia is considered to be an arid, mountainous area, with very poor agriculture. It is hot and dry in the summer, and has long, cold winters (although average temps are not as low as Vermont!) The Helan Mountains are the most prominent geographical feature, and there are a number of interesting pagodas, mosques and tombs in the Yinchuan area, so if the kiddos are cooperative, we may get to see some interesting things. A blog from a family who adopted from Ningxia last summer described a ride across the desert on camels! What a treat! I’m going to put in a request to do that! There is even an isolated portion of the Great Wall about 50 miles south of Yinchuan. There is a recently published book compiled from 3 small notebooks given to a French journalist in Ningxia by a young woman in a Muslim headscarf in 2001. They were her diaries, written while she was 13 years old, detailing her attempts to complete her education in a poverty-stricken area. It is called The Diary of Ma Yan. I have not read it yet, but it’s supposed to be an eye-opening read about the struggles of day-to-day life in a third-world region. I think it will be a fascinating look at modern history in my son’s homeland.
The World Weather Information Service shows this temperature table for Yinchuan:
Month
|
Mean Temperature oF
|
Mean Total Rainfall (mm)
|
Daily
Minimum
|
Daily
Maximum
|
Jan
|
6.3 |
29.8 |
1 |
Feb
|
12.6 |
37.2 |
2 |
Mar
|
25.9 |
50.4 |
6 |
Apr
|
38.3 |
65.1 |
12 |
May
|
49.8 |
75.9 |
17 |
Jun
|
58.5 |
82.0 |
19 |
Jul
|
63.9 |
84.7 |
42 |
Aug
|
61.3 |
81.5 |
52 |
Sep
|
50.7 |
72.9 |
23 |
Oct
|
37.9 |
61.9 |
14 |
Nov
|
25.7 |
45.0 |
4 |
Dec
|
12.2 |
32.0 |
1 |
The weather should be fairly pleasant during our projected travel time of September. I was worried that we would be taking down jackets for the province and shorts for Guangzhou. Looks like it will be easier than that. GZ will still be very hot at that time of year (it was HOT in November!) Note that the rainfall is in mm, not inches. For September, that 23 mm is less than one inch.
Because of the proximity to Beijing, we will likely use that as our port city this time. We should have an opportunity to see the Great Wall, and perhaps some of the preparations for the 2008 Summer Olympics! We’ll then fly to Yinchuan, and spend about a week in the province, completing the adoption and getting Will’s Chinese passport. Then on to Guangzhou again, hopefully to stay at the White Swan, for another week or so. I say hopefully because the White Swan will be closing in December for extensive renovations. The scuttlebutt is that it will be changing its focus more to business travelers, and may not be so adoption-friendly in the future. It was always very convenient for American adoptive families because the US Consulate was also located on Shamian Island; however, the Consulate relocated into town a couple of years ago. I suspect that American adoption agencies will probably choose a hotel closer to the Consulate in the future. That will be a sad day; the White Swan holds many magical memories for thousands of families.