Friday April 10th, 2009, 7:00 p.m.
I sit on a couch in an apartment located in the modern complex of Feng Ye Xin Du Shi. The chest of the baby I hold in my lap rises and falls as the lungs it contains grasp for a breath of cool, refreshing air. A series of short, raspy coughs pierce the silence every ten seconds, arising from the throats of the fifteen other babies that surround me. The life I hold in my hands is that of Nick, an adorable baby boy who arrived at the orphanage one week ago. Although he is already two months old, he weighs as much as a premature newborn, and has the heart problems of a seventy-year old living off a diet of french-fries and hamburgers. A fold sprouting from his top lip, rising up through his nose, makes feeding him a grueling task; formula creates a river down his chin and onto his periwinkle onsie.
Nick looks up at me. Despite the grief they’ve witnessed, his eyes are the epitome innocence and purity. His pencil thin fingers wrap around my thumb like boa constrictors, and although he has one of the softest touches, he locks me into this moment.
I lift him up and into his bed as he drifts to sleep. His shaven head has left a pool of sweat in the inside of my elbow; Nick’s fever is spiking.
Friday April 10th, 2009, 9:00 p.m.
I sit on a couch in an apartment located in the modern complex of Feng Ye Xin Du Shi. The chest of the baby I hold in my lap rises and falls as the lungs in contains take a break from laughter in order to inhale a breath of cool, refreshing air. This is my host sister Xin Xin, and this brief moment of tranquility is broken by a scream. “Maya!” arises from her vocal cords, ands rings through my ears. Although her face is only six inches away from my own, she proceeds to speak to me as if I’m at the other side of the apartment. I play along, slapping my hands together during hand games and singing along to songs that play on the fifty-seven inch flat-screen TV.
We stand up and begin dancing, marking the beginning of Xin Xin’s pesky antics. Our hands and hips bounce to the lighthearted beating of drums, and when I look down at my feet I notice a splotch of liquid spreading from my toes to the arch of my foot. Xin Xin has spit on me, one of her new favorite activities, and begins chasing me around the house, her mouth like a gun to my newly washed clothes. “Huai!” I repeat over and over as I dodge the balls of saliva that fly through the air like grenades. She is enthralled with our little game of cat and mouse, but after about three minutes gets bored, and decides to start throwing calendars at me.
* * *
Being in Xi’an for the past two months, I’ve become immersed in the lives of young children around me. When I’m not playing with my younger sister, I’m feeding and changing babies at the orphanage, both rewarding and special in their own way. At the same time, the two worlds of the children I play with clash. I often find myself resentful of the spoiled life that Xin Xin leads, surrounded by any toy she could ever want, and all the family members she could ever need. She throws tantrums when her parents say no to the simplest things, but I’ve found that her tears yield little sympathy for me. Contrasting with this is the life of the children at the orphanage, who have next to nothing, but remain calm and content. When they cry I know that it is because they are truly suffering, and I cry with them on the inside.
To Xin Xin’s defense, under her tantrums and pesky antics lies a girl I have become attached to, a girl who I know will grow up to be caring and generous. Sometimes though, during her frequent tantrums, I want to grasp Xin Xin by the arms and drag her to that other couch in that other apartment in Feng Ye Xin Du Shi.