Another Adventure in Hefei

Karyn forgot to mention one event about our shopping trip out in Hefei. Our guide warned us that when we ventured out without her, the locals would be very curious about who we were and why we had Chinese babies. She gave us badges written in Chinese to wear around our necks to explain that we had adopted these children and that we promised to love and care for them etc. After the families had lunch at Pizza Hut, the older kids and a few of the adults went to get some Dairy Queen. By the way, the Green Tea and Brownie Blizzard was pretty gross, but that's another story.... While the gang was getting their ice cream, 2 other parents and I waited outside with the children. The locals started coming around and we showed them our badges. They read them but didn't walk away. They stayed and looked at the babies and motioned for more people to come over. Soon people simply saw a crowd and started coming over to see what everyone was looking at. Before we knew it, the crowd was 6 people deep and we were totally surrounded. We were so uncomfortable. Some of the women were touching the babies and one asked me, "Why you come here?" They don't seem to have the same personal space boundaries that we have and we were dying to get out of there but couldn't escape. They were actually pushing us and we became concerned for our safety and that of the babies. After about 10 minutes, one of the moms came out of the Dairy Queen and was wondering what everyone was gathered looking at. When she saw it was us, she quickly broke up the crowd and helped us get out. I told her to go back and tell Karyn what had happened and that we were leaving right away. We escaped the mob and chalked it up to another adventure in Hefei! Whew!!! I needed some ice cream after that!
Tricia