Read Online Wish You Happy Forever by Jenny Bowen - Free Book Online

and the reception room full of oranges, and the little bird-mouthed babies.
    I despised Director Kong and his toupee and Mrs. Li and the lazy ayi s and even the nice ladies who did nothing more than pour tea and peel oranges. How on earth would I get all those children out of that place?
    Still snuffling, I undressed for bed, brushed my teeth, and tried to cook up a rescue plan. I’d set up a private-care home. We’d move to China and use the money from selling our house and we’d build something like a residential school and nursery. Or maybe I’d go back to that orphanage tomorrow and somehow gather them all up and . . . what?
    I splashed water on my face and looked in the bathroom mirror (85 yuan ).
    What if I did? How many could I save? What about their thousands upon thousands of sisters? Was it all truly impossible?
    But maybe it’s not Mrs. Li’s fault. Not even the smarmy director’s fault. Maybe it’s the system that’s rotten. There is no system. Broken. Broken. Broken. That’s what has to change.
    Don’t fight the people. Join them. Fix it together. Write a new story.
    Strangely relieved, I slept a solid three hours before popping up, wide-awake. It was 4:00 A.M. That’s 1:00 P.M . in California; I called home. Dick was reassuring as always. “With you all the way, honey,” he said. “But I’d rather not run an orphanage in China.”
    â€œNo, me either. Put Maya on, okay?”
    He tried. Came back.
    â€œShe doesn’t want to talk to you. I asked her if she was angry with you for going to China. She said she wasn’t.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œHang on—“
    â€œWhat’s she saying?”
    â€œShe says she’s not angry. But she might be tomorrow.”
    THE NEXT DAY , as our minibus plowed through Beijing traffic, Madame Miao snapped her cell phone shut.
    â€œGood news!” she said. “We have received permission to visit institutions in three provinces! You will go to the south! Now, in the capable hands of Mrs. Zhang Zhirong, you will have a big trip!”
    â€œThat’s fantastic! And after we’ve visited, will they allow us to select which of the places we want to work?”
    Madame Miao smiled and completely ignored the question. Even a China dummy like me could see from that smile that there was no point in pushing for an answer. Nobody had ever said we could actually do what we proposed.
    I first became aware of the China Smile at an ever-so-brief meeting with a government official the morning before we left for Shijiazhuang. Ministry of Civil Affairs Section Chief Ma, a small man with a perfectly round face and perfectly round eyeglasses, came to the hotel to join us for breakfast and see us off.
    Before the meeting, Mrs. Zhang had told me he was an important connection from the very government ministry that would be essential to our work. As she explained it, the Ministry of Civil Affairs sounded like a cross between today’s U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, among other things: “It is responsible for welfare—for old people, poor people, mentally sick, handicapped, veterans, and orphans. Also NGOs and funerals and disasters and riots. This is a good sign, that Section Chief Ma wishes to meet you.”
    It was only day two, and already anything that woman told me was golden. I did my best to charm the section chief. I told him my story and about my desire to help. I explained what I understood about the developmental stages of children and about how we might help at each stage. The whole time I talked, he smiled. The smile was fixed; his eyes, behind their round frames, were absolutely blank. I could read nothing. Suddenly paranoid, I wondered whether Mrs. Zhang was actually translating anything I was saying. She assured me she was. It was kind of like the old song lyrics, “Your lips tell me no-no, but there’s yes-yes in your