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INTRO

YANMEI

DAJI

TRIPS TO CHINA

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INTRODUCTION

DAJI

APPROVAL PROCESS

TRIPS TO CHINA

NEW HOME

YIWU

DAJI

"The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step"
(Ancient Chinese proverb)

Our journey to collect our second son, Daji, started in September 2000, six months after we had brought our adopted daughter, Yanmei, home from China. Two and a half years later, we again stood in front of passport control at Copenhagen Airport, again proud, but this time also concerned parents.

Collecting Daji in Hangzhou, China, was a very different and far more challenging experience than collecting Yanmei, two and a half years earlier. You may already have read Yanmei's story, if so, please keep it in mind when reading the following pages.

The description of our second incredible journey to China is split into four parts:

The first section describes the approval process; i.e. the process that we went through to be approved as adopters of a second child, and the actual referral, which was far more complete than in Yanmei's case. 

The second section describes our trip to China, to collect Daji, and the ups and downs of our first few days together.

When adopting from China, it is necessary to write two status reports that are sent to the Chinese authorities; one after six months and one after a year. In conjunction with this, our Social Worker made two visits to meet Daji and write a report following each visit. We will also made two reports on Daji during his first 3 months in Denmark. All these reports will be included in the third section, Daji's New Home, together with other titbits of information that we have noted during Daji's early years in Denmark. 

The final section describes what we know about the environment where Daji's first years were spent, that is before he came to Denmark. The Yiwu Social Welfare Institute has a long history of adoptions (we estimate, based on information on the Yiwu site on Yahoo, that more than 200 families have adopted from Yiwu at the end of 2002) and several families have already visited Yiwu and it's orphanage.