China's a pretty big place, and just like any other pretty big place, it's provinces and regions are distinct and have their own unique identities. Given that, I thought it might be helpful to those of you who are following our journey to know a little bit about the region where Liann was born.
Liann is living at the moment at the Chongqing Fuling First Social Welfare Institute. If you're interested, there's a terrific website created by families of children adopted from Fuling called "Fuling Kids International" (www.fulingkids.org).
In China, Fuling is a district in the Chongqing Municipality. It has a population of slightly more than 1 million people in 2941 sq. km. (according to Wikipedia). Chongqing (which means "double celebration") is one of four of China's provincial-level municipalities; while provinces (like Hunan or Sichuan) are the most common type of province-level division, China's four municipalities have the same administrative level as a province. Beijing is another of China's municipalities, for example. In theory, municipalities are large cities; but Chongqing is an example where the rural population is greater than the urban population. Chongqing has over 32 million people within its borders, most of them living outside of the city, over hundreds of miles of farmland. In 2004, Chongqing ranked as the 10th largest urban area of China.
Chongqing is located in central China, at the edge of the Yungui Plateau, and is intersected by the Jialing River and the upper reaches of the Yangtze. It is very hilly, and gets very hot and humid in the summer; Greg has seen a quote calling it "China's furnace." The controversial Three Gorges Dam, in the Three Gorges area between Yichang and Fuling, has been under construction since 1994; its reservoir began filling in 2003 and is expected to be complete in 2009; it will be the largest hydroelectric dam in the world when it is complete.
Culinary-wise, Fuling is known for the "Fuling Pickle," made from a large, radish-like vegetable. Chongqing is known for its many different types of hotpots. A hotpot has a soup base, usually very spicy. This pot of boiling soup is placed in the middle of the table, where diners put a variety of vegetables and meat in it to cook and eat.
So all told, I think the region where Liann was born is going to be fascinating to see and learn about first-hand. And I can't wait to taste the hotpot.
Posted by heartstringsoh
at 3:49 PM EDT
