Ron and Keai's Excellent Chinese Adventure

Now my main reason for going to China was not to actually purchase knock off name brands, but rather to bring a little boy named Keai Sun from Shanghai to Austin. He is 7 years old and was born with a condition called Tetralogy of Fallot, which is a congenital heart defect resulting in low oxygenation of the blood. If left untreated the survival rate is approximately 75% after the first year of life, 60% by four years, 30% by ten years, and 5% by forty years. An organization called the Chinese Agape Foundation has arranged for the donated medical care for Keai in Austin. Keai comes from Shandong province. His mother is deceased, apparently having become affected with "mental disease" after they found out about Keai's condition. He lives with his father and grandparents on a farm where they grow soybeans and sweet potatoes. As in many cases, the parent cannot travel with the child, so Airline Ambassadors (http://www.airlineamb.org/) provides a Flight Attendant escort.

I arrived at the airport a few hours before departure. My English speaking contact was a lady named Vivian. She and Keai and his father would be waiting by my airline's ticket counter. As I approached the seating area, I could see Keai was visibly upset. He was crying and clinging to his father, obviously scared to death. The ground staff at Shanghai had been alerted of our trip and they had blocked two seats in the front row of coach for us. It gave us a little more room since we had no seats in front of us. Vivian, my contact person, had to go to work, so it was just me and Keai and his father.

When it was time to go thru passport control, the Premium Services manager named Barbie Wu came to help us. Keai became hysterical, throwing himself on the floor, screaming at the top of his lungs. Because of his condition, when he goes into a "tet spell" he curls up in a little ball. I guess by nature, Chinese people are very inquisitive and helpful and several people were gathered around us, talking to him, consoling him. Barbie, the agent helping me, told me they were trying to encourage him and tell him that it would be ok. The next thing I know, his father starts hitting him, trying to get him to behave. Almost immediately, three little old Chinese ladies start hitting the dad, trying to make him stop. It was like Chinese Jerry Springer. I could not believe it was happening.

I finally motioned for the father to leave, as I knew we would never get anywhere with him there whomping on his son. A few minutes later, I decided it was now or never, and I scooped him up in my arms, Barbie took all the hand baggage and we made our way to passport control. Keai was kicking and screaming, hitting on me, grabbing onto a pole, you name it. I kept rubbing his back, making a "shhhhh" sound, trying to be calming. About two minutes later, he suddenly gave up and was perfectly calm.


We made it thru passport control with no problem and went to our departure gate. Barbie went and got Keai some chocolate milk tea (which sounds gross). I asked her the word in Chinese for friend, which is phonetically pronounced "shu-shu". Literally it means uncle, but it is a word for someone who is your friend who is older than you.

We boarded early so we had time to get settled, and I took him to the lavatory to "neow-neow" which means to pee. The crew we had taking us back was the same crew that I flew over with so they knew the reason for my trip. They all came over and gave him lots of attention.

Keai was really enthralled with his personal video monitor, which had a channel of cartoons, even though they were in English.

I tried to get him to eat a little, and munched on some snacks, but he really had no interest in eating. Shortly after the meal service, he passed out and slept for the remaining 13 hours of our flight.

When we arrived at Chicago, the Customs and Immigration Hall was chaos. Even though he did not really need it, we requested a wheelchair because it would allow us to jump to the front of the line for clearing passport control. A Flight Service Manager named Keith met our inbound to help with the connection, and Annie and Lani, the two Chinese speakers from our flight, stayed with us as well. The airline had arranged for Annie, who commuted from DFW, to travel on our flight to DFW, to help us out. Unfortunately, the flights to DFW were all delayed because of weather, and it looked like we would miss our Austin connection, so Keith, the FSM, got Keai and I changed to the nonstop to Austin that departed at 10pm. It would not get us into Austin until 1am, but it eliminated the possibility of us being stranded. Annie took Keai to McDonalds to try to get him to eat something while Keith and I worked on getting the tickets changed. We met up in the Crew Lounge after that, and Annie was kind enough to stay with us until her delayed flight to DFW departed at 8pm.

We spent the rest of the time in Chicago playing with some toys I had gotten for him. He liked the Hot Wheels cars and the little wind up airplane, and he taught me how to write Chinese, while I taught him how to write in English. Note his stick figure compared to mine. He also discovered my camera and started taking tons of pictures of me.

He had refused to go to the bathroom since we left Shanghai, so I finally took matters into my own hands and took him to restroom and got him to pee. I then brushed his teeth and noticed he had lots of little black spots of decay, so I made a note to tell the folks in Austin about it so they can possibly arrange some free dental care for him.

We left a few minutes late for Austin, but made up most of the time enroute. We slept most of the way there, as we had been traveling for 24 hours at this point. When we got to Austin, we were presented with a care package that the folks at DFW Flight Service had put together for him (they had sent it along earlier that evening when we determined we would not be going thru Dallas). Keai was thrilled to get more toys. He had commented earlier to Annie that he had never had so many nice things before.

His foster family was waiting for us outside the security checkpoint in Austin. The host dad, Marshall, also speaks Chinese, so I think that will help Keai with his transition. He actually will only be in the states until early October, as the recovery time for his operation is only about a month.

I had planned to stay with my friend Jenny, but since we arrived about two hours later than planned, I just went to a local hotel near the airport. Jenny and her son came to have lunch with me the next day before flying out, so at least I still got to visit with them.

I always said my escort trip with the little three year old, George Owinikoko, to Africa was my favorite trip ever, but I really bonded with this little boy. I hope that my schedule will permit me to take him home in October so we can see each other again.