Play the Game of Life - Ryan Petersen's Blog

From the outset of the European age of discovery, Guangzhou's merchant class rightfully perceived the arrival of explorers and subsequent stream of traders as a threat to their business interests. Recognizing that possible benefits from trade did exist as long as the trade was conducted on terms favorable to the Chinese, the city restricted Europeans to the Pearl River island of Sha Mian. Isolated from the rest of Guangzhou society, the Westerners set up residences, churches and prosperous trading houses on the sandy outcrop. In the ensuing centuries, the colonial-style buildings survived Opium wars, revolutions, communist purges and the ravages of industrialization.

Still relatively isolated from Guangzhou's bustling activity, Sha Mian Dao continues to provide a haven for western tourists. Most of those staying on the tiny island are Americans who've come to get paperwork for their newly adopted Chinese babies at the U.S. consulate, located on the Sha Mian's southwestern edge. Babies are picked up by their new American parents from orphanages across China and brought to this office, which as it turns out, is the only branch that processes adoption applications.

The result of this steady flow of new American failies is a bustling crafts and souvenir industry on the island, centered around the luxurious White Swan hotel. Indeed, in the two years since my first visit I've noticed that a half dozen of the island's restaurants have gone out of business, replaced by even more little shops hawking the same cheesy gifts. All business on the island, including that of the massive White Swan hotel, rests precariously on American imigration policies regarding adoptions. A temporary disruption in this flow would surely result in severe hardship for hundreds of people here in Sha Mian. In the meantime, business is as good as ever.

Over the past few centuries in which China has undergone several earth-shifting transformations, Sha Mian has managed to transition from a center of the opium trade to China's main center for the export of babies blessed with the opportunity for a new life.