One FCC Dad Finds Artistic Way to Bring China Into His Daughter's Life

by Tony Johnson	


	Last November, my wife Sarah and I traveled to Hefei in the Annhui province of China to adopt an 11-month-old baby girl, Zoe (born 12/30/00).
	
	While waiting to travel, we discovered several exquisite antique Chinese advertising prints from the 1920s and 30s. They featured delicate portraits of beautiful Chinese ladies - dressed in western clothes but in traditional settings. We wanted to buy one. But they were selling for several hundred dollars, and we were saving our money for our trip to China. 
	
	For months we'd talk about them, wishing we could afford them. Then one day while wandering through an antique store, we came across an old covered urn. We opened the lid, and pulled out half a dozen of the posters - one more beautiful than the next. There were no price tags, so we asked the proprietor, rambling on about our pending adoption and trip to China, and how we've been fascinated with these posters, and how expensive they are, but how much we wanted to bring Chinese culture into our home for our new little girl. He was touched, and he sold them to us for a song. 
	
	During the months leading up to our trip, whenever we looked at them, our anxieties would dissipate - as if we were never anxious to begin with.  And before we knew it, we were packed and off to China for our true miracle - the adoption of our beautiful daughter Zoe. 
When we brought Zoe home, it dawned on us that we had purchased the posters the same month Zoe was born. We were so glad to be able to have in our home a gift for her, a taste of China at a very special time and place -- when East met West for the first time in the modern era. That was when two cultures came together and created an amalgamated culture better than either one was on its own...very much like our east-west families: each member better off together than on their own. 
	
	Since then, I've been collecting reproductions of the vintage Chinese posters. Though by trade I run a piano business, I now sell the posters, a new venture that is an extension of the adoption, a labor of love. 

	My business, Great China Walls, will donate 10% of all proceeds to my daughter's orphanage, Ma'anshan Welfare Institute. In addition, 10% will be matched and  the money given to various Chinese adoption organizations.

	The posters have been extremely popular with adoptive families, because I think all of us are searching for new and interesting ways to keep Chinese culture alive.  Many families buy one or two and frame them for their daughter's room. But another popular thing is to buy "damaged" posters, which I sell in bundles of 5 or 10. They're great for little girls to cut the posters up, and paste the pictures on old trunks or table tops. It is my sincere hope that these posters will enhance the home of anyone who has adopted a little daughter from China, and assuage the anxieties of anyone waiting for their referral.

	Tony Johnson lives in New York City, and is a member of the St. Louis FCC Chapter. He was a vendor at this year's Culture Day.  To view the posters mentioned above, visit  HYPERLINK "http://www.greatchinawalls.com" www.greatchinawalls.com