TongShan Social Welfare Institute

Ni Hao!!

Welcome to our website, which is meant to be enjoyed by adoptive parents and their children from Tongshan, Hubei Province, China. Thank you for visiting! If you are an adoptive parent of a child form Tongshan, we encourage you to make full use of this website, and add your own experiences and information. As we put together each of our own small pieces of information and experience, we an see a better picture of our children’s birthplace. As adoptive parents, we know first hand the dearth of information we are given concerning our children’s history.

The goal is to have a place on the web where families who have adopted from TongShan SWI in China can come to learn about their child's birth place, to share information, and to continue to have communication with each other and perhaps with the orphanage itself in the future. We believe this information is vital and rewarding, not just for ourselves, but more importantly for our children in the future.

Tongshan is a city located about 60 miles south of Wuhan, which is the capitol of Hubei Province (central China) - located at the head of a reservoir.

"Tong" means "to pass through"; "Shan" means "Mountain". To reach the City of TongShan, you must literally "pass through the mountain" to get there. It is surrounded on all sides by mountains. Here is some information on TongShan received from the orphanage director:

(Emailed to Gary McClain, Nov 9, 1999)

> TongShan county is located in a mountainous area. It has a
> population of about 400,000 with 80,000 in TongShan town
> which is the main town of the county. It is an agricultural
> county where a lot of people are farmers. But they also
> produce marble. Orange and kiwi fruit are famous fruits in
> this county.
>
> TongShan Social Welfare Institute is not as large as the
> other ones in the big cities. There are only 28 children in
> it at the moment.

So, please feel free to roam our website, and please email to let us know if any information is incorrect, or if you have more to add, something to alter, or pictures to share. Email Terri at tongshantoomuchblue.com.

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