There’s a new interview in Time Magazine with the director of the Ho Ch Minh City, Vietnam orphanage where Angelina adopted Pax, formerly Pham Quang Sang. The director says that Pax was the only orphan boy of the 31 others his age that met Angelina’s specifications. She requested a boy betwen 3 and 5 that was healthy with no known relatives, and Pax was the only one who had no medical issues and no outside visitors.

Since Pax was one of the few up for adoption, it is likely that he would have been taken in by another family:

As it happened, according to Trung, when the actress Angelina Jolie applied to Vietnam through an agency asking for a healthy boy between ages 3 and 5, Pax happened to be the only one at Tam Binh orphanage who met the criteria. There were 31 other boys the same age, but all of them had relatives or were not “healthy.” “Only Sang met the set criteria for adoption in general and her request,” Trung said. “She was lucky at the time she applied that there was this boy who met the request and criteria.” (Vietnam’s national adoption director says that he prepared 10 dossiers of boys, including those at other orphanages, in response to Jolie’s original application and criteria.)

“In past years, we have received so many applications for adoptions but few children really meet with the requirements,” Tam Binh’s director Trung continues. “In so many cases, they are not totally or really abandoned — they still have parents out there and sometimes even other family who come to visit them. For example, the mother may have been sent to jail or is in a mental institution, or the parents may have leprosy — so we cannot let them go.” Some of the children also have physical or mental handicaps that make them harder to place. In the end, only about 30% of Tam Binh’s children eventually get adopted. The same situation applies to the rest of the country’s orphanages. In fact, in the group picture of Tam Binh orphans that circulated shortly after the adoption took place, the boy who is now Pax Thien Jolie was the only child in the portrait who was eligible for adoption, according to Trung. “None of the others in the photo are slated for adoption.”

Trung describes Pax Thien (a name in two languages, the Latin for “peace” and the Vietnamese for “sky”) as a bright and amiable boy,though with a tendency to be laughing one moment and then turning suddenly shy, as he apparently did when he started crying when he met Jolie on the day he was adopted. “It’s common for ophans to be shy. When they play in a group or team, he’s very active, but shy once separated…”

If Jolie had not whisked him from the orphanage to instant fame, Pax Thien most likely would have ended up being adopted by another, probably foreign, family, because of the intense overseas demand. “At present, there are more [foreign] requests for adoptions than there are eligible children for adoptions,” says Vu Duc Long, head of Vietnam’s International Adoption Department, which is part of the Ministry of Justice. “There is more demand than supply.” Last year, 163 U.S. parents adopted Vietnamese children, making Vietnam the 14th most popular adoption source. (China is number 1 with more than 6,000 U.S. adoptions in the same period.)

The article goes on to quote Pax’s caregiver at the orphanage, a woman named Bui Thi Bach Tuyen, who says that it’s sad that he’s gone but people are proud of him and happy for his new life.

She also said that she wished she could have told Angelina what Pax likes to eat, but that since he enjoys Western food like yogurt and spaghetti he should be ok.

Pax’s original name, Pham Quang Sang, is common in Vietnam and means “bright light.” It is likely the only thing that his mother, who abandoned him right after he was born, left him. In Vietnam hospitals they often have laboring mothers specify boy and girl names in case they die in childbirth. Authorities tried for 30 days after he was abondoned to contact Sang’s parents, but were unsuccessful.

There’s a lot of controversy over whether Angelina did the right thing by renaming the boy and spending just 30 minutes at the orphanage before taking him from the only home he’s known.

The Enquirer is quoting “experts” like Dr. Joyce Brothers as saying that “Angelina should have done it better,” and “he should have been better prepared for [leaving the only world he knows]”

Brothers says that “Angelina should have spent more time with the boy before they left, saying what was happening.” And they quote another Hollywood psychiatrist, Dr. Nathan Kuemmerle, as saying “I am startled that Angelina Jolie would so abruptly disrupt the apparante three-year-old bond between Pax and his primary caregiver. It could potentially traumatize the child.”

The Enquirer also has an “exclusive” interview with Pax’s caregiver:

Bui Thi Bich Tuyen – a nurse and the substitute mom who cared for the 3-year-old from infact – told The Enquirer:

“It all happened so quickly.

He’s now surrounded by strangers. He will be asking for me, but no one will understand what he’s saying. There was no time for me to say goodbye.”

[From The Enquirer print edition, April 2, 2007]

Hopefully Brad and Angelina will hire a translator and work to ensure that the rest of the transition goes more smoothly for little Pax. It’s got to be a lot for the child to take in.

Here are pictures of Angelina, Pax, Zahara and Maddox boarding a plane to return home from Vietnam that you’ve already seen.