chinese adoption

bhyt · Joined: 10 Jun 2007 Posts: 173

aww the baby is so cute

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6897567.stm

Our lone twin from China
Charlie, Jo and Evie
Charlie and Jo with baby Evie

By Jane Ashley and Emily Buchanan
BBC Radio 4's China Girl

Soon after bringing this little girl home from a Chinese orphanage, her British parents proudly posted photos of her online - only for it to reveal that she has an identical twin sister, also adopted abroad.

Adoption from China is a gruelling process, which takes many years. And Wiltshire couple Jo and Charlie have found it can bring dramatic surprises.

Children in rows of cots in a Chinese orphanage
The one-child policy in parts of China means abandoned children
"People think you are just going out, there are some nice smiley children in a row, we'll have that one, we're just picking a fruit off a tree," says Charlie.

It couldn't be more different. First there is a home study by British social services. Once approved, there are mounds of paperwork to amass, which the UK government processes and forwards to the authorities in China. Finally the long wait - currently several years - to be matched with a child.

Jo works for an animal conservation charity and Charlie in the airline industry. They are what's known as "preferential adopters" - couples who, although able to have biological children, chose to adopt. "We just felt there are enough kids on the planet that aren't being loved," says Charlie.

Just over three years after they began their adoption journey, last November Jo and Charlie went to China to collect the baby they had been matched with. They called her Evie, keeping her Chinese name as a second option.

Evie
Evie, now almost two
Adoptive couples don't get any information on the birth parents as abandonment is illegal in China, but Jo and Charlie often think about who they might be. "I'm endlessly curious," says Jo. "I look at her face and think 'Are those eyes her mother's?'"

And then, two months after coming home, the couple made a chance discovery that their daughter had an identical twin who had been adopted by a family who live far from the UK. Both families belong to an e-mail group for the orphanage.

"I had put some photos of Evie up there and they saw her," Jo says. "We were shocked. Having believed Evie would never know any of her blood relatives, we now have as close a blood relative as you can get."

Mirror image

When they were in China, the other parents had been allowed to visit the orphanage, unlike Jo and Charlie who had adopted Evie first.

Your instant reaction is she's my baby too - I want her here, but we would never dream of doing that
Jo on Evie's twin

Child and prejudice
"It dawned on us that maybe the reason we weren't allowed to go was because we would have seen the other little girl," says Charlie.

The families are now in regular contact, speaking over Skype, using webcams and e-mail, and sending each other DVDs.

When she sees photos of Evie's twin, Jo is torn. "Your instant reaction is she's my baby too. I want her here. And we would never dream of doing that. Neither family ever thought we should reunite them permanently. They are both settled and very happy. But I went through a stage of being really wobbly about it. She's a part of Evie and Evie is a part of her sister."

She hopes the two families might meet up when the children are older, possibly back in China. "I'd personally like the girls to be able to understand it and remember their first meeting."

And there might, after all, be a trail to Evie's birth parents. In China, identical twins are thought very special indeed and Jo and Charlie think someone would have known about them.

Evie
Evie steps into her new life
"It's unusual for kids from China to be able to go back and do that," says Charlie "Some of these kids grow up with a hole inside them because a part isn't there, part of the story that forever will be missing. I genuinely believe that Evie and her sister have this chance that isn't offered to many kids who are adopted from China. Whether she takes it up is her option, but at least that option is there."

More than ever, the birth parents are on the couple's mind. They would love to be able to let them know that their daughters have found each other.

"They must occasionally wonder what happened to their two girls and it would be fantastic if we could at some point reassure them that their kids were being looked after. They are so loved," says Charlie.

China Girl is broadcast in the UK on BBC Radio 4 on 16 and 23 July at 1100 BST, then online for seven days on Radio 4's Listen again page.

sunnyoyk · Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 382 Location: London

* * * * *
Once they were two women who never knew each other.
One you do not remember, the other you call mother.
Two different lives shaped to make you one.
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun.
And now you asked me, through your tears,
the old-age question unanswered through the years.
Heredity or environment, which are you a product of?
Neither, my darling. Neither.
Just two different kind of love.
* * * * *

The above moving poem is written by an un-known adoptive mother to Mothers' Bridge of Love (MBL), a charity founded by the author, Xinran. There are lots of mothers' stories from adoptive families all over the world in MBL. Logon to:
http://motherbridge.org/MBLKIDS/default.asp
_________________
sunnyoy

sunnyoyk · Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 382 Location: London

Went to see the performance by East-West Children Arts Troupe from Nanjing Biaxia Children's Palace (China) in London on 18.08.07 to a packed audience. The event was organised by the Mothers' Bridge of Love (MBL), a charity founded by the author, Xinran.

Good to see a number of English families bringing their adopted children from China to see the show. It was a moving occasion to see so many happy, pretty and smiling children with their adoptive parents.

According to Xinran, there are now over 1,000 families in the UK who have adopted children from China, and over 100,000 Chinese babies have been adopted by families from 27 countries world wide now.

ex-VAG · Joined: 13 Dec 2006 Posts: 445

Are/were they mostly girls that are adopted? Saw a documentary on the adoption in China and it seemed like it was mostly girls.

sunnyoyk · Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 382 Location: London

Yes, ex-VAG, I saw mostly " girls " in the said performance above. Sadly, most of the baby girls in Chinese Orphanage in China are abandoned by their parents. Hopefully, these lucky adopted children will have a good and better life in the West with their adoptive parents.

sunnyoyk · Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Posts: 382 Location: London

From China With Love - (A Long Road to Motherhood)
A book written by EMILY BUCHANAN.

Emily Buchanan, presenter of a BBC Radio 4 Programme 'China Girl' recently, is herself an adoptive mother of two Chinese girls from China. The book 'From China With Love' is a factual, honest and candid account of a mother's journey in adopting two daughters from China.

When Emily Buchanan got married, she, like most married woman, rightly assumed children would soon follow. But the journey to motherhood was to be a long and painful one.

Three miscarriages later she found herself struggling against the stigma of infertility and doubts if she could or should, ever become a mother. So, she decided it was time to look for adoption.

Her desire to adopt a very young child meant looking abroad yet, as a journalist, Emily knew only too well the sad plight of some children in the developing world who were trafficked to Western couples. She was determined that her child should come from a country where adoption was more regulated and China, where many baby girls are abandoned, seemed an obvious choice. It was a road that took her through an ardous adoption process which made her again confront the life and tragic death of her own mother.

Eventually the mountain of bureacratic and emotional challenges gave way to the utter joy of bringing up Jade and Rose, her two lovely Chinese daughters.

ex-VAG · Joined: 13 Dec 2006 Posts: 445

mei lin · Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 14 Location: UK

I'm new here and found this thread via a semi-unrelated google search- not sure if anyone will even read this!

in response to the following:(sorry I haven't quoted properly)

"Yes, ex-VAG, I saw mostly " girls " in the said performance above. Sadly, most of the baby girls in Chinese Orphanage in China are abandoned by their parents. Hopefully, these lucky adopted children will have a good and better life in the West with their adoptive parents."

"So it looks like we're going the same way as the indians and discarding girls in favour of boys, disappointing."

As an adoptive mother to be, I'd really like to point out if anyone is interested that the situation is not as simple as 'discarding girls instead of boys'.
Speaking as a woman: I defy anyone to really believe that the majority of women who, after carrying offspring inside her for 9 months would ever just 'discard' that child.

1)Be aware that there is NO social security in China. Even now, it is normal for a daughter to leave her family once married and take care of her in-laws. With one child , what happens to her parents when they are old, perhaps infirm in an unheated house in the countryside? With a son, things are different normally. He'll be expected to bring in a wife. She will help out.

2)If you are a family with an 'unauthorised' (additional) pregnancy, and you wish to keep your baby, you are liable to a very large fine. What happens to your family if you have not got the money? See point 1) for a reason why a male child might be kept and a daughter given up.

3)Things are definitely getting better but contraception is not that easy to get hold of in all parts of the country. So if something unexpected happens, how do you think the parents feel? see the previous points for reasons why a male child might be kept and a daughter given up.

3)Lastly,with the greatest of respect, I cannot believe I have just read someone say "Hopefully, these lucky adopted children will have a good and better life in the West with their adoptive parents" !!!!!! I honestly thought (hoped?) that attitude towards children died out already.......
MOST of us who have spent YEARS in the intercountry adoption process DO NOT regard our children as the lucky ones. WE are the lucky ones privileged to be parents to children who for a variety of reasons cannot be looked after by their birth families.

We do hope that our children will have good lives with us, but we are under no illusion that for any child to have lost at least one set of carers may be trauma that takes much to overcome. Sorry, but being in the West doesn't sort everything out.

I hope that maybe someone will read this and maybe some things may well have been clarified!
My husband and I will soon be with our child and I for one do not want people to misunderstand how/why she OR he is with us.

BTW I am Eurasian, he's a Scottish Celt and we would love a world in which no child is unwanted/unplanned/unable to remain with loving family......we'll keep dreaming on for THAT to happen.....

quietman · Joined: 26 Nov 2007 Posts: 72 Location: Liverpool

When sunnyoyk wrote "Hopefully, these lucky adopted children will have a good and better life in the West with their adoptive parents" I think that he/she meant that as adopted kids in the West, the children would probably get better care and attention than in a Chinese orphanage, where the children would most likey have less individual attention given to them. Their future health, education and job prospects would probably be improved too.

mei lin · Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 14 Location: UK

Quietman: I totally accept that.

Please understand: I felt anxious about the "discarding" comment.
Many many people don't know a lot about adoption from CHina and I felt that it was necessary , in this forum more than anywhere else, to try and explain away some misconceptions.
As Charlie talks about in the first message of the thread, we think so much about what the birth parents have had to go thru'. And so many people look down on the decisions they have had to make without understanding.

Jeff Minter · Joined: 31 Aug 2006 Posts: 342

These adoptive parents don't have a clue about the impact it has on the kids' homeland. The male to female ratio in China is ludicrous - something like 125 men to 100 women. Lonely, disgruntled men leads to violence and social unrest - something their government don't want. Sooner or later, when they can afford it, there will be incentives for parents to keep girls - but right now, with foreign couples like the one above grabbing girls from there, they are making an already difficult problem far worse.

I have never heard of a case of western adopters picking boys; why is this, exactly? The "cute" factor? Or are there more sinister, subconscious motives i.e. depriving their native population of the chances of continuing families? They must know that with 99% certainty the children of their little girl won't be chinese anymore. Meanwhile in China, another male is deprived the chance of a family thanks to western adopters. Going from the stats from a previous poster, that's 100,000 extra men on the scrapheap, with no chance of a family. Add that to the 25% surplus already and you have a big problem.

If anything, they should focus on adopting boys instead of girls from China; not only will this give them the joy of children (as they would expect), but it alleviates the huge gender difference that will no doubt cause trouble in China.

Or maybe that's what they want... after all, as long as the kid is over here, why does it matter to them?

Jeff Minter · Joined: 31 Aug 2006 Posts: 342

pensggs · Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 372

Jeff,

The problems around the world are beyond the control of one single normal person. The institutionised discrimination and racial problem are beyond the control of one single normal person.

Leaving a discarded child in an orphanage does no one any favours.

Yes there is going to be a problem of 'not enough girls'around for the 'boys in China in the very near future. The problem is so acute that girls are being kidnapped by 'recently rich families' to raise as 'future wife' for those so fortunate 'boys only' family. The is where the Confucius philosophy caused problems for China today.

However, girls marrying aboard happened for generations. My grandmother was such a bride; a marriage arranged between families to an overseas Chinese in the early 1900s.

Mei Lin would have rescued an abandoned child from the orphanage, give that child an opportunity. That is one less 'unloved soul' in the world.

In my own extended families, there were adoptions of abandoned girls. They were not from China. They were very much loved and treasured becoming successful woman, successful in their own right regardless of husbands.

Mei Lin has much love to give to an abandoned child, regardless of the sex. The fact her choice was limited to 'girls only' that is not her problem nor within her control. So, making her feel guilty about her forthcoming arrival of her 'new family' is unfair. As to dealing with racial discrimination and prejudice, I am sure Mei Lin is aware of this as a Eurasian, and capable of preparing her child to deal with its adverse effects. Adversity builds character and there are many non-White persons in UK who had 'rise' above the disadvantages of not being white in UK.

China needs to address this problem of 'not enough girls' in China so does India. There are discrimination and prejudice, it is up to each and everyone of us to address this problem. At least in UK it is not written into its constitution and there are laws against racial discrimination. There is no law against prejudice only the need for education and conversation. Prejudice can be dealt with by dialogue.

And I am not a 'White' or 'Eurasian'. I speak as a person who had encountered all those prejudice and racial and sex discrimination, which affected my careers and my everyday life in UK. I also spoke as a person who had 'fought legally' to bring those abusers to account.

Jeff, in UK, at least we are given the opportunity to bring those abusers to account. This is not so in many non white countries.

chunxueping · Joined: 24 Jun 2007 Posts: 763 Location: Beijing, PRC

I wish Mei Lin and her husband much happiness with their new baby. They seem to have encountered their first prejudice, unfortunately, from other Chinese.

The male-female inbalance in China varies between about 108-100 to 150-100. I have been told of villages where there has been no female "live birth" for ten year (lot of "still birth" of course). In India and Pakistan also similar mean that in Asia there is estimated to be between 70 and 80 million "missing" females from the population (UN estimate). Genocide is the deliberate extermination of a race but what is the name for the deliberate extermination of a gender? Suicide I suppose. Of course this was not the intention but the inevitable result of selective abortion, infanticide and preferential feeding. The effects of overseas adoption is very small on this total and the baby girls are usually very reluctantly passed to orphanages in the hope they would get a better life so adoptive families are fulfiling the dreams of the birth mother for her daughter. As for adopting a boy, well that speak for itself. There are scarely any boys available for adoption in China, let alone for outsiders.

The so-called "One Chlld" policy was always inconsistent and now mercifully it seems to be coming to an end, especially in the Chinese countryside where strangely different "twins" were always common (one walking and talking while the other was still being nursed). There is much hope this inbalance will start to rectify itself but it will take several generations to work out. Funnily I find the opposite is true in cities. In Chinese cities I frequently come across extremely well educated, talented and beautiful young women who find it difficult to find a husband and are unwilling to settle for the men recommended by their family and friends. I know more single women in China than married. So painful waste.

I wish you much joy Mei Lin. What you are doing is giving much hope for the future.

Lois Hashimoto · Joined: 26 Jul 2007 Posts: 25 Location: Laval, QC,Canada

As usual, Xueping, your post is factual and wise, and a pleasure to read. I join you in wishing Mei-Lin and her husband and their new baby much happiness!
_________________
LYH

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