The Lost Daughters of China

I read Karin Evans' The Lost Daughters of China years ago, and I must confess that the book has constantly been at the back of my mind. Especially when:

1. I was in Guangzhou many years ago and witnessed the countless baby girls carried by or pushed around in prams by western adoptive parents.

2. I tried to do a television documentary a few years ago on the issue of adoption in China. Adeline, a Singaporean, once invited me to a temporary shelter for orphans located in the outskirts of Beijing. I was overwhelmed by emotions when I witnessed the countless healthy beautiful babies (mainly girls) abandoned by their birth parents. I almost choked when one of the Chinese helpers cooed to one baby and asked in a sing-song lyrical manner:"你到底是谁的孩子? 哎呀呀,你不就是上帝的孩子吗?" (Or "whose child are you? Hey, hey, aren't you a child of God?") Much like Evans when she wrote: "Oh lord, sweet baby, where on earth did you come from?"

I had lots of footage, but in the end decided not to pursue the story. The reason was complex enough, but the long and short of it was that after talking to people, mainly foreign NGOs involved in helping Chinese orphans, doing a feature on the issue would be more of a disservice than a service to their noble and charitable cause.

In the book, Evans wrote that "each daughter adopted from China is a gift beyond measure, and each comes with her own little mystery," adding that "if China was full of lost daughters, it was also full of lost mothers."

"Babies have persuasive powers to make us love them ... How unspeakably hard it must have been to walk away. And yet someone had. While I was at home in San Francisco, fretting about bureaucratic logjam, someone in south China was bundling up that beautiful three-month old for a last trip to the marketplace."

Apart from the vast numbers of unwanted baby girls available, there are several reasons why Chinese adoptions are popular. The application and approval process was faster than elsewhere. China was more forgiving of older parents as compared to some South and Central American countries. The Chinese adoption program was not tainted by rumors of stolen children, babies for sale, or black-market profiteers. The health of the children was generally good. The babies could be adopted at a younger age - most at a year old or younger - lessening the chances of attachment disorder. And the care in the orphanages that dealt with foreign adoption was apparently good.

No less significant is the fact that the parents of these abandoned children would rarely surface to re-claim the child at a later date. This is mainly due to the 1992 Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests, which makes it illegal to abandon baby girls. Though there had not been a substantial pattern of prosecution, many parents understood that abandoning their baby girls was a crime. Hence, they'd forever remain elusive. Moreover, many were also too ashamed to come forward and be identified.

But nevertheless, there were also charges that some Chinese institutions deliberately offered better care to those infants who were "marketable" for foreign adoption, while condemning the less attractive and appealing children to sub-standard care.

Evans wrote that a baby in Anhui province (安徽省) was found with a yam tucked under her arm. "The parents wanted to show some love for the baby and they were very poor, and they left it with the poorest food of China, a dry yam." Another baby was found with a bunch of used bus tickets as "the parents didn't even have a penny to leave."

An American adoptive parent was quoted as saying: "One thing I know in defense of these women who abandon their babies is that they must have some special kind of love for these unborn souls because it is very easy (and encouraged) to have an abortion (in China)."

As for Evan's own adopted Chinese daughter Kelly, Evans had this to say:

"This baby was found; she was meant to be found - that is the important point here. The story that Kelly's mother had to offer, I realized, was closer than we thought. The best evidence was Kelly herself. Her sweetness and courage, her humor and grace. Her mother left the biggest clue of all in this baby's ready smile. Her mother loved her. If I know nothing else about this woman who gave me the gift of this beautiful child, I know this: When she cared for this baby, she cared wholeheartedly. When she set her down, she set her down gently."