Mirror, Mirror

Xin Yi is a bubbly, active five-year-old girl. Her short black hair and pudgy build bear a striking resemblance to her mother. I watch as she runs around, chasing butterflies, returning periodically to give her mom a hug, then flies off once again. She excels in school and, from all appearances, is a well-adjusted, happy girl.

Xin Yi was adopted in China by her family at two weeks old from the Huadu orphanage north of Guangzhou. Her family's story sheds a light on domestic adoption in China and illustrates the process many Chinese families go through to adopt a child.

The Huadu orphanage is a simple, two-story brick facility hidden behind a thick 10-foot wall next to one of Huadu's busiest streets. The facility currently cares for about 20 children, almost all special needs. They range in age from a few months to 16 years old. This orphanage adopts all its children domestically; it is not part of the international program. According to newspaper finding ads, in 2005 the Huadu orphanage adopted 29 children, 50% of whom were younger than a year old, the balance ranging from one year to 10 years old (for domestic adoptions, finding ads are placed when the child is adopted, not when they are found). There currently is a 12- to 18-month waiting list of families willing to adopt the most desirable children -- healthy baby infants. The orphanage adopts only to residents of Huadu because, according to Ms. Jiang, director of the orphanage, "There are not enough children to satisfy even those families."

That wasn't the case in 2001 when Jiang Lan came to this orphanage in January of that year with her husband and mother. A week before, her husband and his mother had visited the orphanage and surveyed the children available for adoption. As he looked down at an infant girl lying in her crib, she smiled. "This is my daughter," he spoke to his mother.

Jiang Lan and her husband had decided to adopt after having no biological children after three years of marriage. Orphanage directors I have spoken to indicate that nearly half of domestically adopting families are childless. The rest are families that have a grown child.

A week after Jiang Lan's visit with her husband, the orphanage allowed them to take Xin Yi home. "Take your time in deciding," they were told, "and bring her back if she is too much trouble." The orphanage went on to explain that they could keep her for a year before completing the adoption paperwork, a feature of Chinese adoptions that we might find peculiar. Two other families that adopted from a different orphanage confirmed that this was the case with them also, although all three families emphasized that at no time were they interested in taking the orphanage up on their offer to return the child to the orphanage.

Jiang Lan returned with her husband nearly a year later to complete the adoption. They brought with them an approval letter from their town's Family Planning office, stating that they had no other children. They also carried a letter from the town hospital confirming that they were healthy. Most other families also bring letters from their employers or other proof of income, as well as copies of the couple's identification cards. Jiang Lan and her husband made a 3,500 yuan ($425) "donation" to the Huadu orphanage, an amount in line with the orphanage's current 3,000 to 5,000 yuan fee.

Xin Yi does not know of her beginnings. We talk about the adoption only when she is out of hearing, and quickly shift topics when Xin Yi returns. Jiang Lan indicates that she will tell her "one day" when she is grown up. Additionally, no one outside of the immediate family knows of the adoption. When pressed why, Jiang Lan expressed concern that if Xin Yi's adoption became widely known, she would be picked on and belittled for being an orphan. Other adoptive families expressed concern that neighbors would look down on them for not being able to have biological children.

When asked if she ever thought about her daughter's birthmother, Jiang Lan states that she has no interest in ever meeting her. Other families feel the opposite, and indicated that if their child wanted, they would help one day in searching out the birth family.

Although Western couples often hear that the adoption process for Chinese couples is burdensome, when compared to that undergone by foreign adopting families it is remarkably simple. A trip to the Family Planning office to obtain the authorization letter is required, but costs little if anything. A health certification letter from an area hospital costs around 250 yuan per person. A proof of finances letter is obtained from the employer, but costs nothing. These three items, along with the couple's identification papers, are all that is required to approach the orphanage and begin the adoption process. The adoption process itself requires some simple paperwork, and the payment of the orphanage donation fee. The adoption is then registered with the local Civil Affair's office, which charges around 400 yuan for the "Adoption License", a small red book with a photograph of the the adopting parents and their new child. The simplicity of the domestic adoption process would make most Western families envious.

For the most part, families that adopt inside China keep the adoption a secret from most people outside the immediate family, and some indicate that they will keep it a secret even from their adopted child. All, however, clearly showed an abiding love and devotion to their adopted child, treating them as their own. Jiang Lan, in looking at her daughter running, softly said, "I never think of my daughter as adopted. For me, she is just like my own kid." In this respect, she and her fellow China adopters are just like their Western counterparts.

China's Greatness, China's Weakness

The heat was stifling even on that mid-May morning. My wife and young daughter Meilan, with my wife's sister in tow, had made the short bus trip from Guangzhou to Foshan. Our destination was Foshan's "Zumiao Temple", the temple of the ancestors.

I had been there twice before, the first time on my first return trip to Guangdong after adopting Meikina in 2000. Whenever I return to Guangdong, I feel the need to come to this large and beautiful temple, in order to offer up a small prayer to the ancestors of my three daughters.

It isn't a prayer to them really, but more of a token offering of thought. I feel it my obligation to occasionally bring myself to stop and thank them for the three beautiful Chinese spirits that have been placed in my care, three children who are the culmination of the lives of all those that preceded them. I come to this temple to give quiet thanks, and to ponder how I can best bring an appreciation to my kids of the tremendous country from which they sprang.

My family feels I have an irrational affection for China. Like an imperfect spouse, I speak proudly of the things I love about China, and quietly ignore her failings. It is not that I am not aware of them, but I simply seek to convey to my children at every turn that they can be proud of their heritage, that China is a wonderful country, and that those who came before them accomplished things that few other nations ever could.

In the six years that I have been researching in China, I have come to notice and appreciate the sometimes vast cultural differences between China and my own homeland, the United States. In studying and gaining insight into China's people and history, I have gained an ever-increasing respect for China's greatness, but also an increased appreciation for the land in which I live.

One of the most noticeable differences between China and the United States involves the attitudes of each government towards its citizens. As I have researched and traveled throughout much of China, I frequently sense an almost palpable fear on the part of the Chinese for their government. This is most apparent when dealing with the police. Whereas in the United States we are taught from our youngest days to trust the police, in China it is often just the opposite. Few in China trust the police. Often, the police abuse their positions of power to take unfair advantage of the citizens.

One recent case, published widely in Chinese newspapers, serves to illustrate. She Xiang Lin was a policeman in Hubei province. In January 1994, his wife disappeared, and her family suspected she had been murdered by her husband. They exerted tremendous pressure on the police to arrest the husband for murder, and when a badly decomposed body was found in April, the husband was arrested. After a series of beatings, he confessed to killing his wife. He was sentenced to death, a sentence that was later commuted to 15 years in prison.

In April, his wife returned to the village with her new husband, apparently not dead after all. Everyone involved urged the immediate release of her former husband, who had by this time served over eleven years in a brutal prison. The police, who had apparently coerced a confession from the husband through repeated beatings, are now trying to decide whose body was found in the first place.

These type of stories are myriad. For the most part, members of government are seen as self-serving, corrupt people. The officials do little to dispel this notion, as a trip into any village or town will attest. In the little town of Maogang (south of Maoming, Guangdong Province) for example, the city government offices are housed in a building that is on the scale of the Mirage resort in Las Vegas – huge, palatial and completely unnecessary, except to increase their perceived stature in the community and among the citizens. All around farmers scrap to make an existence, but the government officials drive their nice cars and work in their windowed offices in the palace on the hill.

The United States, for all its political weaknesses, has at least this of which it can boast – its government is ultimately responsible to the people. Its system of checks and balances, combined with the Constitutionally protected free press, create an attitude of accountability to the citizens which China's government lacks. The Chinese are dumbstruck when they see high governmental officials in the U.S. being brought down by the press, for if a newspaper published reports of corruption in China it would be destroyed. In one country you have trust and confidence, in the other distrust and fear.

This is manifested by the high degree of fear and distrust that I encounter while researching. Although many directors are intellectually committed to helping the children they have cared for, they are nevertheless fearsome of reprisals from those above them. Additionally, they are afraid that those in their own ranks will report them to their superiors. The entire governmental structure in China is held together by a glue of fear and insecurity.

But the absence of a free press in China means that graft and corruption usually goes unexposed and unpunished. Applicants for many government jobs willingly pay huge sums in "application fees" knowing that the access gained by their new positions will bring great returns on their investment. Growing dissatisfaction among China's rural communities is kept hidden. The rebellion in December by farmers in Guangdong Province in which 20 village citizens were seriously injured by police went totally unreported in the Chinese press. The Chinese government reports that 87,000 such "disturbances" occurred in 2005 alone.

Things are changing, however. China seems tentatively committed to eradicating the enormous graft and corruption problem that has plagued its system for generations. The fact that the wrongly-convicted man's story made headlines throughout China shows that greater leeway is being given the press. The internet, no matter how hard the government attempts to limit its access, is granting the Chinese an unprecedented look into the outside world. A few months ago I spied a youth wearing a t-shirt with the words, "Liberty and Justice for all".

The question is whether the change is coming fast enough. Whenever I discuss with the Chinese the benefits of their government, they grow angry and shout how much they hate their government. It seems that especially in the countryside the people are like a pot of water heated to 211 degrees. The question is whether change will come before a small spark pushes the pot to boiling.

As I sat in the temple contemplating the many aspects of Chinese history and culture, my mind gave thanks to the contributions China has made to the world. My mind reflects on the China in the early fifteenth century, when its civilization was expanding, and its technological abilities were unsurpassed. Then a visionary emperor sent forth his huge naval ships to explore and open trade routes to the entire world. The seven voyages of Zheng He showcased China's capabilities, and placed China in the position to become the world's super-power.

But a storm and fire in Beijing changed all that. The emperor's expansionist policies were viewed as having offended the gods, and he died in exile. The next emperor destroyed the records of Zheng He's journeys (which some believe brought the Chinese to America 70 years before Columbus), and turned China inward. It would remain so for five hundred years. As I stand in front of the golden Buddha, my heart breaks at the loss of potential that China suffered by the actions of that one man.

I love China. I love all that is good, all that is great about her. I love her rich culture, and immense history. I love her emphasis on family, with families living in close proximity together for generations. I love watching grandparents play with their small grand kids, and communities gathering together for festivals. I love the thousands of men and women who lived and died to bring my daughters to life, and into my family. Thus, I return annually to pay them respect in an ancient temple in Foshan.

What do we really know?

One of the difficult aspects of China and its orphan problem is that the subject is shrouded officially in a fog of secrecy. The government releases few hard numbers, and orphanage staff is told not to discuss the topic with outsiders. Therefore, it might be useful to discuss what we actually can find out about such topics as orphanages, number of children abandoned, numbers adopted, etc.

Little hard data are available from the Chinese government on the numbers of children abandoned each year, how many are adopted, and how many live in the orphanages, so many people and organizations have put forth assertions in the past. These guestimates have ranged all over the place. But all of them are just that, educated guesses based on perceptions. No one knows.

We can gain some answers through secondary sources. I use the placement of finding ads as one indicator. But in most Provinces (Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangxi, etc.) the finding ads are placed in the Provincial newspapers only when the child has been placed with the CCAA for international adoption. Does a decline in ad placement indicate fewer children being found, or that domestic adoption is increasing, or both? One cannot be sure.

Another potential source of empirical data is the newspapers that contain the domestic adoption finding ads. These are usually small local papers, not the Provincial newspapers used for the international adoption ads. Thus, they are much harder to locate and collect. These also have limitations, becasue a finding ad is placed for a domestically adopted child only when they are adopted, not when they are found. Thus, there is an element of uncertainty there.

So one must augment this data with observations made on the ground -- in the orphanages. By visiting a particular orphanage one sometimes can tell if numbers are high or low. One can ask the director, for example, if abandoments are rising, falling or constant.

Sometimes one can get good empirical numbers using all three sources. More frequently one can get them from two. Usually only one source is available. By collecting as many of these datapoints as possible, assertions can start to be drawn.

JoAnne is right on with her desire to bring many eyes to the discussion (see comments to my "What Can We Learn from Hunan" blog). I am only one person travelling around China. There are many others. It would be great to have them also collect and publish data on this subject. Unfortunately, most have a vested interest to avoid discussing this topic in order to not upset the CCAA or the Chinese government. One can understand this, although it is unfortunate.

As has been pointed out many times, I am just one person who happens to visit a lot of orphanages. I am taking what I see from the three sources listed above and adding it to any other information that can be obtained (interviews with people, newspaper articles, etc.) and trying to put together the jigsaw puzzle. Some pieces are missing, but the picture I am seeing shows that things are changing in China. The picture that I am seeing causes me to question (not abandon!) previously assumed facts and ideas. But it pushes me forward, and makes me hungry to gather more information, and try to bring this murky picture that is China into sharper focus. I welcome any that can assist me in this endeavor.

What We Can Learn from Hunan

Discussions on A-P-C and elsewhere show that tremendously important lessons can be learned from the events recently concluded in Hunan Province. It might do well to summarize what we have learned and the lessons we can take away from this event.

Most adoptive families choose China as a result of the perception that there are "thousands" of unwanted children languishing in the orphanages. The events in Hunan, and a growing body of other evidence, clearly show that this is not the case, at least in the case of those orphanages that participate in the international adoption program.

At its foundation, the Hunan story centered on a director who sought to purchase young children to increase adoption fees to his own orphanage and the orphanages in his immediate area. We can debate the reasons he did this, whether it was to line his own pockets or to get enough money to improve the facility he ran; but the bottom line is he wanted more money.

Parents can take comfort in the fact that the children were trafficked from Wuchuan (Guangdong) to Hunan, and not from Wuchuan to the Wuchuan orphanage. It seems likely these traffickers contacted the large orphanages in Wuchuan and Zhanjiang, because directors in Guangdong have confirmed to me that they have been contacted in the past (it is not known if the traffickers were the same ones involved in this story). So it seems, at least anecdotally, that most directors wished no part of a baby-trafficking program. As one director recounted her response, "We will take in all babies that are abandoned, but we will not pay for them."

But a few directors decided to take them. Why? If there are so many unwanted children being found, what is the incentive for these orphanages to take in more children? Because it is becoming clear that the number of healthy baby girls being abandoned is falling, at the same time demand for these children is increasing.

One would have to travel several times to China to gain an appreciation how quickly things are changing here. On my first trip to rural DianBai (Guangdong) six years ago, I had to prepare for the trip by bringing my own cash, my own laptop (usable only with dial-up), and expect to eat only Chinese food. The only hotel was at the end of the main street and had little heating and no hot water. The stores were limited to small shops along the main street. It was a small town in the backwoods of China.

Today, DianBai has transformed itself. On my last visit, I found four Bank of China branches with ATMs, I ate in Western restaurants, stayed in a three-star hotel with in-room high speed internet, and showered in blistering hot water. I walked their new shopping mall filled with designer clothing shops, electronics, and other modern conveniences.

I see this transformation occurring wherever I travel. I am about ready to name the building crane China's national bird.

This transformation is having a dramatic affect on the number of children abandoned in China. Nearly every orphanage director I speak with confirms that the number of children being found is falling. This is due to two forces: increased ability to pay the fines associated with illegally birthed children and decreasing traditionalism, which bestows a preference on boys.

The increased affluency would lead to an increase in the domestic demand for children, as more couples are able to afford to adopt a child. Thus, domestic adoption rates are probably increasing, at the same time international demand climbs, and the number of children found is decreasing.

This creates the perfect storm found in Hengyang, and explains why a director would buy babies.

A Chinese couple wanting a child has four options for obtaining a child. Frequently, if they live in the countryside, word is put out that they are interested in adopting an unwanted child, and often a match is made with another couple. A friend of mine recently experienced this first-hand as her husband's mother let is be known that my friend and her husband were interested in a son (they had an adopted daughter, and in fact were happy, but the mother-in-law felt otherwise). Within a year, the husband's mother was told of a couple who wanted a girl but were pregnant with a boy (not every unwanted child is a girl!). My friend declined the child, but this case illustrates a primary method employed to locate a child.

Another way for wealthier families to obtain a child is through contacting an orphanage. Since adoption fees in even non-internationally adopting orphanages are often in the range of 3-5,000 yuan ($400-700 USD), one must be firmly middle-class to afford this route. But clearly more and more families are finding this as an acceptable way to build a family (I will be detailing the stories of three adoptive families from China in a future blog).

Families who lack financial means and social status are left with only two alternatives: buying a baby from a trafficker and kidnapping one. Baby trafficking is common in China, as the Hunan story illustrates. What must be remembered is that Liang Guihong, the Wuchuan woman responsible for collecting the trafficked children, had been performing "adoptive" services for nearly a decade, finding homes for the unwanted children that were brought to her.

As adoptive parents, we must realize that all of the trafficking and kidnapping stories we read about deal with one common theme: They all are driven by families in China who wish to have children.

We must realize that for the most part, the days of healthy, unwanted children staying in orphanages for long periods of time is over. Anecdotal evidence such as visits to orphanages "full of children" supply scant evidence, because tghe processing time from finding to international adoption is usually a minimum of eight months, and can often take up to 18 months. Healthy babies seen on orphanage visits are almost certainly at some point of the international adoption process.

There are a large number of children found, but again that has no bearing on the supply of available children in the orphanages unless the domestic and international adoption rates is also known. Eventually, if it hasn't already, the domestic demand for children will overtake supply, and it will be time to terminate China's international adoption program. Are we prepared for that day?