What I Think About International Adoption as a Chinese Adoptee
From 1991 to 2005, 120,000 Chinese children were adopted to Western parents. Now all grown up, many question the decisions that shaped their lives.
This article originally appeared on VICE Netherlands.
In the 90s and early 2000s, China became a hub for international adoptions. After implementing its one-child policy in 1979, families who conceived more than once were forced into unwanted abortions and sterilisations, or to abandon their “over-the-quota” children. This problem was especially prevalent in poorer, rural areas, where serious allegations of child trafficking also emerged over the years.
In the 80s, many abandoned children were informally adopted by Chinese families and kept off official records, with dire repercussions. In 1991, China opened itself up to international adoption – at least in part – to prevent the tradition of informal adoption. Between 1991 and 2005, over 120,000 Chinese babies were adopted by foreign parents. Up to 90 percent of them were girls under the age of two, and over half of them went to U.S. couples.
After hitting a peak in 2005, international adoptions have sharply declined, as childless families from China’s emerging middle class spiked the demand for official national adoptions. In 2015, China ended its one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children. But, for over a decade, adopting a Chinese child became a sort of trend in the West, as wealthy European and American parents were prioritised over local families.
China’s adopted children have grown up, and are now reckoning with the impact of being raised in a social and cultural context so far-removed from their birth country. One of these adoptees is filmmaker Xiangxia van den Ham, who was adopted to a Dutch family at the age of one, after being found in a box near a Chinese school at just two weeks old.
Now 27, van den Ham has released the documentary Dumpling Stories in collaboration with VICE Netherlands, detailing the dark side of adoption. We spoke to her about her investigation of her own origins, how it feels not to fully belong anywhere, and her views on international adoption today.
VICE: You first pitched us the documentary in 2019. What was your vision back then?
Xiangxia van den Ham: I wanted to document my own quest for my roots, as well as open up a discussion about post-adoption support. Even now, there aren’t enough resources for parents adopting kids from China. There's little focus on how children adopted from China can feel at home in the Netherlands, too, and how to later find out more information on their Chinese identity.
As a kid, did you often think about your own adoption?
Not much, actually. I grew up with a sister who was also adopted from China, so I wasn't alone, thankfully. My parents were always open about the fact that I was adopted. I knew I came from the Mother's Love orphanage in Nanning [a city in southern China, near the Vietnam border] and that I spent three months with foster parents. We celebrate my birthday on the 18th of May, but I'm not sure when I was born. I was found on the 5th of June, when I was about two weeks old.
These Adoptees Were Brought to the US as Babies. Now Some Fear They Were Stolen.
We have home videos from when my parents and sister picked me up from the orphanage and a photo album with a few pictures of me before my adoption. But that was all I had, so it's not like I had anything to base fantasies about my biological parents on.
Eventually, you became curious.
Yes, I saw in the news that adoptees were returning to China and finding their biological parents, which planted a seed in my mind. My parents had always told me it’d be like searching for a needle in a haystack – after all, it’d been a while, and many Chinese orphanages didn't have the means to archive anything. Still, I decided to see if I could at least visit my old orphanage.
How did you go about it?
First, I wanted to better understand where I came from and experience what it's like to live in Asia. In January 2019, I moved to Hong Kong for two years to volunteer at Mother's Choice, an NGO led by Kit Ying. She founded my orphanage, Mother's Love, which no longer exists.
At the airport in the Netherlands, I saw a lot of Asian people together for the first time, which was pretty surprising to me. Then in Hong Kong, I realised I’d never been surrounded by so many people who look like me. I immediately felt at ease. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel stared at on the street.
I ended up celebrated Chinese New Year with Kit Ying. She took me to a dim sum restaurant and taught me about Chinese cuisine and culture. I’d never heard of Chinese New Year before and found it incredibly fun – the dragon dances, the fireworks, the delicious food. That's when I realised that Chinese culture is a part of who I am.
In Hong Kong, I found a group called Adoptees of Hong Kong. Every month, we’d get together for dinner and for the first time, I felt comfortable discussing my background. They talked about their journeys in search of their biological parents, too.
Is that when you decided to go looking for them?
Yes, with the help of Kit Ying. She arranged an interpreter and guide for my trip to China. She also managed to identify my foster parents based on the few photos I had of them. This was quite exceptional because they’d only looked after me for a few months, 26 years ago. I managed to locate them, and they agreed to meet.
Exciting! How was that?
Strange and overwhelming. They were very enthusiastic and welcoming, though. They looked exactly the same as in the photos, but I just didn't know them. They, on the other hand, had many memories of me. They had photos and told me all about how I was as a baby – I cried very little and ate well. Apparently, I especially liked congee. They had seven other foster children, besides me.
on papers said that, before I ended up with my foster family, I spent a few months in another orphanage in a much smaller town about 200km away.
What did you find there?
Miraculously, they still had lots of documents about me. One of them mentioned I was first brought to the police by a 12-year-old girl, so I contacted her via WeChat. She didn’t speak English, but thanks to a translation app and an interpreter, I got an idea of how I was found. Apparently, a classmate of hers found me in a box near their school. He called the teacher, and she brought me to the classroom where they took care of me. Later, the oldest girl in the class brought me to the police.
She told me that all the children in the class tried their best to make me feel comfortable. Together with a few other students, she wrote me a detailed letter about that day. They still remembered it well and were surprised to hear from me after so many years. They tried to visit me at the orphanage, but suddenly, I was gone. The teacher had even considered adopting me – she wrote me a letter describing what it was like to find me.
Have you found your biological parents yet?
No, that’s proven difficult. Finding the person who found me is already very special, but I’m still very curious about my biological parents. Although I was found in a small town, I could be from one of the hundreds of surrounding villages. I took a DNA test, but so far, there’ve been no matches. I’m on a website for parents looking for their child, too, and I posted an open call on Chinese TikTok. I might also put flyers up around those villages.
What do you think about international adoption now?
I'm not against adoption, but I’m sceptical about transnational adoption. I think it's better for a Chinese child to grow up in an Asian culture, or in China itself. It's quite intense to remove someone and place them in a completely different environment.
In the Netherlands, I've always felt like I didn't quite fit in and lacked role models. If I’d grown up in China, I wouldn't have been as insecure about my height and appearance, for instance. In China, I might’ve had a different life with fewer opportunities, but that's not a guarantee. When I returned to the orphanage in Yulin, I met a 27-year-old woman with a physical disability. She’d also been in the orphanage but was never adopted. She now has a university degree, just like me.
elieve international adoption should only be considered if there's truly no possibility for local adoption. This could be due to conflicts and human rights violations in the country, or because the child has severe disabilities or illnesses.
How has your life changed since your first trip?
I'm now way more involved in Chinese culture. I started learning Chinese, which requires a lot of motivation and discipline, but I really want to speak it fluently. I want to be able to talk to people in China, and perhaps that’ll also help with my search for my birth parents. Learning the language helps me better understand Chinese culture, too, and makes me feel slightly less like an outsider. I’ve finally truly accepted that I’m also Chinese.