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In 2017, there was an explosive news in the American sports circle:
Wu Yingsi, a Guangxi girl who was adopted and raised by an American family, won the women's all-around championship at the World Gymnastics Championships.
Ng Wing-sze (middle)
For a time, major media reported on the incident, and some researchers even gave data that more than 80,000 Chinese children were adopted by American families, and 85% of them were Chinese girls.
This incident has once again become a propaganda tool for Americans' "political correctness" and has been rumored by many people to be a beautiful talk.
But is Americans' eagerness to adopt Chinese girls really a sign of "love" as they say?
Why are orphans so few in the United States? What about the lives of adopted Chinese children in the United States?
These also start with the very strange "history of child adoption" in the United States.
If you do some research on the history of the world's demographic change, you will find a very strange phenomenon: the richer the era and the group of people, the lower the birth rate.
As the richest country in the world, the birth rate of the United States is not very high, especially for the white people in the middle and upper strata of society.
We often see that a white American couple will adopt five or six children of different races, but they will not have children themselves.
The continuation of a country must be supported by a considerable number of people. Since Americans do not want to give birth themselves, it is natural to rely on immigration to increase the population.
Immigrants to the United States are both adults and minors. These minors are foreign children who have been adopted by Americans.
Before the end of World War II, foreign children adopted by American families were predominantly Europeans. Europe was ravaged by two world wars, families were broken, and a large number of orphans were created.
At the same time, the United States has entered an era of intellectual and industrial production, and there is an urgent need for a large population to promote development. The United States and Europe each have their own needs for adopted children, and it is natural that a complementary population movement can easily be formed.
In the decades that followed, the direction of American adoption of foreign children began to shift to Asia. In particular, Japan and South Korea are both large countries with adopted children.
This is so because both countries have been ravaged by the war, and the number of orphans has skyrocketed, and the social security system cannot accommodate it.
At the same time, these two countries are de facto controlled by the United States and can do whatever they want. Adopting children from Japan and South Korea is more convenient for the United States.
So, why hasn't China, which has gone through nearly 200 years of turmoil, become a big country for adopted children?
The reason is also very simple, and that is the problem of international relations.
At that time, China was isolated from the world, in an isolated state, and had no contact with the United States, so naturally not many Chinese children were adopted by Americans.
At the same time, China did not have a sound foreign adoption law at the time, and even if Americans really wanted to adopt Chinese children, there were no regulations on the basis of them.
In fact, foreign adoptions in China are not uncommon.
After the end of World War II, there was a wave of foreign adoptions in China, but China was the importing party.
After Japan's surrender, a large number of Japanese "pioneer group" members in China returned to China, but the children were often not taken away and could only be adopted by kind Chinese.
At that time, China's social mode of production was agricultural production, which required a large population to support it. Therefore, China does not have the need to export its population, so naturally it will not be involved in the issue of foreign adoption with the United States.
In 1978, as China re-entered the world, the population began to move, and cases of foreign-related adoptions began to appear.
From 1981 to 1989, China approved 10,000 applications for the adoption of Chinese children by foreigners, including more than 200 from the United States.
At the same time, some relevant laws have also begun to appear and improve.
In 1993, the Ministry of Justice and the Civil Affairs Bureau promulgated the Implementation Measures for the Adoption of Children by Foreigners in the People's Republic of China, which for the first time allowed foreign-related adoptions to be based on the law.
In 1999, the more perfect Measures for the Registration of Foreigners' Adoption of Children in the People's Republic of China were promulgated, and China's transnational adoption became more standardized and perfect, and the procedures became more convenient.
Since then, China has gradually surpassed Japan and South Korea as the first choice for American families to adopt foreign children.
In the 18 years from 1999 to 2017, more than 80,000 Chinese children were adopted by American families. Even in 2005, nearly 8,000 Chinese children entered American homes.
This is naturally due to the large base of Chinese population and the large number of orphans. But the main factor is Americans' love for Chinese children.
An important reason why Americans like Chinese children is that they like China. China has a history of several thousand years of civilization, and the accumulation of history is very profound.
At that time, when China and the United States were still relatively friendly, the American intellectual class was very interested in Chinese culture.
Adopting a Chinese child can not only exchange culture with the child, but also take the opportunity to cultivate the child, and it is very convenient to visit China. This is very attractive to them.
Secondly, there is the legal issue that we talked about earlier. Compared with other countries, China's foreign-related adoption laws are the most robust, the fees are reasonable, and the procedures are the most convenient.
At the same time, Chinese law stipulates that if a family from other countries wants to adopt a Chinese child, at least one of the parents must come to China to pick up the child.
Don't underestimate this small rule, it allows adoptive parents to have early contact with their children, saves them the loneliness of going to a foreign country alone, and is essential to calm the children's emotions and help them integrate into the new family as soon as possible.
So after arriving in the United States, Chinese children tend to be more well-behaved.
Another important reason is the hard work and diligence of the Chinese. Chinese children may not be the smartest in the world, but they are definitely the best learners.
Chinese children often rank among the best in school. Some people have even made statistics that in various computer competitions in the United States today, the proportion of Chinese children participating is extremely high, and there have even been cases where the competition ranking has been monopolized by Chinese.
As for sports and arts, children from China often perform well. Compared with children in other countries, Chinese children are more worry-free for parents.
The most important point is that American families adopt Chinese children, which is the least troubled.
A related statistical table shows that the reason why Americans are willing to adopt Chinese children, in addition to health and love, is that Chinese children are less likely to have problems such as alcohol and drug abuse when they grow up.
Chinese children are well-behaved, and they know right from wrong, and they know what not to do. Adopting a Chinese child involves much less follow-up risk for American families.
Why, then, do Americans love more Chinese children than their own country? This brings us to the stubborn social diseases of the United States.
Although the United States is the richest country in the world, the gap between the rich and the poor is huge, and even in core cities like New York, many homeless people can still be seen.
Most of their social wealth is concentrated in the hands of whites. And as mentioned earlier, if the fertility rate of white families is low, then the number of natural orphans is also low.
The vast majority of American orphans are actually African-Americans and Hispanics from the bottom of society. And the children of these ethnic groups are often not comparable to the children of China.
African-American and Hispanic children are far inferior to Chinese children in terms of effort.
In physics, in hundreds of years, fewer than 1,000 people of African descent have obtained doctorates, and even fewer than 100 female doctors. As for Latinos, the number is about the same.
On the contrary, there were more than 6,000 master's degrees in physics from China in 2018 alone, and a large number of them are aiming for doctoral degrees.
Its overall proportions are even higher than those of white people. This contrast is really obvious. Of course, some people blame racism for this phenomenon, but the status of Chinese Americans in the United States is no higher than that of African Americans.
It is an indisputable fact that Chinese children have an advantage over African-Americans and Hispanics in learning and working.
In addition, it is very important to note that the adoption process of orphans in the United States itself is very cumbersome, inefficient, and extremely expensive.
The cost of adopting a Chinese child is nearly twice as high as that of adopting a Chinese child. This additional burden, of course, is saved if it can be saved.
The most uneasy thing for American families is whether their children will go astray in the future.
African-Americans and Hispanics do have entered the upper class in the United States, but the vast majority of them are mixed at the bottom.
Many people tend to form gangs and engage in all kinds of illegal and criminal activities. The so-called people are divided into groups, and African-American and Hispanic children are already relatively scattered, and if they are exposed to some bad things during school, they will easily fall.
At this point, the well-behaved Chinese children are naturally more reassuring than them.
It should be said that the overall quality of Chinese children is higher, and the country's laws are relatively superior, which are the reasons why American families like to adopt them.
But why are 85 percent of Chinese children in the U.S. girls? Is this Americans' preference for girls? Not really.
The reason for this phenomenon is the traditional patriarchal thinking of Chinese folklore.
Preference for sons over daughters was once a common and stubborn disease worldwide. Compared with other civilizations, China's patriarchal ideology is relatively shallow.
However, at the time when the country began to implement family planning, the preference for sons over daughters caused a great disaster. At that time, many families who gave birth to baby girls often abandoned their girls in order to have another boy.
Therefore, the proportion of women in China's orphan group is much higher than that of men. Naturally, then, at the time of adoption by the adoptive parents, the proportions naturally became unbalanced.
So, how are the Chinese children who have been adopted by American families doing? Is the love and tolerance that the United States preaches reflected in them?
It should be said that there is love and tolerance, but it cannot be generalized. The lives of Chinese children in the United States have not been easy.
According to a book titled, American families that adopt Chinese children tend to be middle-class, or have better living conditions.
Most of the adoptive parents are teachers, nurses, artists, engineers, etc., and most of them have a bachelor's degree or above. These people have no worries about food and clothing, have their own thoughts, and most of them are followers of a certain religion.
They have the ability and heart to give love to a child who is not born. As a result, many touching stories between adoptive parents and children were born.
For example, the little girl Sophie, she is a Chinese girl who is missing both arms.
In 2010, she was abandoned by her parents, and an American couple brought her home and raised her carefully, giving her a happy childhood that a child deserves;
American female writer Emily Preg also wrote the bits and pieces of herself and her daughter into "Wuhu Diary: The Secret of My Daughter Lulu", which touched many people;
Another writer, Karin Evans, wrote the book "The Lost Chinese Daughter", which is a bestseller in the United States and has been reprinted many times.
There is also the gymnastics champion Wu Yingsi we mentioned earlier, who grew up in an environment of love, and it should be said that some Americans are indeed very loving and give children the happiness they deserve.
What is even more gratifying is that adoptive parents in the United States often pay equal attention to educating their children, not only allowing their children to accept American culture, but also encouraging them to come into contact with Chinese culture.
There are even some people who will take their children to China to find their roots.
The documentary "The Middle Ground", released in 2011, tells the story of four Chinese girls who were adopted by Americans and returned to China to find their biological parents;
In 2018, Pan Tiantian, a Chinese girl who had graduated from Harvard University, returned to Yangzhou to find her biological parents with the support of her adoptive mother Connie.
Pan Tiantian
The search for biological parents is such a sensitive issue, and Americans obviously do not get very entangled. From this, we can also see that they do have a heart that loves children.
American families do have advantages, but some social problems are still in front of Chinese children.
American society is deeply racist, and Chinese children have to deal with some unfriendly stares and embarrassing questions.
What's more, racism is so prevalent in the United States that children are similarly harmed whether they go to school or go out to play. This is obviously not beneficial to the formation of a healthy personality in children.
In addition, there is another rather important issue, that is, the all-out confrontation set off by the United States.
It can be seen from the statistical tables of adopted children over the years that after the departure of George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, the number of Chinese children adopted by American families began to decline sharply, from 6,000 or 7,000 in 2004 and 2005 to more than 3,000.
And, this trend has been continuing. By 2017, that number had become 1,905.
Obviously, this has a lot to do with the wave of sanctions against China set off by the three US presidents, Obama, Trump, and Biden.
In today's United States, even with an Asian face, you have to be careful of being beaten, let alone those children who are adrift overseas. Their happiness is hard to guarantee in today's America.
We cannot deny that the intercountry adoption mechanism can give orphans a complete family and give them love and care, which is indeed a good thing.
But in the United States now, it is difficult for us to trust our children to them.
I hope that pure children can have a happy childhood and do not fall victim to political confrontation.
Resources:
American Studies, No. 2, 2019, 32-52: Building Bridges of Love and Friendship——— A Study of the Adoption of Chinese Children by American Families
Overseas Chinese Historical Research, No. 1, 2007, 70-72: The First Monograph on the Adoption of Chinese Children by American Families in China: A Review of Huang Banghan et al.'s "Chinese Birds and Beautiful Nests: A Study on the Adoption of Chinese Children by American Families"
Bagui Overseas Chinese Magazine 2010 No. 2 59-65: A Special Group of New Chinese Immigrants in the United States: Adopting Chinese Children