An Account of the UK HKAN Reunion in London on 21st April 2012 contributed by Claire Martin:

This was my 4th UK HKAN Reunion (not even counting the Nuffield event in January) so I considered myself a bit of a veteran. Was it only 18 months ago that I sat, stunned, in a Birmingham restaurant, staring at a sea of Chinese faces? Images floated in slow motion, black and white photos of sombre babies in brocade jackets, documents tenderly passing from hand to hand, snatches of conversation in disembodied accents – like mine, never quite matching the face – and one sad phrase, “Place of abandonment” that settled ever since like a thorn in my unconscious mind. Spring followed and our first London reunion, home turf and familiar faces made it so much easier to welcome new adoptees, who, like I had done , froze like rabbits in the headlights.

“Look how we’ve grown!” as a metaphorical kindly aunt may have exclaimed. From a handful of adoptees meeting for lunch in Manchester, in less than 2 years, there we were, 58 people stuffed in a London conference room. With Americans! And a fella. We welcomed our first brother to a UK reunion. Adopted by a forces family, as a number of us have been, he followed his father into the British Army. He grew up in the North of England and now lives in Leeds.

You just knew how big we were now when we were faced with a panel. Debbie, the Great Organiser, Jess, our designer and photographer and Kate who facilitated the event. The beginnings of a Committee, no less.

We broke the ice, (not literally, of course, since the capricious London weather decided to be glorious that day), with a couple of warm up exercises. One involved squeezing past tables and climbing over fellow adoptees to assemble in front of volunteers holding placards with inspiring words such as Travel, Creative, Reading or Sporty/Outdoors. The purpose of this (I’m presuming here) was to identify which word describes us best and gives us the chance to build rapport with adoptees with similar interests. No prizes for guessing which group was least attended. What do expect with 35 menopausal women? Kelly Holmes?

A later exercise was really revealing. Volunteers stood against the back wall holding numbered placards labelled Other Adoptees (content meeting other adoptees only), Curious (considering finding out a bit more), UK Only (research extends only to UK so far), Hong Kong (research extended to Hong Kong), Received Information (oh, happiness), Returned to Hong Kong in Connection with Search (and maybe even done the “Found & Hope” – looking for place of abandonment) and finally, Contact from Family (I should be so lucky). After the scrum like activity of the ice breaker, it was decided to invite us to stand up as each title was called out, each reflecting the milestone we had reached on our Search Journey. Had I been clever enough to be able to record, analyse and depict the results, I would imagine that a bell curve like diagram would emerge. The majority of us had embarked on a treasure hunt for information on ourselves, accessing adoption records from the two sponsoring UK based children’s homes, National Children’s Home (now Action for Children) and Barnardo’s. Those further along the journey had contacted Hong Kong Social Services and the like. At the extremes were those who weren’t interested in roots searching and, to enormous applause, was one of our American sisters, standing alone as the one who had found blood relatives. Way to go, Girl.

During lunch we discovered that the 9 of us who arrived at Heathrow together on 20th December 1962 and photographed by the national press had all been traced and named. To our delight, Debbie managed to unite 6 of us at the reunion and we had our photos taken together holding That Picture.

It was fantastic listening to our American sisters and particularly moving to hear from Kim, who established the Fanling website that, for many of us, gave us the first step on our “Journey of a Thousand Lives?” and united us in a new family of Hong Kong adoptees across the globe. We were all moved to tears when she spoke tenderly of Lucy Clay as “our mother” and how she died in obscurity and relative poverty. I was privileged to meet the lady who had looked after Miss Clay in her final months. We adoptees are all grateful for the love and care she gave her in her twilight.

Jess introduced us to our new logo and website, and, as is usual at our meetings, there’s always a nice surprise for us. This time it was a little mirror each so we could finally see someone looking like us and our logo on the other side to remind us of our new family.

We again welcomed a guest speaker. This time it was Margaret Bryer of the International Social Services (ISS), now known as Children and Families Across Borders (IFAB). Margaret gave us a potted history of the ISS, a detailed explanation of the Hong Kong Project which brought so many of us to the UK, the USA and New Zealand and some insights into how the adoptions were conceived, planned and implemented. Jess, I know, will find a link for you to read in detail for yourself.

The one thing that struck me most of all was Margaret told us how much our biological mothers cared for us and what a wrench it was for them to give us up. Let’s no longer think of ourselves as abandoned, Sisters and Brothers. We were left to be found.

Claire Ling Chi Martin
Arrived in the UK 20th December 1962.

At the April Reunion event, we posted 5 questions around the walls which were designed to help us with future planning.   Not everybody answered every question, but there were enough responses to help us plan future events.    Just to remind you, we aim to hold two “official” UKHKAN meet-ups per year: one is not enough, but more than two would be too much for an informal social network without resources to organise.

Q1:         Location of meetings  The vast majority of people attending the meet-up were from London/South of England, with a high proportion from West Sussex.  This was reflected in people’s preferences for location of meetings: 17 people want to meet in London/South; 2 in the Midlands; 4 in the North; others wanted to meet in San Francisco, Hong Kong [naturally!] and Tin Bit Tomb – don’t even ask ??!!??

Q2:         Times of meetings  21 people want to meet on Saturday mornings; 2 on Sunday mornings; 4 on weekday mornings.  Three want to meet on Saturday afternoons, and two on weekday afternoons.

Q3:         Costs 

Venue: Our first few meetings took place in restaurants and pubs.  This was fine when there were 8 of us, but 60 definitely calls for a private meeting space.   If we need to hire a room, we will need to split the costs of this between the people attending.  We asked how much people could comfortably afford to pay towards room hire: 17 said they could pay £10, two said they could pay £20.  Nobody marked the £0, £5, £15 or £25 options.

Food & drink: We also asked how much people were able to pay towards food and drink at the meet-ups: 12 people marked the £5-10 option; 3 people marked the £10-15 option, and one person marked £5.

Q4:         Format of meetings  People attend the gatherings for different reasons – many just want to meet with others with whom they feel they have a common bond while some want to discuss serious topics in an in-depth way.  We have no intention of dictating the purpose/s of the group, but hope everybody gains something from attending. Debbie’s aim in starting the network up was to provide a safe and supportive environment for adult adoptees to discuss their adoption stories if they wish.

With that in mind, we asked adoptees who they felt should be able to attend our Reunions, and whether they would like meetings which are mostly open but may include closed sessions for adoptees only.   12 people said they thought meetings should be open to spouses/partners and children; three think meetings should be open to adoptive parents.

We also asked non-adoptees whether they would attend the reunions if they included closed sessions: 8 said yes; 3 said no; one said ‘it depends’, although s/he didn’t say what it depended on.

Q5:         Media presence  There has been media/production company interest in attending our events: 1 person stated they would not attend meet-ups at all if the media were present; 8 prefer not to have media present; 1 is happy to attend provided the media leave him/her alone; 8 were happy to have the media in attendance and to talk to them; two prefer the media to wait until the evening meal or events after/outside the main reunion.

So, what are our conclusions?

 Location – given the geographical spread of people, we feel that it is logical for one meeting each year to take place in London/South.  Out of fairness to those who live elsewhere, we will hold the other event in the Midlands as we believe the further north we go, the fewer people will attend.  These events are for everybody – we don’t want UKHKAN to split into two smaller regionally-focused groups; but obviously there is nothing to stop people organising their own local get-togethers.   That is likely to be work better for people who dislike larger gatherings.  Please do use this website and the Facebook page to post about local events.   Since Debbie is from way up north, and I’m the nation’s heart [;-)], we will appreciate help with finding venues and restaurants for the London/South reunions, and with providing any practical equipment such as PA/AV systems.

Times – as some people travel long distances to attend meetings, we set the start time at 12 noon, with registration from 11am.  This allows most people to travel on the Saturday morning, but does mean meetings go into the afternoon.   We will try to ensure meetings end by 3.30pm, so that, even if people join us for a meal afterwards, they can leave at a reasonable time.   A 12pm start and 3.30pm finish cuts out the need for most people to stay overnight, thereby avoiding hotel costs.  Saturday was the clear favourite, so we will stick with that.

Costs – the responses gave us a clear steer of £10 contributions towards venue costs.  Obviously the more people who attend, the lower the cost will be.     Although we didn’t refine the question, we assume people meant £10 per family, not per person.    We will try to keep the costs of food & drink as close to the £5 mark as possible.

The biggest help you can give us to keep the costs down is to register attendance as early as possible so that we have a clear idea of numbers.

Format of Events & Media – as the majority of people indicated a preference not to have the media present during the main events – including one who would not attend at all if media were there – we will not allow the media to attend.   There is still a significant number who are happy to talk to the media, and therefore any journalists or producers who ask to attend will be informed that they can attend the evening meal.   If journalists/producers are going to attend meals, we will notify you in advance on this website and the Facebook pages, and also inform people at the beginning of the meetings.

We will instruct journalists not to make cold approaches to people, but to allow people to approach them if they want to discuss their stories.

Please do NOT invite journalists or production companies to UKHKAN reunions.   Again, you are perfectly free to talk to the media at your own events or in your own time, but please do not do this under the UKHKAN banner.

As only a minority of people indicated they are happy to invite adoptive parents, the UKHKAN reunions will be open to adoptees, their spouses/partners, children and friends only.

We hope people find our conclusions acceptable.  We have mooted the idea of seeking sponsorship to cover the costs so that nobody is excluded from attending on ground of costs.  If this happens, we may need to have terms of reference for the network.  We aren’t at that stage yet, but if we ever get that far, we will post a message so we can get your ideas.

If anybody has connections with potential sponsors, please put them in touch with Debbie.  We would be seeking either cash to cover costs of venue, equipment and catering or the provision of a venue with these facilities.  Sponsorship in kind would be preferable as we don’t have a bank account, and to set one up would not only require written terms of reference, but also a minimum of two signatories which is a bit inconvenient when we’re dotted all over the country.

Regards to all

Kate Gordon

Footnote – since April’s meeting, Debbie and I have discussed what time of year the meet-ups should take place.  We propose moving one closer to Chinese New Year ie end of January – beginning of February; if the meetings are spaced out evenly, the second one would take place late June/early July which would be a nicer time of year to meet than October.

We very much welcome your responses and further suggestions to all the above.

A big thank you to everybody for making this the biggest reunion so far, it’s rewarding to see how readily people were, to help with moving furniture before and after the event and set out refreshments etc., so thank you.

Can you believe 58 people attended, 35 were adoptees and two more attended the social dinner.  We had 46 attending the evening social dinner considering I had originally only booked 3 tables of 10 thinking I would struggle to fill those seats, how wrong I was.  Several days before the reunion took place I increased the booking by a further 10 and still we had more coming.   By all accounts this proved to be a popular way to finish off another successful reunion and what made it more special was that fact we were all together on one floor which kept us as a private group.

The growth of this group has been steady over the last few years, but with the BAAF British Chinese Adoption Study presentation lead by Julia Feast, there has been much more interest resulting in this group growing considerably.   I have been bowled over which is an understatement, that you want to meet up and learn more about yourselves which has been tremendous.

One of the highlights of the day was being able to bring 6 of the 9 girls together that had come over on 20th December 1962.  I had previously worked on all the information people had given and to my utter astonishment I found 6 of the 9 adopted girls in this project who were all coming to this event.  They all agreed to be reunited at this reunion!  There was also another group of 3 that were reunited too, as two of the girls had been searching for the third girl in their picture at the BCAS presentation and afterwards I had gone home to look through the ISS Newsletters and the rest is history.

The ice breaker games were brilliant but due to lack of space it was apparent that we could not move around as freely, but it was a fun.  The mapping game was a great way to find out where everybody resides in the UK but it was interesting to see that those present, the majority lived in the South and I think it is fair to say that probably keeping the reunion location in London will generate the biggest attendance.  However, we have decided to try the next reunion in Birmingham as Kate has managed to get the use of the Chinese Community Centre free of charge and they have wonderful facilities.  It will be just a case of sorting out the lunch keeping costs to a minimum.

Margaret Bryer speech was informative and she gave us an insight of the involvement that the International Social Services had in facilitating our adoptions to the UK.  It was really interesting when she started to reel off some facts and figures as to how many came in any one year.  Her speech is on the website for those of you who want to recollect what she said.

Lastly I hope that you will all get a chance to look at our wonderful website which I found extremely difficult to keep a secret from all of you, as we wanted to launch it at the reunion. With Jessica artist skills we were able to choose our logo, design and write the website within a couple of weeks prior to the event.

The web site explains all about our group; who we are; what to expect; Details of past and present reunion events; links etc…   In addition there is a News and Blog page where you can place comments etc…  So please do.  Jess also explained that she is busy writing up a HK Adoptee Portal website which basically will have more factual information which will be a resource for Adult HK adoptees.

The mirror’s bearing our Logo was a little gift from Jess, Kate and me for those who attended and it is hoped that you will treasure them.

I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the next reunion on Sat 6^th October in Birmingham.

Thank you for making this a wonderful day.
Debbie