Saturday 22nd September
John Lewis Community Hub
Grand Central shopping centre – above New St train station
Birmingham

Cost: £5/head (children under 16 free)
Refreshments extra

More details to follow.

An account of the April 2018 London Reunion

The UK Hong Kong Adoptee Network gathered again on Saturday, 28^thApril, 2018 in the Bishop Ho Ming Wah Association & Community Centre in the Church of St Martin-in-the Fields at Trafalgar Square.

Claire kindly ‘volunteered’ to do the write up for the website.  We are very grateful for her enthusiastic contribution.  The edited highlights are below:

With 14 of us, it was a quieter affair than previous network meetings in London.  Of course, we were delighted as ever to see Julia Feast join us for the first part.  We had four newcomers, so the smaller group may have been a good thing as it seems to me there’s something quite introverted about many of us.  Kate had created a loose plan to give some structure to the meeting.  Everyone was asked to introduce herself (no men on this occasion), and state one thing they would like to do or talk about.  Those topics formed the ‘agenda’ for the second part of the meeting.  During the introductions, we discovered that the four new members had come across the network in a variety of ways – through personal contact, signposting and googling.  They had a variety of experiences mirroring those we’re already familiar with: happy family relationships; confused identity especially at school; lack of sense of belonging; desire to search for records; desire to find birth family.

As regards things people wanted to talk about: root tracing was high on the list and it was a joy to hear an account of how one member had found her biological sibling. She went back to Po Leung Kuk and asked to see her records.  To her amazement, there was reference to a brother.  After a hesitant start with emails and

Skype contact, the two met face to face.  His adoptive family was Chinese American so he had managed to learn (or retain) Cantonese. We have been told that boys were often sent to America because it was felt the prospects were better; it was more common for girls to be sent to England and other Commonwealth countries. In America, there was a higher number of Chinese families, and they were prepared to adopt.

I gave feedback on my experience with DNA Mysteries– the last chance saloon for abandoned babies registered with Long Lost Family, the ITV series.  It has been two years for me with no results. With their resources, if they cannot help me, who can?  It turns out that the researchers like a challenge and have a particular passion for those of us who were abandoned.  Wall to Wall, the Long Lost Familyproduction company is planning a ninety-minute one-off special featuring foundlings whose birth families have been traced using DNA.  Last month they organised a Genealogist Gathering and filmed about thirty of us in the hope that enough of us would have success and that we could feature in the programme.  The vast majority were white British but there were a couple women of who had been abandoned in Nigeria and, crucially, four of us Hong Kongers.  Who knows if the DNA thing will result in anything.  We hope but we’re not holding our breath.

Every network reunion ends with a group meal.  This time we enjoyed a Thai meal at The Lemon Tree pub nearby.  Often this is where the real bonding happens and other friends and relatives join in. This is the time when the grizzly details of our personal challenges are exchanged with mutual understanding and a good dollop of humour.  Meeting one of the new members at the DNA Mysteries event made me realise that there are some of us still out there on our own bobbing around without support or comradeship.  We had no Mother’s Bridge of Love (MBL) or Children Adopted from China (CASH). However much we hope that the likes of Wall to Wall may find our families, we know that their priority is making a TV programme and our level of complexity may mean we don’t fit conveniently in their production schedule.  It may be that our only success will be through our own efforts. By far the majority of us will never find relatives but we continue to cherish discovering each other, Sisters in Spirit across the globe.

Claire Ling Chi Martin

27^thMay 2018

Saturday 28th April 2018

Chinese Community Centre opens at 12:45pm. There will be a setting up period of 30 minutes – the meeting will therefore begin at 1:15pm.

https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org

2018 ~ Dates for your diary

(1) Saturday 28th April
Bishop Ho Ming Wah Community Association
Lower Crypt
St Martins in the Fields church
Trafalgar Square
London

(2) Saturday 22nd September
John Lewis Community Hub
Grand Central shopping centre – above New St train station
Birmingham

Cost: £5/head (children under 16 free)
Refreshments extra

More details to follow.

Hi All

Please confirm your attendance.  Thank you

As many people can’t make it to St Ives, we will be holding a Brum meet, so you can go to the ball!

Date: Saturday 25^th November

Venue: Tba – will be in or close to city centre

Cost: £5 per head (children free)

It’s ages away yet; but, when we send final reminder, you do need to respond if you plan to attend so we can plan accordingly.

Do feel free to confirm now. Email Debbie at hkadoptees@btinternet.com

Chungwen came to the last London meeting in February to briefly explain her project and had a very good response from those who attended.

Here is an outline of the project:

In order to gain funding for the project Chungwen needs to get clearer idea of numbers interested.
If you are interested in participating or have any questions regarding the project, please contact Chungwen directly.

The project is to record personal journeys of a group of women who were brought over as children from Hong Kong via International Social Service UK in the 1960s and early 1970s to be adopted by families in the UK. Apart from the adoptees, the project also aims to explore the following:
1. the experiences of their adopted families, i.e. parents, siblings, etc.
2. background research on the children homes in HK, and the stories of Mildred Dibden and Lucy Clay, etc.
3. their journeys from Hong Kong to the UK (via BA)

Main outputs of the project:
1. individual stories
2. background research of this part of the history
3. community & volunteers’ participation
4. public awareness (format can be a documentary, exhibition, performance, etc., which is opened to discussion)

It is not a social research but an oral history project, samples can be viewed from the British Chinese Heritage Centre (http://www.britishchineseheritagecentre.org.uk/).
Chungwen Li
Dean

Ming-Ai (London) Institute
1 Cline Road
London N11 2LX
Tel: +44 (0)20 83617161
Email: c.w.li@ming-ai.org.uk
Website: www.ming-ai.org.uk

HKAN Reunion ~ London

Date:​​Saturday 18th Feb 2017
Time: ​​1pm start
Venue: ​Bishop Ho Ming Wah Association & Chinese Community Centre, Lower Crypt, St
Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 4JJ
http://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/chinese/bishop-ho-ming-wah-association-and-community-centre/

Followed by private tour of British Airways exhibition: “80 Years of Connecting HK to the UK” at the China Institute, Gerrard Street.
http://www.britishchineseheritagecentre.org.uk/projects/british-airways-80-years-of-connecting-hk-to-the-uk#.WC_DvO96Qvw.twitter

The exhibition has been curated by Chungwen Li, Dean of the Ming Ai Institute, and includes a special section focusing on the Hong Kong adoption programme

Cost:​​£5 per person donation to the Chinese Centre + £1 refreshments (children free)

Chungwen Li will give a talk on “Chinese community in the UK”, lead a private tour of the exhibition at the China Exchange in Chinatown (http://chinaexchange.uk/), and present a project/research proposal on “our group” which will depend on funding and interest from us. She would very much like to undertake research into our personal journeys here, exploring archives in HK of the orphanages and those who would have been part of our early lives as we made our way to our new life in the UK.

Chungwen will be asking for any adoptee who would like to be involved in this project to let her or Jasmine know. This is different from the academic research Julia Feast did as it will be more personal to us. This will be a unique and exciting project, enabling us to understand a little more of our early life in HK.

As usual, we will finish our reunion with a meal – tba.

Early confirmation essential
Our hosts will require a list of attendees for security/fire evacuation purposes. We also need to know numbers for catering and to book the restaurant. We anticipate a good attendance at this meeting, but it can be difficult to find a restaurant capable of accommodating large numbers especially at short notice. It is therefore essential to confirm your attendance ASAP and no later than Saturday 17th December. Email confirmation to: hkadoptees@btinternet.com

​

“A Tale of Two Cities: Connecting London and Hong Kong”, an exhibition curated by Ming-Ai (London) Institute in collaboration with British Airways, will explore the stories about the Hong Kong – Chinese community in the UK; and the International Social Service UK Hong Kong Adoption Project (1960-70). This exhibition will hold its opening ceremony on 14 Feb 2017 at China Exchange (32A Gerrad Street, London W1D 6JA) between 2 to 4 pm.
Information about the exhibition can be found on the British Chinese Heritage Centre’s website: http://www.britishchineseheritagecentre.org.uk/projects/british-airways-80-years-of-connecting-hk-to-the-uk.

If any UK HKAN Adoptee would like to attend please can you send your full name, email address and mobile to me, Jasmine Gillies at gilliesj@serenissima.co.uk since spaces are limited it will be a first come first serve policy.

The HKAN Annual gathering has also been confirmed for the Saturday, 18th February to coincide with this exhibition so those who can’t make the 14th will still get a chance to attend.

Chungwen Li, Dean of Ming-Ai is also able to give us a private viewing in the afternoon and a talk about a further project she is interested in undertaking on our group. The venue is still to be confirmed but hopefully will be in walking distance from Chinatown. We are looking to meet up at midday and see the exhibition in the afternoon.