Time\u2019s weird.\u00a0 It speeds up as you get older, it hurtles by – and it crawls when you\u2019re waiting for the milk to boil or a bus to catch.\u00a0 On Saturday, 25th<\/sup> April, 2015, I experienced both sensations.\u00a0 It seemed like only yesterday that I was exploring the streets of Marylebone looking for St Paul\u2019s Church, mobile thrust in front, following a little moving dot and, as per, going in entirely the wrong direction.\u00a0 Salvation usually transpires in some equally confused Hong Kong Adoptee, similarly equipped, peering myopically at street names.\u00a0 One year later, here I am, entering the LUL zone once more, heading for the 2015 reunion.\u00a0 LUL \u2013 London Underground Ltd, has its own time.\u00a0 Haven\u2019t you noticed, when you look up at the electronic indicator for the next train, the time it\u2019s supposed to arrive bears no relation to the number of minutes it actually takes to turn up?\u00a0 A LUL minute is longer.\u00a0 Much longer.\u00a0 I emerged, blinking, at Rotherhithe, map flapping in the breeze.\u00a0 After only the slightest waywardness, (no really), I found a willing local to escort me closer to Sands Studios and, fortunately, encountered a fellow adoptee.\u00a0 We quickly spotted a group of front runners, gaggled together at the entrance.\u00a0 With equal measure of pleasure and relief, I recognise more and more faces now and, with the merest fumbling in the filing cabinet of my mind, can put names to most of them.<\/p>\n The entrance to Sands Studios is modern and cheery \u2013 a neat caf\u00e9 area with homely (alright, Americans, homey) atmosphere, all red chequered clothed and raffia seated \u2013 and then I turned left into the Picture Library and Time Stood Still.\u00a0 Low ceilings, timber beams, casements of wood and glass housing rows of leather clad tomes, I half expected to see a Dickensian clerk shuffle forth, frowning at the disturbance, or dwarfish characters from Diagon Alley beholding the intrusion with weary distain.\u00a0 I had not expected to see Thomas Cromwell of \u201cWolf Hall\u201d, well his costume anyway, and Anne Boleyn\u2019s costume down another bank of display cabinets.\u00a0 I put my astonishment on pause for the flurry of greetings.<\/p>\n Hong Kong Adult Adoptee Reunions are becoming more and more like extended family Christmases \u2013 a gathering of the clans (well, OK, orphanages \u2013 Po Leung Kuk, Fanling, St Christopher\u2019s, Shatin) from far and wide.\u00a0 I often ponder how many of us had been together more than 50 years\u2019 ago as babies in regimented rows of cots in charitable institutions \u2013 barely bonded with birth families before being abandoned, then plucked from the streets to institutions \u2013 just settled again before being flown across the globe \u2013 dispersed into the white Western world, yellow dots, drifting.\u00a0 We cling to flotsam, the few possessions we brought with us, brocade jackets, name bracelets, shoes, passports, adoption records \u2013 some of us brave enough to lay them out on the long table in the Picture Library \u2013 precious photos and press cuttings \u2013 \u201cA baby for Christmas\u201d, how grateful and relieved we were supposed to be to find new families \u2013 the upbeat optimism of fascinated journalists belies the bewilderment on our faces \u2013 I know that many of us didn\u2019t smile till we were at school. \u00a0 \u00a0 There\u2019s something of the long, lost family about us.\u00a0 Common early experiences fleetingly shared, an uncanny rapport, vast canvasses of life history sketched out but not yet painted in, more detail added with every reunion, individual meeting or phone call.\u00a0 Almost sisters.\u00a0 Blood.\u00a0 Nature versus nurture.\u00a0 Our only blood relatives are those we gave birth to.\u00a0 Saplings uprooted and re-planted in a foreign land.\u00a0 Deeply buried fears and feelings are barely articulated but understood by another person for the first time without explanation, stories shared in love and laughter.\u00a0 Observe us, by all means, gaggling like geese, but our ability to laugh at ourselves keeps us sane.<\/p>\n We\u2019re guided further into the Tardis-inducing interior where the space on the inside feels far more expansive than you\u2019d expect from the outside, and time and space warps from room to room via rambling corridors lined with costumes and curiosities from different periods, senses assailed from all sides like Alice spiralling into Wonderland.\u00a0 I had to Google it later to understand the whole eclectic mix of film, theatre, costume design, photography and museum that inhabits this 19th<\/sup> century warehouse with its reclaimed Tudor timber.\u00a0 We settled into the assortment of settees and armchairs that filled the most comfortable little cinema on the planet.\u00a0 After an introduction, we embarked on a warm-up exercise thinking about a gift we\u2019d like to give and one we\u2019d like to receive.\u00a0 A chocolate box variety of ideas revealed our trinket obsessions and personal passions then morphed into more philosophical thoughts on bottling time and passing on wisdom.\u00a0 From such sharings we learn so much about each other and ourselves.\u00a0 How fascinating to discover that so many of us have extremely limited facial recognition \u2013 some of us even mistaking our family members \u2013 another throw back to our challenging origins.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell you how much social media has assisted me in recent years with this problem \u2013 potential clients and colleagues have photos all over the place, thankfully.\u00a0 And not very good teeth \u2013 cue reminiscences about milk allergies.\u00a0 Remember the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (hereafter BAAF \u2013 I\u2019m not typing that again!) adoption survey?\u00a0 I recall with amusement one of the academics telling his dentist about announcing the results at the book launch and being embarrassed to admit that the condition of our teeth had not been included in the survey.\u00a0 Seems we have rubbish eyesight, too.<\/p>\n We often have a speaker at our reunions and, this year, it was our venue host, Annabel Stockman.\u00a0 I gathered, despite daydreaming through the intro, that the Hong Kong Adult Adoptee Network (HKAN) committee members met this energetic and vibrant mother of two (now) teenage adoptees from China at the Mothers\u2019 Bridge of Love tenth anniversary bash at the Museum of Childhood.\u00a0 She\u2019s written a book about those adoptions:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Annabel-Stockman\/e\/B0034OYIKM<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n and is currently writing another book about the clothes the babies were in when they were handed over to their new adoptive parents:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.blurb.co.uk\/b\/3464095-hand-me-over-hand-me-downs<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n We were treated to a slide show of precious little outfits, steeped in significance, stretched out, laid flat and preserved like pressed petals, captured by a camera\u2019s lens for all time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Each represented the personal experiences of the adopting family as their bewildered bundle was handed over, sometimes reluctantly by its current carer.\u00a0 Our own parents didn\u2019t collect us in the same way and many had never stepped foot in the country of our birth.\u00a0 Some of us weren\u2019t even told that we were adopted which made for some intriguing double-think.\u00a0 In contrast, these intrepid pioneers had survived the scrutiny of British Social Services, braved China\u2019s bureaucracy, dealt with corrupt officialdom with the utmost delicacy and, occasionally, had to handle the chagrin of being duped.\u00a0 Particularly heart-wrenching was Annabel\u2019s account of adopting a disabled boy only to be thwarted after having looked after him for a couple of days in a remote provincial hotel.\u00a0 Themes emerged, threading their stories with our own parents\u2019 accounts of not being able to put their babies down, go out of sight or the presence of men.\u00a0 Annabel side-stepped some of the later psychological problems by home educating her two.<\/p>\n After homemade soup and a thorough peruse of our own souvenirs, we assembled in the picturesque frescoed theatre with its Wherefore Art Thou wooden balcony for group photos.<\/p>\n We adult adoptees have craved each other\u2019s company since Debbie set up the first HKAN get together in 2007, meeting regularly in different venues around the UK and even Hong Kong and the USA.\u00a0 Our younger sisters from China have benefitted from the support of charities such as Children Adopted from China (CACH) and Mothers\u2019 Bridge of Love (MBL).\u00a0 Whatever the mechanism for gathering us together, what\u2019s the attraction?\u00a0 For me, personally, it alleviates the symptoms of Only Chinese Child Syndrome, a phrase I\u2019ve made up to articulate the feeling of being a Brit trapped inside a Chinese body.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Claire Ling Chi Martin 15th June 2015 Time \u2013 invented by humans, measured by humans, perceived by humans.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t had much of it lately \u2013 hence the delay in writing this report.\u00a0 Any ol\u2019 excuse will do. It\u2019s … Continue reading ![\"Blazing](\"http:\/\/www.hkadopteesnetwork.com\/uk\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/3\/files\/claire-martins-pictures\/Blazing-River-Little-Tiger-Book-Cover-v001-2015-04-25.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Hand](\"http:\/\/www.hkadopteesnetwork.com\/uk\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/3\/files\/claire-martins-pictures\/Hand-Me-Over-Hand-Me-Downs-Book-Cover-v001-2015-04-25.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Annabel](\"http:\/\/www.hkadopteesnetwork.com\/uk\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/3\/files\/claire-martins-pictures\/Annabel-Stockman-Handover-Hand-Me-Downs-Presentation-v001-2015-04-25.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"HKAN](\"http:\/\/www.hkadopteesnetwork.com\/uk\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/3\/files\/claire-martins-pictures\/HKAN-2015-Reunion-Theatre-at-Sands-Studios-v001-2015-04-25.jpg\")
<\/p>\n