The UK Hong Kong Adoptee Network gathered again on Saturday, 28th<\/sup>April, 2018 in the Bishop Ho Ming Wah Association & Community Centre in the Church of St Martin-in-the Fields at Trafalgar Square.<\/p>\n Claire kindly \u2018volunteered\u2019 to do the write up for the website.\u00a0 We are very grateful for her enthusiastic contribution. \u00a0The edited highlights are below:<\/p>\n With 14 of us, it was a quieter affair than previous network meetings in London.\u00a0 Of course, we were delighted as ever to see Julia Feast join us for the first part.\u00a0 We had four newcomers, so the smaller group may have been a good thing as it seems to me there\u2019s something quite introverted about many of us.\u00a0 Kate had created a loose plan to give some structure to the meeting.\u00a0 Everyone was asked to introduce herself (no men on this occasion), and state one thing they would like to do or talk about.\u00a0 Those topics formed the \u2018agenda\u2019 for the second part of the meeting.\u00a0\u00a0During the introductions, we discovered that the four new members had come across the network in a variety of ways –\u00a0through personal contact, signposting and googling.\u00a0 They had a variety of experiences mirroring those we\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0She went back to Po Leung Kuk and asked to see her records.\u00a0 To her amazement, there was reference to a brother.\u00a0 After a hesitant start with emails and<\/p>\n Skype contact, the two met face to face.\u00a0 His adoptive family was Chinese American so he had managed to learn (or retain) Cantonese.\u00a0We 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.\u00a0In America, there was a higher number of Chinese families, and they were prepared to adopt.<\/p>\n I gave feedback on my experience with DNA Mysteries<\/strong>\u2013 the last chance saloon for abandoned babies registered with Long Lost Family<\/strong>, the ITV series.\u00a0 It has been two years for me with no results.\u00a0With their resources, if they cannot help me, who can?\u00a0 It turns out that the researchers like a challenge and have a particular passion for those of us who were abandoned.\u00a0 Wall to Wall<\/strong>, the Long Lost Family<\/strong>production company is planning a ninety-minute one-off special featuring foundlings whose birth families have been traced using DNA.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Who knows if the DNA thing will result in anything.\u00a0 We hope but we\u2019re not holding our breath.<\/p>\n Every network reunion ends with a group meal.\u00a0 This time we enjoyed a Thai meal at The Lemon Tree pub nearby.\u00a0 Often this is where the real bonding happens and other friends and relatives join in.\u00a0This is the time when the grizzly details of our personal challenges are exchanged with mutual understanding and a good dollop of humour.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We had no Mother\u2019s Bridge of Love (MBL) or Children Adopted from China (CASH).\u00a0However 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\u2019t fit conveniently in their production schedule.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Claire Ling Chi Martin<\/strong><\/p>\n 27th<\/sup>May 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An account of the April 2018 London Reunion The UK Hong Kong Adoptee Network gathered again on Saturday, 28thApril, 2018 in the Bishop Ho Ming Wah Association & Community Centre in the Church of St Martin-in-the Fields at Trafalgar Square. … Continue reading