by Jeff Gammage
These days I hear more about parents being given the tokens that were once routinely withheld—the clothing their child was wearing the day she was found, a photo taken by an orphanage staffer, the blanket their daughter slept with at night. When Zhao Gu was found outside the gate of the Wei’an health center, a note of good-bye was tucked into her wrap. I didn’t learn of that by writing to the Chinese government and begging for a copy. The original was turned over to Christine and me in Lanzhou, a great and generous gift, presented as a matter of course along with the standard adoption paperwork. They gave us Zhao Gu’s “finding ad” too.
It’s almost like all of us are learning, getting better at this as we go along.
It will be fascinating to see what the years bring, how the adoption program will change as China continues its rush to modernization. And to see how the daughters of China living in this country react to those changes, and maybe even help propel some of them into being.
Right now, of course, most of the girls are busy being children. Mine certainly are.
Jin Yu likes her Leapster Animal Genus game, adores Angelina Ballerina and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, is discovering The Wizard of Oz. She takes equal delight in watching Chinese-language videos like Follow Jade and Ni Hao Little Friends and in surprising people we meet in Chinatown by speaking a few phrases in Mandarin. She loves lion dancing too, maybe even most of all. It has become not just part of her routine but part of her identity.
Early on, Christine and I decided that Jin Yu—and then her sister—would keep her Chinese name. We felt she had been given a lovely name, one chosen with care, and that by retaining it we would show our respect to China and encourage our daughter to do the same.
I wonder how those elements will blend within Jin Yu, the pull of the past and the push to the future. I wonder, years from now, when Jin Yu examines her heart, will she feel Chinese? Or American? Or both?
I wonder, but I do not worry.
I look at her now, and I can tell: she will be just fine. And that knowledge provides real comfort.
Watching her, fully six, my concern is not that Jin Yu will be unable to make her way in this world, but the opposite—that her brains and beauty will bring her too much, too easily. I know that whatever I do or don’t do for her, Jin Yu will be able to navigate her way through life, to find her place in the changing landscape of America, and possibly even in China.
ON MY desk at the newspaper is a family photo, taken not long after our second daughter was placed in our arms. We are standing in front of a Buddhist temple in Lanzhou, in western China, our first time back in the country since adopting Jin Yu.
Our new baby, Zhao Gu, is content and sleepy-eyed, ready to take a snooze against her mom. Jin Yu is happily perched on my shoulders, eating a snack of cereal from a plastic bag. But we are not the only people in the picture. Leaning into the frame, turning our foursome into five, is an old woman, her face lined, her hair a whitish gray. She peeks over Christine’s shoulder.
I don’t remember her being there when the picture was snapped.
Looking at this photo now, I imagine that this elderly woman is not merely another Buddhist come to worship on her knees. I imagine that she is a ghost. And not just any ghost, but a familial relation to my Jin Yu, a long-ago matriarch of her clan, made momentarily real and inadvertently captured by the camera’s flash.
I like to imagine that this woman has journeyed through time and space to check on our family, to be sure that Jin Yu is happy and healthy, and that the couple entrusted with her care is worthy of the privilege and up to the task. I imagine that this long-dead ancestor allowed herself to be recorded on film to remind us that our girl’s life did not begin at the moment she stepped into our arms. To remind us that Jin Yu has family in China, in this world, and in other worlds as well, people who will love her and watch over her no matter where she might live or what forces might separate them. I imagine that by her presence this woman is saying, Remember. Remember us. Remember this place.
Of course it’s just a daydream. I know the old woman is no more than a passerby, intrigued by the spectacle of a foreign couple holding two Chinese children. But that knowledge doesn’t diminish my image of her as a spirit come from the afterlife.
I have brought many ghosts home from China. I can always make room for one more.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
JOAN DIDION wrote: “A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image.”
For a long time now I have been thinking about a place, a gritty, smog-choked city in Hunan Province, China, and about a time, the moment when I first became a father. In these pages I have attempted to accurately render the events of that day and those that followed, and through that to claim them forever, to remember most obsessively. I hope that someday one or both of my daughters will answer this book with a book of her own.
This work evolved over a period of years, and during that time I benefited from the skill and support of many people.
Foremost, I would like to express my profound gratitude to Avery Rome, my editor, my friend, my big sister. Avery gave freely of her time, expertise, and ideas to shape this book from its inception. She showed me a path through these pages when I could not see one for myself.
I’m indebted to the editors at the Philadelphia Inquirer—senior and junior, past and present—who have encouraged me to write about Chinese adoption and to tell the stories of the children, including my own. My work at the newspaper, particularly in the Sunday magazine, provided an invaluable springboard for this book. Thanks especially to Tom McNamara and Jill Kirschenbaum.
Editors Nancy Cooney, Eugene Kiely, and Linda Hasert, besides being great journalists and friends, graciously allowed me a leave of absence to complete this work. Colleagues Jennifer Lin and Karl Stark provided helpful advice, Denise Boal never met a question she couldn’t answer, and the sharp pencil of Sharon O’Neal helped refine the early and late drafts.
Three people set my course in newspapers and thus in life, and my debt to them is enduring. Thank you, William K. Marimow, Maxwell E. P. King, and Robert J. Rosenthal.
Like everyone else who thinks or writes about Chinese adoption, I am indebted to Kay Ann Johnson at Hampshire College for the excellence of her research and her willingness to discuss it. Nobody knows more about Chinese orphanages than Kay. Likewise, thanks to Ellen Herman at the University of Oregon for her work in documenting the history of adoption in this and other countries. Some information in chapter 2 on the origins of foreign adoption comes from the Adoption History Project, which Ellen created and maintains at http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/.
I would like to thank Lisa See for her interest and encouragement.
Fredrica S. Friedman, my literary agent and a woman of wise counsel, worked tirelessly on my behalf. Thank you, Fredi. (And thanks Peggy Anderson for the introduction.)
This work has profited from the guidance of a great book editor. My deep appreciation to Jennifer Brehl at William Morrow/HarperCollins for her deft hand and sound advice. Thanks also to associate editor Katherine Nintzel—the Great Kate—for her endless assistance and constant good humor.
Perhaps better than most, I know family is where you find it, and mine has been large and caring. My love and thanks to Lil, Dave, and Ellen, Tanya and Jack, Rena and her girls, and of course, all the families who took part in the journeys to Hunan and Gansu Provinces.
I would like to recognize and honor my daughters’ Chinese parents, whoever they are and wherever they may be. No words can sufficiently convey my debt and obligation to them.
My father, the late William C. Gammage, may have been the last man in America to subscribe to three daily newspapers, and he often bought a fourth at the newsstand. My mother, Esther M. Gammage, is never without a book or a crossword puzzle. In me they instilled a love of the written word. I am forever grateful to my parent
s, and grateful for them.
Last, and most of all, my abiding love and gratitude to my wife and best friend, Christine, whose optimism and enthusiasm bring joy and laughter to our lives together. Christine’s persistence set us toward China and her patience enabled me to tell this story. As our daughters sing in mystical tribute, “She’s a mom, and she’s a bird….”
About the Author
JEFF GAMMAGE is a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He lives with his wife, Christine, and their daughters, Jin Yu and Zhao Gu, in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.
www.chinaghosts.com
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Copyright
CHINA GHOSTS. Copyright © 2007 by Jeff Gammage. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © MAY 2007 ISBN: 9780061871627
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