She asks where she lived as a baby and I point to the building on the left, each floor lidded with balconies and hanging vines. The director, well dressed and cautious, ushers us into the reception room, acres of table ringed by chairs. My daughter wants to explore in the playground sheltered on the first floor. She likes monkey bars and shinnying up poles at home. Here she wraps her suntanned hands around the chipped paint of the swing’s upper bar and looks into my camera’s lens; her slim body hangs suspended, pink skirt, pink T-shirt, pink cheeks flushed by the heat of the tropical sun. Imagine the photograph: a glance, sadness deep in her eyes, the tentative upturn of her lips.
Afterwards I sit alone in the orphanage courtyard dwarfed by a giant white stone statue of “the one who loved China,” Madame Ching-ling Soong, who had established the first Chinese Welfare Institute, a safe haven for surviving orphans after World War II. Just above us in my daughter’s immaculate, illustrious orphanage, sixteen infants bounce in one room’s shining new stainless steel cribs. Stuffed animals hang suspended just beyond their reach. My child’s dark brown eyes are rimmed with a watery look. Madame Soong is obscured behind the pillar.
As we are about to leave, my daughter refuses to pose with me for a family portrait. Instead she stands on the other side of the lens and snaps my picture.
ALL ALONG THE RIVER, WE FOLLOW YANGJIANG ROAD
We photograph places where babies have been left. Here is one site, a stone’s throw from the Hedong or Guandou police stations several blocks from the orphanage; or here in the bustling marketplace by Guandou Bridge; or here in front of the Yangjiang Restaurant renowned for its culinary treasures, dim sum, translated literally as “little hearts.” Right here beside the spot where another child was found not long ago, I begin to imagine a crowd of shadows, invisible women and men crowding the streets, hiding behind the trees, waiting in doorways, casually dilly-dallying at a market stall to mull over fish or greens or a pile of shining key chains, all watching, all waiting for someone to look down, then look again; startled this time, they listen for the cry. Maybe they retrace their steps, stoop down and hurry away again. Maybe they say out loud, “Look, here’s a baby.” Or maybe they say nothing, pick the infant up, and show her to someone. Or they carry her into the restaurant and call the police. Or maybe they themselves take her to the station. One police station meets and conveys to the orphanage about ten children each year; nearby, another encounters even more.
When we arrive at the station where my daughter was first taken at three days old, her umbilical cord still attached, the chief of police can’t stop patting her slender shoulder. Smiling, he bends down on one knee beside her to pose for the photograph. What must it be like to be the intermediary of so many children, bearing them from their mysterious past into an institutional future?
Standing at the market, hiding in the grove of palms or squinting into the sun on the Guandou bridge, my daughter frowns but doesn’t say a word. Later she proudly tells a stranger, “I live in Canada, but I’m Chinese,” explaining that Maoming is her favourite place in all of China, because “that’s where my orphanage is.”
On our visit to a Maoming elementary boarding school, where rural children are sent for a better education, the youngest dress as sunflowers to sing and perform for us. Only forty of the three hundred students in the school are girls. “Girls have more patience for farm work and stay in the countryside,” a teacher explains. They might attend a rural school, but boarding school funds are reserved mainly for boys who will care for their elders and maintain the family name.
ADOPTION INEVITABLY SPEAKS THE “LANGUAGE OF CELEBRATION AND LAMENT”
You imagine her as Mother Moon, always present even when we can’t see her. Over time, a particular woman’s face comes into view. At first she looks like every other Chinese woman—the way some Caucasians say “all Chinese look alike” when they don’t look carefully enough to appreciate the differences. You notice how this particular woman’s eyes—beautiful, deep brown-black, almond-shaped—are tired around the edges. You imagine her up early to look after her children, only one of them official unless she lives on a farm and can justify more for the field labour they perform.
Today you watch as she takes her bicycle to the market before dawn to find her way almost by touch in the dark to the small shop where she sells soup pots and small wicker kitchen implements. Or you pick out her silhouette among dozens and dozens of women as she sits on the factory floor and in a flash sews the Disney T-shirt front to back, front to back, for eleven to sixteen hours, six or seven days a week. She maintains her quota in spite of her back, her fingers and the deterioration of her sight. Or follow her to where her walk ends in a rice paddy and see her hat dip to the rhythm of arms and torso as she curves into and over the green spiked water. Or watch her stretch a weary arm for the branch of lychee fruit, another migrant worker in the civil servants’ ancestral farm. The surrounding hills are rounded with groves of trees or squared off in concrete-block solutions to overcrowded cities.
This woman birthed a most beautiful baby daughter in the early morning of an August day in 1997, somewhere near Maoming in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. She knew that this child would disappear, never to be spoken of again. She knows this now and weeps.
FÚ
To become mother and daughter, we’ve both crossed great distances. Any woman who adopts at forty-eight knows that a midseason turning point can be a revolution. Tattered pages of the I Ching, the ancient Chinese book of divination that I consulted as a hippie in 1971 become my transcultural adoptive mothering manual thirty years later. “The time of darkness is past,” says the I Ching’s six-lined hexagram fú. This image of earth over thunder means “return” or “turning point” when the December winter solstice marks the seasonal shift that stimulates good fortune. Here at latitude 53 where winter’s night endures almost forever, signs of changing seasons are delayed. Chinese New Year fell in February this year. That’s when millions of red paper squares, embossed with golden brushstrokes of the Chinese good luck symbol, clung to doorways from Beijing to central Alberta.
The ancients advise, “Position the golden strokes of fú upside down to ward off evil and bring great good fortune.” This tradition began in the Qing dynasty (1661–1911) when one of the servants accidentally displayed the symbol for fú, or luck, upside down on the palace and storeroom doors. Justifying the error, the housemaster noted the word dào or “upside down” is the same character as “arrived.”
Soon after I adopted Bao, our friend Rose from Shandong taped the red Chinese New Year sign to the oval glass in our purple Edmonton front door. For Rose, who knows the difficult trails of Chinese migration, my daughter and I have truly arrived—only luck, the one-child policy and uneven economic development could have brought us together to share this small house.
Luck is also often the topic of conversation when we visit the Garden Bakery for our tasty Chinese coconut buns: the friendly woman proprietor tells me my daughter is “lucky.” In Noodle Noodle, our favourite restaurant across the street, uniformed waitresses echo these words. These brilliant Chinese women travel to Canada in search of a better life only to trade in their PhD in engineering or forestry for a dim sum cart, shift work in a water bottle factory, or an extra job cleaning houses for penny candy tips.
LOVE’S FORTUNATE PIVOT
“I’m so lucky, Mommy,” says Bao as we nibble on the har gau shrimp dumplings, dim sum culinary treasures.
“Why, Bao?” I ask, knowing that when others describe our luck, the comment erases my own good fortune and the tragedy of her early life.
“I’m lucky because everyone loves me,” she says.
At night my daughter looks up to make her wish. That faraway Chinese god of luck, fú xing, twinkles her starry eye at us.
Note
The phrase “language of celebration and lament” is from Jacqueline Rose’s discussion of feminism in On Not Being Able to Sleep: Psychoanalysis and the Moder
n World. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2003.
STEP 1: RISE
Up until now your life has been a wrestling match, with obligation and guilt in one corner, free choice and self-preservation in the other. You have always known which corner wins the small battles—after all, you have been conditioned to revere your parents, respect your elders and “Honour thy mother.” But now your bulging belly has added a potent element to the fight: a protective maternal instinct. Lean in close to the mirror. Closer. Examine those dark hollows above your cheeks. Raise your gaze a little and stare into those frightened eyes. See how they belong in a smaller frame, that of a young girl no older than eight? Now inhale deeply, right down into your extended belly. Breathe for both of you. Think of him and feel that tingle of clean tranquility. At the dawning of your son’s life, it is time to reclaim your own.
STEP 2: REINFORCE
After your son is born, your mother will burst into your hospital room. You made a valiant effort to break ties with her during your pregnancy, for the sake of your son’s health. That first phone call flagged it, when she moaned about her husband’s inadequacies and ignored your good news. You tried to hold in your disappointment and shame for having thought she would be happy for you, but your husband watched you sob. It was when he asked Why put yourself through it? that you fully understood you had a choice. For the eight months that followed you did not call her and you felt free and clear. But now your term is up and tradition is stepping in. Know this: your husband will call her after your son is born and she will cause a commotion. She will ignore visiting hours, argue with doctors, and pull your fresh stitches as she strains to grab your son.
You will notice, not for the first time, that her eyes do not meet yours. At that moment, you know you cannot wish a mother-daughter bond into being; it doesn’t exist and never did. This realization is painful, and in your weakened state it may be too much to handle. Secure some time with your son and lick your wounds. Then, when you are alone and ready, close your eyes and begin remembering.
STEP 3: REMEMBER MR. SMITH
Drift back to when you were seven years old. It is a Snow Day and you awake excited that school is cancelled. You hear your mother swear and slam the kitchen cupboard. You do not know why and your father is not home to translate. Your mother throws a jacket on you, neglecting hat and mittens because she is late. You are cold as you walk to Mr. Smith’s house but are afraid to say anything because nothing can soothe her anger that erupts at everything lately. Recall the basement with the dim lighting and the stand-up piano in the corner where she left you. Hear her voice blend with Mr. Smith’s behind the door. Feel the wooden stairs you climb up and away from spiders and strange sounds. See her face a horrid mixture of shock and ecstasy as you open the door and watch Mr. Smith climb off her. Watch her slap you, but do not feel it. You are no longer that seven-year-old girl.
STEP 4: REMEMBER BROKEN BLOOD VESSELS
Now you are thirteen. You are washing dinner dishes in the aftermath of an argument your mother has had with her new husband. She sits at the table, head down, with a butcher knife in one hand aimed at her bare wrist. She is crying and talking to a dead relative. You have seen this before and wish now that she had completed her treatment at the nuthouse—as she called it—instead of kidnapping you from your father four years earlier. At the time you missed her motherly comforts—her Sears perfume, her pickled beets, the special way she tied your hair in braids—and even prayed for her to come home. So when you saw her climbing through the kitchen window when your father was at work, you happily went with her and did not ask questions. Not even when Mr. Smith moved in. But now even he is gone and you are alone with her. Left to wipe her eyes and hold her and tell her that everything will be all right. But tonight you just don’t feel like it. Tonight you want to be a child for once. You ignore her cries and head toward your room. But she is suddenly behind you with the knife at your back and it starts to dig in. She drops it and gasps. You turn to see her face cloud and distort again just before she starts hitting you, open handed, and yelling that you are ungrateful and useless and now your insolence has caused her to break blood vessels in her hands. She walks into the night without a coat, leaving you alone and clinging to a broken banister.
STEP 5: REMEMBER THE LEGION
This last recollection is of fresh memories. Approach them slowly. There, see that day in the Legion up north where she lives. You drove three hours to visit her on that weekend your husband was at a seminar. Of course you called her, double-checked that your visit suited her well in advance of your departure. She was already drunk when you got there and out of a strange sense of obligation you drove her and her husband from their cottage on the lake to the Legion in town. There, she flirted shamelessly with a man. Her husband buried his face in a glass of beer across from her and you felt a sad kinship with him as you both tried to ignore her. Only when she stood up, pointed at you, and commanded all legionaries to look at your funny hair did you start paying attention. As you stood to leave, she pulled at your pants, slid them down mid-thigh and pointed out the difference between your build and hers. Later, as you drove her home, her head out the window like a dog, you tried to explain how hurtful her actions were. Then, by the side of the road, while you held her hair and wiped the vomit from her shoe, you were fairly certain she hadn’t heard you.
STEP 6: REMOVE
This step may seem very simple at first. And, in truth, it is. You begin by not answering her phone calls. You strike her birthday off the calendar. You hide all the photos you have of her. Then you sit down, inhale deeply, and draft your letter to her. It should cover a few essential points:
a) State that you are writing to her neither hastily nor in anger. You have thought this over for the better part of thirty-five years and are ready to begin living your life in peace.
b) State that she is not a bad person but you are done with the horrible drama. You are done jumping every time the phone rings and crying for hours after. Life is precious and short and you want to start enjoying it.
c) Explain this new, overwhelming instinct that instructs you to protect your son and finally yourself. This means severing ties with her. You hope she will understand one day.
Reread the letter before mailing. It is not advisable to call her as her dry sobs will invariably sway your decision—you will only kick yourself later. Prepare for her response: commending you, thanking you for the honesty, explaining that she is undergoing new therapy and is better now. You have heard this all before. A phone call from her most recent ex-husband will make you more comfortable in this difficult time. He will tell you that she is getting married to a new man, a man she adamantly denied any involvement with. Smile at having learned the fine art of recognizing her lies. You can practically feel her web slip from your shoulders.
STEP 7: RENEW
The first morning you wake after a complete month of freedom from her you will be a little frightened. This is only natural. It is the little girl inside of you who wants approval and now has no mother to pat her on the head and tell her she has made the right decision. This is when you realize that you never really had an attentive mother in the first place. Dry your eyes, dispense with self-pity, and vow to be as good a mother as conceivably possible without smothering your son. Walk to the nursery with your head high. You are free. But now fresh worries will plague you: how will you explain the missing grandmother, and will he accept your choice? This is when you sit down by the cartoon lamp beside his crib and begin writing another letter. This time it is for him. Within it you will explain your perception of free choice and condone it when laced with a healthy dose of soul-searching and responsibility. After all, it is your responsibility to protect him. You need not offer intricate details but be prepared to tell the truth if he asks, because you will no longer lie for her. You notice that the filth on your conscience is beginning to wash away, and you like the feeling of lightness.
STEP 8: REVERE AND REMIT
You have undergone intense deliberation and countless sleepless nights and now it is time to enjoy the fruits of your labours. Take time to revere the child who gave you the strength to sever that bad relationship like a gangrenous limb. Sit in the room with him, enjoy his innocence—for you have done a lot to protect it—but do stay away from it. Don’t touch it: it is his and his alone. When he is sleeping, get acquainted with yourself; admire this new confident woman capable of caring for her family. And in those moments of fading euphoria, when guilt starts jabbing at your shoulder with worn boxing gloves, learn to forgive yourself. It was never your intention to hurt her. In moments of doubt, when you wonder if your son will understand or if you are teaching him that relationships are disposable, rub that little scar on your back and repeat the word protection until it is no longer a word but a part of your breath.
STEP 9: RESUME
Now that the vacant space inside you has begun filling in with a liberating lust for life, know that she will often creep into your thoughts. Beware of times when you would usually think of her: holidays are hazardous. When you recall with awe the heaps of chocolate macaroons she prepared for Christmas mornings, take your hand off the phone and go back over steps 3 to 5 if necessary. Should you choose to tell friends and colleagues of your actions, on those days you will learn to dub weak days, be prepared for their shocked looks. They may never understand your situation. Divorcing a mother is not for everyone. A long history of tradition and societal expectation goes against your actions. At such moments breathe deeply, find your reflection, and note the distinct absence of that frightened girl behind your eyes.
STEP 10: RESTRAIN
As you raise your son, know the difference between involvement and interference. He is entitled to make his own decisions, as you were. Be forewarned that freedom may have a price. One day, when his independence blooms and his monthly visits trickle down to a thin, infrequent stream, take this book off your shelf, read over the section on free choice repeatedly until you fall asleep, spine straight, on your bare wooden floor. When you awaken with wide, clear eyes, revisit your reflection and look for similarities between yourself and your mother. The arms may appear different: hers were loose, yours may be worn and red. After you carefully consider the term overprotection, allow air to fill your lungs, wrap your arms around your body, and then smile in gratitude for having lived a self-guided life, unclouded, clean, and your own.
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