我從中國被領養，至今仍在尋找自我和歸屬_風聞

紐約時報 | 我從中國被領養，至今仍在尋找自我和歸屬I Was Adopted From China as a Baby. I’m Still Coming to Terms With That.送交者: icemessenger 於 2024-09-22 As early as I can remember, I wished I hadn’t been Chinese.自記事起，我就一直希望自己不是中國人。I hated my unruly black hair and my eyes, which marked me as a foreigner in the Netherlands, where I grew up. I went to bed at night hoping I’d wake up with blond hair and blue eyes like the other Dutch kids. Sometimes I tricked myself into believing this had happened — until a mirror reminded me where I came from. 我討厭自己不易打理的黑髮，討厭自己的眼睛，在荷蘭，那個我長大的地方，它們讓我顯得像個外國人。晚上睡覺時，我希望自己醒來時能像其他荷蘭孩子一樣擁有金髮碧眼。有時我欺騙自己，相信自己的願望成真了——直到鏡子提醒我，我來自何方。 I was adopted from China as a toddler in 1993 by white Dutch parents who couldn’t conceive on their own. I grew up in a deeply Christian small town where, every week, dozens of people — all of them white — paraded past our house in their Sunday best on the way to church. It was about as far as you could get — physically, culturally, ethnically — from China. 1993年，還在蹣跚學步的我被荷蘭的白人父母從中國領養，因為他們無法生育。我在一個虔誠的基督教小鎮長大，每週都有幾十個人——全是白人——穿着最好的衣服從我們家經過，前往教堂。從外貌、文化和種族方面來説，這大概是離中國最遠的地方了。I don’t blame my adoptive parents for the sense of alienation I grew up with. They did their best to give me a happy childhood, and I love them very much. But when China confirmed earlier this month that it would end most adoptions by foreign parents, a wave of relief washed over me, followed by suppressed anger. 我不會因為成長過程中一直伴隨着我的隔閡感而責怪我的養父母。他們盡了最大努力讓我度過了一個快樂的童年，我非常愛他們。但當中國本月早些時候確認將不再允許大多數外國父母收養中國兒童時，我感到一陣寬慰，隨之而來的是一股壓抑的憤怒。 The number of Chinese children placed with overseas families since China opened up to international adoptions in the early 1990s has been estimated at more than 160,000. Around half of these kids went to the United States. The topic is usually discussed from the adoptive parents’ perspective: How it allowed them to start families, how they rescued these orphans and now how the sudden ban leaves applicant couples in the lurch. 自20世紀90年代初中國開放國際領養以來，被安置在海外家庭的中國兒童數量估計超過16萬。這些孩子中約有一半去了美國。這個話題通常是從養父母的角度來討論的：這項領養制度如何讓他們得以建立家庭，如何讓他們拯救這些孤兒，而現在突然的禁令又如何讓申請收養的夫婦陷入困境。Far less attention is given to the darker side of these placements and their impact on adoptees.很少有人關注這些領養安排的陰暗面及其對被領養者的影響。 China’s strict one-child family planning policy, introduced in 1979, forced many Chinese parents to give up babies. These were usually girls, because of a traditional preference for male heirs. A profit-motivated overseas adoption industry cropped up in response, in which human lives were sometimes bought and sold. 中國於1979年出台的嚴格獨生子女政策迫使許多中國父母放棄他們剛出生的孩子。這些通常是女孩，因為傳統上社會更偏向男性家庭繼承人。因此，一個以盈利為目的的海外領養行業應運而生，在這個行業中，人的生命有時候是可以被買賣的。For many like me — plucked from our home cultures and raised in countries where we didn’t quite fit in — the search for who we are and where we belong has been lifelong and full of discovery, as well as confusion, regret and loss.對於很多像我一樣脱離了本土文化、在與自己格格不入的國家長大的人來説，尋找自我和歸屬感是一生的事情，充滿了探索，也充滿了困惑、遺憾和失落。I was one of the first nonwhite kids at my primary school in Alblasserdam, a tidy little Dutch town. Some classmates would kick my bike, trying to break it, because, as one boy put it, “a filthy Chinese does not deserve this.” The ubiquitous, indispensable bicycle is a symbol of the Dutch nation, and to them, I wasn’t Dutch enough for one. I heard adults say “slant eye” and saw them use their fingers to pull up the corners of their eyes. 我是荷蘭小鎮阿爾布拉瑟丹小學裏最早的非白人孩子之一。有些同學會踢我的自行車，試圖破壞它，因為正如一個男孩所説，“一個骯髒的中國人不配有這個。”無處不在、不可或缺的自行車是荷蘭民族的象徵，對他們來説，我還不夠荷蘭。我聽到大人説“斜眼”，看到他們用手指拉起眼角。 Even in my extended family, I sometimes felt like an intruder. When my parents told their relatives they were bringing a nonwhite baby into the family, not everyone was supportive. After my cousin was born, my grandparents’ house soon filled with photos of her. There were just a couple of pictures of me. I didn’t mind so much; I was just jealous that my cousin looked like everyone else. I resembled nobody. 即使在我的大家庭裏，我有時也覺得自己是個入侵者。當我的養父母告訴親戚他們要把一個非白人嬰兒帶進家裏時，並不是每個人都支持。我的表妹出生後，祖父母的房子裏很快就堆滿了她的照片，而我的照片在那裏只有幾張。我並不介意，只是嫉妒我的表妹看起來和其他人一樣。我卻和任何人都不一樣。As I got older, I connected with the rare Asian characters in movies or television who weren’t the stereotypical massage parlor worker or socially awkward math geek. My hero was the brilliant, sassy Dr. Cristina Yang in “Grey’s Anatomy,” played by Sandra Oh. I didn’t know it then, but researchers have a word for what I was going through: “reculturation,” the process of developing one’s identity and navigating between birth and adoptive cultures. 隨着年齡的增長，我與電影或電視中罕見的亞洲角色建立了聯繫，他們不是千篇一律的按摩店服務員，也不是不善社交的數學怪人。我心目中的英雄是吳珊卓在《實習醫生格蕾》(Grey’s Anatomy)中飾演的聰明、潑辣的克里斯蒂娜·楊醫生。當時我還不知道，但研究人員已經用一個詞來形容我所經歷的一切：“文化再適應”(reculturation)，也就是一個人發展出自己的身份，並適應出生地和收養地的文化差異。I grew up feeling a part of me had never left China, and I longed to reconnect. One day in the third grade, each student had to make a family tree. I wrote my name in the center with lines radiating out, ending in question marks. I went home in tears and pleaded with my parents to take me to China. 在成長過程中，我感覺自己的一部分從未離開過中國，我渴望與中國重新建立聯繫。三年級的一天，每個學生都要做一個家譜。我把自己的名字寫在中間，線條向外發散，以問號結尾。我流着淚回到家，懇求父母帶我去中國。 They took out a second mortgage on our house to afford the trip, and in 2003, at 12 years old, I was back on my native soil. To suddenly find yourself among your own kind has a powerful effect; I finally felt the sense of belonging that I had sought for so long. Now it was my parents who stood out. Strangers would stare at the two white people accompanying a Chinese child. I loved the food in China, bursting with intense flavors lacking in bland Dutch cuisine. The first sentence I learned in Mandarin was to tell restaurant workers, “Bu yao lajiao” (no hot chili peppers). I vowed to learn Chinese and go back, eventually returning in 2019 to work as a journalist. 為了支付這次旅行的費用，他們把我們的房子做了二次抵押。2003年，12歲的我回到故土。突然發現身處同類之中，會產生一種強烈的效果；我終於感受到了尋找已久的歸屬感。現在，引人矚目的是我的父母。陌生人會盯着陪同中國孩子的兩個白人。我喜歡中國的食物，那種濃郁的味道是荷蘭菜所沒有的。我學會的第一句普通話是對餐館工作人員説：“不要辣椒”。我發誓要學中文，然後再回去，最終在2019年，我以記者的身份回到中國。My reporting in China further opened my eyes to the realities of adoptions. 在中國的報道進一步讓我看到了收養的現實。 As the one-child policy caused orphanages to fill up, babies became a commodity. Local officials in China sometimes seized infants from their parents and sold them. The industry began prioritizing parents overseas, who could afford to pay a mandatory “donation” that could exceed $5,000, which was out of reach for many Chinese couples. Some Western adoption agencies in turn played the white-savior card, implying that Chinese adoptive parents would not truly love a child who was not their flesh and blood. 由於獨生子女政策導致孤兒院人滿為患，嬰兒成了一種商品。中國的地方官員有時會從父母手中奪走嬰兒並將其出售。收養行業開始優先考慮海外父母，他們有能力支付可能超過5000美元的強制性“捐贈”，這筆錢對許多中國夫婦來説是遙不可及的。一些西方的收養機構反過來打白人救世主牌，暗示中國養父母不會真正愛一個沒有血緣關係的孩子。In reality, even before China began international adoptions, Chinese parents had adopted millions of babies. But stringent new qualification requirements for Chinese parents were introduced in 1991. Overseas adoptions peaked in the early 2000s and went into steady decline as China’s economy boomed, the government provided more funding for orphans and finally announced in 2015 that it was dropping the one-child policy. 事實上，在開始國際收養之前，中國父母已經收養了數以百萬計的嬰兒。但是，1991年出台了對中國父母的資格的嚴格新要求。海外收養在2000年代初達到頂峯，之後因中國經濟蓬勃發展持續減少，政府為孤兒提供了更多資金，並最終於2015年宣佈取消獨生子女政策。 Many adopted Chinese, now adults, are seeking to trace their roots. This can be an emotional roller coaster.許多被收養的中國孩子現在已經成年，他們正在尋根。這可能帶來情感的強烈波動。 Last year I accompanied a friend, Paula Vrolijk, who was adopted by Dutch parents in 2000, as she traveled to her hometown in rural China in search of her biological relatives. She found them and also discovered she had an identical twin who was kept and raised by the family. When the girls were born, their grandmother had wanted a boy, and back then, couples could have a second child if the firstborn was a girl. But since they were twins, one of the girls first had to be given up. The family later searched for Paula for years, not knowing she was on the other side of the world. 去年，我陪着2000年被荷蘭父母收養的朋友保拉·弗羅利克去中國農村的家鄉尋找她的血親。她找到了他們，還發現自己有一個同卵雙胞胎，由親生父母撫養。當這對雙胞胎女孩出生時，她們的祖母想要一個男孩，在那個時候，如果頭胎是女孩，夫婦可以生第二胎。但由於她們是雙胞胎，必須先放棄其中一個女孩。後來，這家人花了多年時間尋找保拉，卻不知道她在世界的另一邊。 My search for my birth parents took me last year to Guiyang, a city in southwestern China, where I viewed my adoption file. It said a woman — possibly my mother — had asked two strangers in the city to hold me while she went to the restroom. She never returned. A note was found on me saying: “The baby is healthy. I hope she lives a long time.” My search goes on, but I’m realistic about my chances. 為了尋找親生父母，我去年去了中國西南部的貴陽，在那裏我查看了我的收養文件。上面寫着，一個女人——可能是我的母親——在她去洗手間的時候讓兩個陌生的城裏人抱着我。她再也沒有回來。他們在我身上發現了一張紙條，上面寫着：“孩子很健康。希望她長命百歲。”我還在繼續尋找，但我不會抱不切實際的期望。 On Sept. 5, at the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s daily press briefing, conflicting emotions swirled inside me as I nervously raised my hand to ask a government spokeswoman about reports, then still unconfirmed, that international adoptions would be stopped. When she announced that what had essentially become a legalized form of child trafficking was indeed now over, it felt cathartic. 9月5日，在中國外交部的每日新聞發佈會上，當我緊張地舉手向政府發言人詢問有關國際收養將被停止的報道時，矛盾的情緒在我心中盤旋，當時這個消息尚未得到確認。當發言人宣佈這一本質上就是在合法販賣兒童的政策確實已經結束時，我感覺得到了一種宣泄。But any relief I feel is tempered by knowing that China’s government will probably never fully acknowledge the system’s abuses. I’m still angry — at the fraught legacy of the adoptions, at the enduring focus on prospective parents’ feelings instead of the children’s and when people imply that I should be grateful for having been adopted. 但我知道，中國政府可能永遠不會完全承認該制度如何被濫用，這沖淡了我的寬慰之情。我仍然感到憤怒——對收養制度遺留下來的種種問題感到憤怒，對人們始終關注那些希望收養的父母的感受，而不是孩子的感受感到憤怒，對人們暗示我應該為被收養而感恩感到憤怒。 The end of China’s adoptions era and my reconnection with my birth country has brought some closure. I know I might never be fully accepted as either Dutch or Chinese, but I’ve learned to be proud of my dual identity. It’s who I am.中國收養時代的結束，以及我與出生國的重新聯繫給我帶來了一些釋懷。我知道自己可能永遠不會被完全接受為荷蘭人或中國人，但我已經學會了為自己的雙重身份感到自豪。這就是我。And I’m no longer angry at the mirror. 我不再對着鏡子生氣了。---------------------Cindy Zhu Huijgen (@czhuijgen) 是荷蘭報紙《Trouw》駐北京記者。她是《Dit Is Ook China》（這也是中國）一書的作者，這本書講述了她被收養的經歷以及在中國的生活。翻譯：紐約時報中文網