编辑：
当我阅读这篇文章时，心中涌起复杂的情绪。作为一位成长于 1950 年代美国的中国美国人，我感同身受Cindy Zhu Huijgen 所提及的被边缘化感受。
我在上海时与家人一同在孤儿院做志愿者，并遇见了一名鼻尖因小动物咬伤的女孩。最终，我们收养了她，因为预见到在中国的未来对她而言充满了不确定性与困难。
相比之下，修复手术对于这名女孩来说反倒是相对简单的挑战，而她所面对的心理创伤和注意力缺陷多动障碍才是更为严峻的问题。被陌生人收养是一大风险，但对于领养父母同样也存在巨大风险。
我认识许多来自中国的子女，在美国社会中不乏表现得十分优秀的例子，但也有一些面临长期的情感、学业及行为问题的困扰。人们经常认为爱能解决一切，但这并非总能奏效。尽管如此，多数美国家长都尽力提供治疗支持、手术援助与学术辅导等。
有许多从中国领养的孩子从未亲历其生母所处的环境，并未意识到中国的贫困现状。如果他们能够成长于生父母身边，可能不会遇到同样问题；但更有可能的是，在贫穷环境下，这些孩子无法享受到现在美国所能提供的优势资源。
我能理解中国政府政策（计划生育政策）、文化偏见（重男轻女）、贫困与人的贪婪所交织出的复杂问题，同时我也能看到其中蕴含的人性关怀与爱意。
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李恩·杨西雅塔
编辑：
辛迪·朱·慧姬根的文章引发了我愤怒且失望的情感。这不仅因为我不否认或不尊重她阐述自己的真实经历的权利，更在于它强化了一种假设：被收养的孩子天生就缺乏归属感，并应该不断寻求填补内心空缺的答案；家庭的选择往往被视为不够圆满的“选择”。
作为一半中国、一半越南血统的混血儿，在越南出生后30年被美国夫妇领养，当飞机着陆在故乡时，我以为自己置身于熟悉的环境之中，应感受到与他人的紧密文化认同感。但其实我只是如同旅行者一般，没有形成强烈的情感联系。
相反，在每年返回充斥着盎格鲁-撒克逊白人血统的故乡佛蒙特州、在我生父安息之地及母亲仍然居住的地方时，我感受到的是来自亲人的爱与归属感——这才是真正的家。
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戴奥莉娅·台耶·多何
编辑：
关于“中国结束外国领养时代”与“被收养者终生寻找家园”两篇文章的回复，
我是2002年和2004年在中国出生并被美国家庭收养的两位女孩的母亲。我对文章所表达的片面负面看法持有异议。
中国有超过16万的故事讲述着国际父母领养，而辛迪·朱·慧姬根的文章中的个人经历或许不具代表性。她的童年确曾饱受种族歧视之苦，并非我们遇到的情况。
如果她留在中国，或会遭遇一个资源匮乏的孤儿院体系所带来的境遇——很可能没有父母、教育机会和医疗保障，更不用说可能因可治愈疾病而造成死亡或残疾的可能性也不在少数。
我们的领养机构警告我们将面临来自过多孩子和相对有限照顾者的心理疏忽所导致的发展迟缓问题。幸运的是，这并未成为现实。
当然存在令人心酸的收养故事，但也无法代表16万家庭生活健康的事实。
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罗伯特·卡尔森科罗拉多斯普林斯
编辑：
我是海外华人中的一员，对于中国结束国外领养的消息并不感到惊讶。这一做法蕴含着复杂的含义，影响着被收养者及其原生文化的未来。
我和姐姐均在中国台湾的一间特殊需要孤儿院中作为婴儿被一对美国白人夫妇收养。我们的亲生母亲因无法预防的儿童疾病而致残，在台湾实施全面医疗保健之前的情况就是这样。尽管台湾更倾向于近亲属领养，但我们都找不到愿意接受我们的家庭成员，因此只能进行国际领养。
父亲的工作使我们长期留在亚洲，并在九年中参加了汉语课程，学习说、读和写属于母语的普通话。我们每年都访问台湾，并对家乡和人民之间有着强烈的情感联系。
父母总是告诉我们他们并未给予我们更好的生活，而只是给予了不同的生活。随着外国领养政策的变化，我继续反思这个问题，尤其是对于像我和姐姐这样的收养者来说。
现在的生活我很满意，但我也认识到跨种族收养如何塑造了身份认同所带来的复杂性。
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奥利维亚·瓦斯蒙德首尔
编辑：
虽然我同意辛迪·朱·慧姬根对中国结束国外领养的满足感，但她对于中国领养的大肆批判并不准确。
在20世纪90年代初期，《时代》杂志报道说中国已经开始允许国际收养。我们急切地希望拥有一位女儿，并立即开始申请过程，最终在1993年将一名2岁的女孩带回家。
当时我们访问了她的孤儿院，在那里儿童数量极其庞大且基础设施简陋。当时的中国孤儿院存在极高的婴儿死亡率问题、医疗物资短缺等问题。我们的女儿回国后患上了初期的乙型肝炎。由于我们已有儿子，所以我们只能接受一个有缺陷的孩子——而她满足听觉障碍这一标准（需要多次手术更换耳膜）可能是由长期未经治疗的耳朵感染所致。
孤儿院工作人员给我们的印象是渴望将这些孩子安置在家庭中，以便获得机构无法提供的爱与关怀。同时，他们也急需我们所提供的“领养费用”以维持基本生活必需品的支出。
当我们女儿15岁时再次回到这间孤儿院进行访问时，她对那里的温暖欢迎印象深刻，但这并没有改变她坚信自己和我们非常幸运，因为中国政府允许她的领养。
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杰妮弗·普卢霍斯基诺森特伍斯特斯
新闻来源：www.nytimes.com
原文地址：Opinion | Adoptions by Foreign Parents
新闻日期：2024-10-05
原文摘要：
To the Editor: Re “An Adoptee’s Lifelong Search for Home,” by Cindy Zhu Huijgen (Opinion guest essay, Sept. 16): When I read this article, I had many mixed feelings. I am a Chinese American who grew up in America in the 1950s and shared some of Ms. Huijgen’s feelings of being an outsider. When living in Shanghai, my family and I volunteered at the city orphanage and met a little girl whose tip of her nose had been bitten off by a small animal. We eventually adopted her when she was 2 years old, as we foresaw a bleak future for her in China. The reconstruction surgeries were easy compared with dealing with her PTSD and ADHD. Adopted kids take a big risk being assigned to strangers, but parents who adopt children also take a big risk. I know many Chinese adoptees and some turn out just fine, but others deal with longstanding emotional, academic and behavior issues. People who adopt tend to think that love conquers all. It doesn’t. Nonetheless, I think that most American parents try their very best to provide for therapy, corrective surgeries, academic help, etc. Many kids adopted from China have not been back there and have not seen the poverty that exists outside the big cities. If they had grown up with their biological parents, they might not have some of the problems they have here, but more than likely these kids, due to poverty, would not have the advantages offered here. I can see both sides of the complex problem involving Chinese government policies (one-child policy) and the circumstances that produced them, cultural beliefs (males favored over females), poverty and human greed, but I also see human compassion and love. Eileen YoungSeattle To the Editor: Cindy Zhu Huijgen’s piece enrages and disappoints me. Not because I deny or disrespect her right to live her truth but because it reinforces society’s assumption that adoptees inherently do not belong to their families and should be off searching for “something” to fill that void. That there is something inherently wrong with families by choice, families of the heart. That somewhere out there lives an adoptee’s “real” parents. Ethnically biracial — Chinese and Vietnamese — I visited the country of my birth, Vietnam, 30 years after I was adopted as a newborn. You know how I felt getting off the plane, in a place where supposedly I look like everyone else and share an inherent cultural affinity? Like a tourist. Zero emotional connection. You know how I feel any time I get to go back to overwhelmingly white Vermont, where my real father is buried and where my real mother still lives? Surrounded by love. Like I’m home. May Taylor DohertyBangkok To the Editor: Re “As Era of Chinese Adoption Ends, Some Are Torn Over Legacy” (news article, Sept. 17) and “An Adoptee’s Lifelong Search for Home”: I read your articles about the end of Chinese adoption by foreigners as a parent who, along with my wife, adopted two girls born in China in 2002 and 2004. I found the articles misleadingly negative. There are more than 160,000 stories of Chinese adoptions by foreign parents; the one told by Cindy Zhu Huijgen, a woman raised in a religiously conservative community in the Netherlands, can hardly be representative. It’s unfortunate that her childhood was marred by racism. That was not a problem for us. Let’s consider the likely outcome if she had remained in China, where the orphanage system, at least until the early 2000s, was starved for resources. Most likely she would have had no parents, no education and very little health care. Death or disability from conditions curable with modern medicine would not be a surprise. Our adoption agency warned us to expect our daughters (almost all adoptees were girls) to have developmental delays caused by emotional neglect, a consequence of too many children with too few caregivers. Happily, this was not the case. Are there sad tales from among the 160,000 foreign adoptions? No doubt. Do sad stories capture the reality of healthy family lives for so many? No way. Robert CarlsonColorado Springs To the Editor: I am part of the diapered diaspora, and the news of ending international adoptions in China doesn’t surprise me. It’s a controversial practice with complex implications for adoptees and our birth cultures. My older sister and I were both adopted as infants from a special needs orphanage in Taiwan by a white American couple. Our birth mothers suffered disabilities due to preventable childhood diseases before Taiwan had universal health care. Despite Taiwan’s preference for kinship adoption, neither of us had family willing to take us in, so we were put up to be adopted internationally. Our dad’s job kept us in Asia, and we attended Chinese school with a Taiwanese curriculum for nine years, learning to speak, read and write our heritage language, Mandarin. We visit Taiwan annually, and I feel a strong connection to my birthplace and its people. Our parents always told us they didn’t give us a better life, just a different one. As foreign adoption policies shift, I continue reflecting on what that means for adoptees like my sister and me. For now, I’m happy with my life, but I also recognize the complexities that come with transracial adoption in shaping identity. Olivia WasmundSeoulThe writer is a 16-year-old student at Seoul Foreign School. To the Editor: Although I agree with Cindy Zhu Huijgen’s satisfaction that China has largely ended foreign adoption, her broad condemnation of Chinese adoption is unfounded. In the early 1990s The Times reported that China had opened its orphanages to international adoption. Yearning for a daughter, we immediately began the adoption process, culminating in the adoption of our daughter in 1993 when she was 2 years old. We visited her orphanage at the time. It was crammed with hundreds of children and conditions were rudimentary. Chinese orphanages were then experiencing high rates of infant mortality. Medical supplies were limited. Syringes were reused and our daughter came home with incipient hepatitis B. Since we already had a son, we were required to accept a child with a disability — our daughter qualified with two torn eardrums (later requiring several surgeries to replace), likely due to chronic untreated ear infections. The strong impression we got from the orphanage personnel was eagerness to place these children in families where they’d receive the love and care that no institution can provide. And, yes, they needed whatever portion of the $5,000 “adoption fee” they’d receive in order to pay for basic necessities. We brought our daughter back to visit the orphanage when she was 15. She was moved by the warm reception she received there, but has had no doubt that she, and we, were fortunate that the Chinese government permitted her adoption. Genevieve PluhowskiNewton, Mass.
