Jinhua TV: Article #1

Published online Sept. 10th, 2016 / English translation below

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Mandarin to English translation by Winston Xu, Colorado College Class of 2017

Jin Mei traveled to China, she is an American Chinese adoptee/orphan from China. She was born on May 5 1995, left at Tang Xi’s police station May 30th and sent to Jin Hua’s welfare center the next day. On October 31st, she was adopted by an American couple.

Recently, Jin Hua’s news station published Jin Mei’s message on the web. Today, two families came to meet Jin Mei, they wanted to find their own separated daughter.

After waiting for a bit [for the families to arrive], reporters asked Jin Mei, if she found her parents, would she be mad or forgive her parents [for abandoning her]. She said, she understood it was their last resort and she wouldn’t be angry or complain; right now, she was just curious.

The first family was the couple Chen Tu Ming and Zheng Shuxian. This morning they came from Tang Xi to meet Jin Mei. They said, they first had a son, in 1996 they had a daughter, but due to some circumstances they had no choice except to give the daughter up to the welfare center. Since then they’ve always wanted to find their daughter, they don’t even remember how many places they’ve searched. “Every day we think of searching, if we heard somewhere had an adopted girl, we would immediately go to see if it was our daughter.”

Several years later [after giving up their daughter], their son died of illness. At the funeral, they thought even more about their daughter, except they only had a photo of the family who adopted her and the girl they thought was their daughter. In 2012 they asked Jin Hua TV station for help but were unsuccessful. Two days ago they heard information about Jin Mei, and thought her situation matched their daughters.

Accompanied by reporters, they saw Jin Mei, they pulled out their daughter’s birth certificate, but the information did not match Jin Mei’s welfare center documents. However, the old couple were not so willing to give up, and wanted a DNA test.

Because the couple only had the American couple’s photo, the reporters proposed that Jin Mei call her parents and send a picture of them when they adopted her. After seeing the photo, the old couple knew, this was not the same couple. Hu Ling Hong’s older sister meanwhile saw Jin Mei’s information and called the station. She said her sister’s daughter, born in 1995, was adopted the next year.

Today in the afternoon, Hu Ling Hong and her whole family came to meet Jin Mei. Once out of the car, Hu Ling Hong hid her face, after seeing Jin Mei, controlling her emotions, crying silently. After she calmed down, she told reporters her daughter was born September 22nd 1995, but because of circumstances was taken away the next day, not leaving behind any pictures or valuable information. She was only told by the welfare center employees that her daughter had been adopted by Americans who had already left.

Even though things did not look good, because her son was sickly from birth, she had no time to search for her daughter. “I really missed my daughter, whenever others mention their daughter I cried. I really wanted to find my daughter, even though Jin Mei’s birth date and my daughter’s don’t match, there is still a bit of hope I can’t ignore.”

When Jin Mei heard this, she called her parents again to confirm her birthday and adoption date. The date her parents provided was different from Hu Ling Hong’s, except her parents told her there were quite a few American families who went to the welfare center to adopt kids. After hearing this, Hu Ling Hong teared up and kept her hopes up.

Even though she didn’t find her parents today, Jin Mei said she is willing to use social media to do everything possible to help the families find their children.

Because Jin Mei used her college holiday to come find her parents, she couldn’t stay long, so on the 15th of September she left Jin Hua, its kind residents and friends. If you know anyone who could be Jin Mei’s parents, please let the station know. For these next few days we will carry on trying to track down Jin Mei’s parents.