Email From Kai's Nanny in China

One of the tragedies of foreign adoption is how hard it is to preserve connections to the people in the child's past. Sometimes it seems almost impossible. China does not encourage contact between families and the orphanages where their children used to live. There is no formal way to provide updates about the child or ask questions about the child's past. You receive your child, you say goodbye, go home and start a new life. But messy bits creep in. Things happened before we were a family. Some of these things we kind of know about. We have some cryptic notes translated from a very foreign language. How true are the bits we have? Are they translated correctly? Some of them seem more like oddly phrased questions than answers.

There is a woman who lives in China. She takes care of babies. I know of families in many different countries who think quite fondly of this woman. They believe she loved their children for them while they waited to adopt them. I believe this.

Though I have met her a couple times, I can't claim to really know her, but I have seen her cry when she said goodbye to a child she used to take care of. That child, Kai, now believes all the good things about this woman that many other people believe. He wishes to see her again someday. I have heard him make this wish many times: when he throws a coin in fountain, the last time he blew out birthday candles, it is a big wish.

We put out several efforts recently to get an email address for the orphanage in Baoding. Today an email came to Tina's in-box. the subject line read:

慧慧

That's Hui-Hui, Kai's Chinese name.

Awkward machine translation software has seemingly delivered her message to us through the old children's party game "telephone" where one child whispers a message to the next, and the message is repeated around the circle until at the end every one laughs at how the message has been garbled.

And so her message was whispered all the way from China and rendered into something of a cryptic but loving poem. She wrote...

Bright parents:
You are good!

I am bright Chinese Aunt Zang Jinyan,

I think in my heart's treasure bright,
she grew up
now goes to school.

She now the body?
Her hand has cured?
I want to see her near future life
according to with the physical condition.

This time the information which sends to you
are through the strong parents
knew that moreover strong
and the bright picture also had other child's picture to send.

In addition has several children also in your there,
did not know whether you can relate on, I think of them,
if has their relation method please to inform me,
thanks!

Wishes in advance
your health in here me,
is forever young.

Bright mother:  
Zang Jinyan