Sky Series: Episode 8
How was it growing up? Do you remember how you thought about yourself? And do you remember if your community or if you had a lot of Asian people, like if they were immigrants or Asian American or other adopted families nearby?
So growing up, I was adopted into the Houston area, specifically Katy, Texas. The neighborhood and the school I went to was a mostly white community.
I was in kindergarten, and I remember this one African American girl, though, just knowing she looks different than everyone else in the class and me looking different than everyone else in the class. And I just thought she was such a funny person. She was a loud, funny kid.
I do remember going to a couple of Chinese community organization things. I don't know what it was called. The most experience I got from that was my dad had worked with this one guy. His name was R. He's Chinese and had a wife named S.
My dad had kept in close contact with R and S throughout the whole adoption process because they would need help with understanding translation things and all that. They would come visit us every once in a while, and we would go visit them. They had a young daughter, and then some years later after that, they had a son.
In first grade, that's when my parents started sending me to Saturday Chinese school, which was just for a really short time on Saturdays. But I had already lost the language. I had really lost almost everything by then and it wasn't that immersive.
When you were adopted, did you already have Mandarin or did you already remember some things, or were you adopted quite young but still wanted to have the language?
I was five when I was adopted, so I already was speaking Mandarin, which is so unfortunate that I lost it. At that time, I didn't really think much of keeping the language. It wasn't even something that occurred to me as needing to keep or that it was something I could lose. I didn't even have the background or the knowledge to know that it was something I could lose, so I just lost it naturally since no one around me spoke it.
And then, obviously, when you get older and you realize some people expect you to maybe know Chinese, it's like, “Well, I don't have it anymore.” I never lost the basics like colors and numbers.
As I got older, I did want to learn the language. I actually went back to China for a year in 2014-2015 and attended JiaoTong University and learned some formal Mandarin there. I was an Au Pair in Shanghai, it was a way I found I would be able to afford to be a “tourist” for that long and be really immersed in the culture. I kind of just went through these phases of getting back into learning, and then my interest was never long enough to keep at it.
Or something else would come up in life that I just got more interested in, and I would just kind of fall off that radar for a while. It's just been a recurring pattern.
I've been in that pattern, too. No worries. I'm not judging at all. Do you remember, I mean, I guess five is pretty young. I mean, it's older than an infant, but I don't even know when people make memories. Do you remember anything or a feeling, even if you don't have any memories or thoughts about what's going on?
So I remember when I was going through the adoption process, or actually before the adoption process, I was in the orphanage. Let me rewind.
I don't know how old I was exactly when my memories started, but I do remember one really cold winter, it was the first time that I remember snow. It wasn't my first memory, so I had memories before then, but I do remember one winter in China in either late 1997 or early 1998 then since I was adopted in October of 1998.
My memories of the orphanage were quite normal for a while. In the way I remembered things, they were just kind of in the orphanage, kind of chill, nothing much going on, and they would cook food, twice a day, just a huge pot of stew, or for the morning, every once in a while, we would have porridge and youtiao, which is that fried, crispy breadstick.
I loved that stuff. We didn't have it very often, but I loved it for breakfast when we would be surprised with that. Sometimes very infrequently, an ice cream man would come through with a metal cart with a few options of ice cream bars that the kids would be able to choose from. It was always the biggest, most unexpected surprise.
But I do remember there were some days when things started changing, and looking back now, I understand why things started changing.
So there was one day that we were getting photos taken, and I remember exactly what I was wearing. They made me put on this itchy pink, thick sweater with a panda on it, and it was the photo that my parents saw of me being the orphan that they would be adopting.
And it turns out that I was the first one adopted from that orphanage, which makes a lot of sense because the orphanage was getting these cute backpacks with animal characters on them, and I thought they were so cute, and I didn't get one because I wasn't going to school there. But all the other kids who were around my age were going to school, and I was thinking, why am I not also going?
And I just remember feeling so extra lonely when they would all be going to school and I would be the only one there my age with all the babies and the adults who were just watching and taking care of the orphanage.
But the thing that explains about the backpack now is that the orphanage was starting to get money because I guess they were already receiving money from my parents at that time. I really wish I had a better concept of time, knowing how much time had passed from the receiving of backpacks to when I saw my parents for the first time.
I don’t know how you would even prepare a child to be adopted, but did they tell you at all that you were going to be adopted? Do you remember when you first met your parents?
Oh, yes, yes! I knew that I was being adopted because in the orphanage we would, once in a while, see an airplane come over the orphanage, and I was always just so fascinated by it. One day, the orphanage workers were telling me that I would be going on the plane, and that rich people were going to be my parents. That's the way they would always describe my parents, you can definitely tell how important money was to them.
The night before we went to leave on the train to Guangzhou, Guangdong from Shangrao, they had me sleep in a room with this woman who was probably late 20s or mid 30s. Normally, I would be sharing a “bedroom” with about 7 more kids around my age. Around my age was relative as in just kids who were able to walk, not a baby. While I was in bed, all these kids were bringing knickknacks, toys, if you could call it that, as a parting gift. But in the morning, all those toys were left behind. We were just in such a rush, and I can't imagine that they even intended for me to leave with them because there was no need for me to have those.
I remember taking the car to the train and I had never been inside of a car until then. I saw the door handle and was just curious. I pulled on it and opened the door and they shut it real quick!
Once we got into Guangzhou and we got to the White Swan Hotel, I saw my parents for the first time with these two women from the orphanage. They were people who looked nothing like me, but the orphanage workers had already told me that they were white people with different colored hair. My mom at the time had her natural dark hair, and then my dad had red hair, and he was wearing glasses and had a mustache, which I never saw in the orphanage.
I saw these big suitcases in the room, and since the orphanage workers had told me that my parents were going to be rich, I remember thinking, “Oh my gosh, they really are rich.” They have so much money in those suitcases! Because I remember while I was in the orphanage, I had seen either a TV episode, I'm guessing, or a movie, but I never saw a full movie or anything like that. But I remember one scene where there's a briefcase with money in it.
It was just my understanding that I was going to have parents. I knew that they weren't my biological parents and that they were from a different culture and spoke a different language than me.
Do you remember feeling excited or scared, or having a concept of, “oh, these are parents vs. these are just strange people?
I didn't even have anxiety about it. I didn't really even think of, “What am I supposed to act like in this situation?” None of that, I guess.
For me, I didn't even know that the two women from the orphanage with me were going to even leave at any point. That didn't even occur to me until one day. So they would come on the field trips with us, and then one day they were gone. I guess I just was wondering what had happened to them, but I wasn’t able to ask.
Did you really know them pretty well, or did you want to say goodbye? Or were they just fair staff?
I guess I didn't know them too well, but they were just familiar people I knew.
Were there others in the orphanage you wanted to say good-bye to?
There was one friend from the orphanage who is now my sister here. She is a year older than me.
When I was in the orphanage, I remember that the orphanage was not something I grew up in. It's odd, but I remember I was living with a grandmotherly figure. She had a son and daughter-in-law, and they had a daughter who was, I'm guessing, a year younger than me.
I remember one day her telling her son to take me on the motorbike, and he took me to the orphanage. I remember it was a new place to me, and there was this room that they had staged as a classroom, and they had me draw the number one character.
We left shortly after that. He was talking to somebody while I was doing that. We went back, and the grandmother said, “Why did you bring her back? You were supposed to leave her there.”
But the son was always really nice. And then I guess after a while, I did end up going back, but I would get taken out of the orphanage and stay with the grandmother and the son's family a lot more than other kids in the orphanage.
So it's always been kind of a mystery to me what was going on there.
But as far as S, my sister here, the orphanage was always what she had remembered being in. She also had a grandmotherly figure as well. In the little area that we stayed in, we were really close. Maybe a two-minute walk from one another. But she would be there way less than I was. When we would overlap, we would sometimes play together. Most of the time, though, when it was just me, I would just find something to do.
Then for her, the grandmother had another orphan that she was watching, so they were super close together. She was older, and her name here is L.
But the interesting thing is, when I had been adopted, I saw these photos of these orphans on the fridge, and I recognized S. I asked for her, but L was not on the fridge.
When I had asked for S, my parents started that whole process, and it took two years for S to get here to the United States. It's just a long process.
So the adoption agency, had sent your parents a flyer with other available children for adoption, and you recognized S from the photos of children there?
Yes! So L wasn't there but the interesting thing is when we get S here, S was asking for L. So my parents, they're still in good contact with S and R.
So K gets on the phone with the adoption agency and somehow gets into contact with someone over there on that side. They end up finding out that L’s already been adopted.
L’s parents, they were living in Seattle, Washington, called my parents up, and L and S were just talking for hours.
Do you remember how old they were then?
S was eight when we brought her here. I was seven. I think L was 10.
The funny thing about her name is, before we got S, my parents were asking me what to name her. They gave me two options: S or L.
And we ended up deciding on S because it was easier for me to say than L. Which turned out perfectly since L in Seattle had the other name option.
Was a really big culture shock coming here, and since it was Katy in a predominantly very American white area, and you had just come from China. Was there anything that really stood out to you? And I guess how did you identify then?
It was the weirdest thing, but for me, a lot of the time, I would forget that I looked Asian to other people because I was just in my own body, and I didn't see myself while living in the moment.
I just wanted to blend in with the family I grew up with. I just wanted to be like them in the sense of, I knew for most people, the families looked alike. I just wanted it to be no question that they were my family to strangers.
Even though, you know, I couldn't change my appearance. But I guess for me, I know it sounds strange, but it was, I was so invisible to me, looking different than them. I don't know how to explain it.
I'll give one funny story.
We were in a restaurant one day and I was in kindergarten, and this Chinese waiter was talking to me in Chinese and asking me things,and I answered him back in Chinese. After he left, I asked my parents how he knew I was Chinese.
Do you remember what age you were then?
Oh, I was five.
I picked up English really quickly just because I was young. I was just completely immersed in the English language. But for a little bit of time, I was able to speak Chinese, the very few times, I guess, that I had people like that around just pop up to speak it.
Do you remember if your parents tried to preserve, like, still go to holidays and stuff? Did you celebrate Lunar New Year or anything else?
We celebrated Chinese Lunar New Year one time at one of those events with a red dragon where people would be underneath, like a lion's dance.
Was that an FCC event or just like Asian people in the community?
I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it was FCC that they were involved in or just like a Houston community event.
For the sake of time, do you want to talk about your birth family reunion? Did you ever want to search for your birth family before you met them, and did the story the orphanage gave you match up to the story your birthparents gave you?
In my orphanage documents, it's said that I was abandoned at the gates. I also remember that while in China before I was adopted, I had asked the orphanage workers, “What happened to my parents?” and they said that my birth parents had died.
After I was adopted, my adoptive parents told me that whoever dropped me off at the orphanage gate had clipped a paper with a pin on my shirt saying my birthday and my name.
So I grew up believing that the name I was given, my Chinese name from the orphanage, was meaningful, attached to something significant, only to find out that name was not the case.
It wasn't even real. The story the orphanage came up with was, “Oh, that was the name that was pinned to her when she was abandoned at the gates.” All of that was fabricated. It was a story just made up by the orphanage.
So the note was not from your birth parents?
No. I know that is because, well, not only did I find out that I was taken by the family planning officers the very next morning after I was born, but also I came to find out that my name that they had given me was Ning, which means tranquil, peaceful, the same as my American name, which means peace. And that was the name my oldest biological sister gave to her youngest daughter, who was born before my birth family found out about this whole nonprofit organization.
The Chinese name that the orphanage gave me was Yu, which means universe. And that's the name that my parents cast as my middle name.
But then when I got married, I dropped the middle name and just chose my maiden name to be my middle name. I'm glad I decided to go that route because that name ended up not being the name my biological parents gave to me.
Do you remember how you found out the truth of your origin story and how you reunited with your birth family?
So I received a 23andMe DNA test kit as a Christmas gift in 2015 and ended up submitting the DNA test kit in January of 2016. It was my dad who got me the gift, and he had given one to my sister S here as well.
I was just looking at the very beginning and kind of forgot about it later.
I think for me, specifically, it was just that the information I supposedly had was false, and that had deterred me from even thinking of searching.
Then in November of 2021, I received a text message from my dad asking if I'm available for a phone call. I say yes, and anyway, he calls saying that he received really interesting information from my aunt and asked me to check my Facebook.
And then I see these long Facebook Messenger messages. And I mean, I'm reading the whole thing and I'm just like, it's obviously real. The woman who’s messaging me sounds real. And then I'm giving this volunteer a phone call.
The volunteer was telling me all of this information that was just mind-boggling, and then I'm looking at all the information that she sent, these links about the nonprofit organization and about Brian and Lan, and telling me to check out the One Child Nation documentary on Amazon. That documentary was really well put together.
After I spoke with the nonprofit organization’s volunteer, I told my dad about the phone call I had with her and that this is definitely real. And he was like, well, check your 23andMe. It didn't even occur to me to check my account and I see this photo of my biological middle sister, and I'm just like, “Oh, my gosh.” That photo, the face, she's obviously biological, it was just so apparent. I've never in my life seen someone biological to me.
I received all that information from the volunteer in November, but I think the match in the 23andMe showed that it was October, if I'm not mistaken.
I came to find out that my biological family ended up believing it was a scam, since when they heard that they matched with me back in October, they asked for a photo of me, and since I hadn't received any of the information, there was no photo that could be provided to them.
So after a while, they were thinking, “This is not real.”
Not until 11 months later, in October of 2022, I received this phone call from Lan saying, “Your sister is available since she believes this is real now.”
The reason why my birth family believes this is real now is because it was a Chinese social media influencer that was talking about the DNAConnect organization, and it was just more credible for my birth family since they can connect better with someone on the Chinese side.
Borders ended up reopening in 2023, and so my husband and I went to go see my birth family in person in September of 2023. We stayed with them in their houses.
My birth parents and the middle sister live in Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, and then the grandparents also live in Taizhou. The parents live in their own house, and then the middle sister lives in her own place, and then the grandparents live in their own place. And the oldest sister lives in Nanjing.
And so when we flew in, we flew into Shanghai, and they were already standing looking at the exits from the plane. They were sending messages while we were on the plane, even though I had told them, “we'll be arriving at this time.” They already were showing photos of them waiting, two hours before we were set to arrive.
We met a lot of relatives too because they also had a big welcome dinner, and a big room with a couple of big tables. I met so many relatives there. And then we went to Nanjing and spent some time there as well with the parents, middle sister, the oldest sister, and her husband and two kids. And then we had another big dinner party too with them in Nanjing because we met more relatives that decided to come into Nanjing as well.
Did you have a translator with you?
Oh, no. We mainly used the phone, but it also turns out the oldest sister learned a decent amount of English because she also had to use it in college.
So that's another interesting thing. So, in China, there's this system called the hukou system.
That's the reason why my oldest sister lives in Nanjing. She ended up going to Nanjing University and graduated from there. That's also where she met her husband and that's where they live now.
This whole thing is so interesting because, you know, here, I was everything but the youngest, only to find out, you know, on my biological side, I'm the youngest.
And what I mean by that is because here on this side, I was an only child, and then I became the oldest when my brother was born, and then some weeks later, when S arrived, I was the middle child. And then when A was born, I was still the middle child.
Wait, so you have two sisters living in China, but no brothers. Did you ask about that?
Oh, right, because of the one-child policy. So in China, some provinces did things differently. It got more strict over time, and then also, I know, it has to do with money as well. You can pay the government to keep your second child. When I was born, you know, they tried to hide me by giving me to the landlord, but they found the family planning officers already took me the very next morning because I guess someone snitched. No brother, just sisters. Having a son wasn’t important to them.
Do you remember any feelings you had at the time when you heard your story? Do you remember if it was your sister who spoke English telling you this story for your birth parents?
Oh, yeah, so I received a lot of the information on WeChat before we met in person with the birth family. Because we're in a group chat with them on WeChat. So it turns out that they have a cousin who lives, well, at the time, lived in Saipan. Her name is E, but she ended up marrying an American. They were living in Georgia and then moved to Saipan for something work-related. She's a cousin from my birth family’s side.
Okay, so somebody who is not your sister's children. They're from further out in the family tree?
Yeah, so I think she's a daughter of one of the parents' siblings.
Wow. So they, and then they also kind of know English then because they were in Georgia for a bit.
Yes. E speaks English very well and then also Chinese very well because she moved when, oh, I think she moved maybe for school, and then just kind of stayed there.
Did you feel betrayed or anything, or relieved, when you found out that the story that the orphanage had told you wasn't the true one? What kind of emotions did you have when you first heard it?
Oh, I mean, honestly, I didn't feel betrayed. I was quite glad that that was not the real story. I guess in order to feel betrayed, you have to have a good or close connection with something, and I didn't really have a good feeling about the orphanage.
To feel betrayed, that would be, it would be so painful if a friend or family member that you love betrays you, because you have that relationship with them. So I was just relieved that that was not the real story.
Have you ever, were you ever curious about reaching back out or finding the foster family again to see the son?
Every once in a while, I would be curious, like, what their lives looked like, but I just knew it wasn't a possibility.
What does family mean to you?
I think family means having this innate reason to keep close, or at least to keep trying to and having fewer walls up so you can love one another.
People often say you can choose your family. But when you choose someone completely from scratch, that connection usually depends on mutual compatibility. If they hurt or betray you badly, it’s much easier to walk away because the relationship was built on conditions. With family, there’s an instinctive feeling that makes you say, “Even through all of this, they’re still family.”
I see this in both sides of my life. For the family I grew up with here, they are my family because of our shared history. They raised me, loved me and we built that bond every single day. But what about my birth family in China? What made them spend years searching for me when we knew nothing about each other? It was because that connection was already there, a biological, predetermined bond that carried an unconditional pull before we even exchanged a word. No stranger online would go through 30 years of searching for a random baby like they did. That kind of devotion only exists because they bond was already forged the day I was born.
If somebody were to read this, what message would you want them to take away?
If someone were reading this and questioning whether to reconnect with their birth family, here is what I’d want them to take away. If the only thing holding you back is the fear of betraying the parents who raised you, try to reframe how you see love. Love isn’t a limited pie where giving a slice to someone else leaves less for the people you started with. We just aren’t used to seeing it that way because society assumes you only get one set of parents. But just because having two families isn’t that norm doesn’t mean choosing to know one is choosing to abandon the other.
And if you’re still torn, try to think if you were in the birth family side. If you were that parent who had to lose your child, wouldn't you want your child that you lost to let you know you're okay and that you forgive them, if that's the situation, if that's what they're going through?
Or if you are more worried for your parents here on this side that you grew up with, how would it be if they lost one of their biological children? Wouldn't you want for them to be able to reconnect with that biological child if they ended up having to lose them?
Just because the people you grew up with are the ones you’re most connected to emotionally, and you naturally sympathize and empathize with them most, doesn’t mean the other side doesn’t feel that exact same way.
Note about the cover photo: A nor'easter hit the northeast of the United States around Sep 25, 2026. The beautiful sky hours before the storm was captured from Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. Episodes 6 and 8 took place on Sep 26 and Sep 27, respectively, so their cover photos feature the pre-nor’ester skies.