Found: Thoughts and Feelings

The movie, Found, on Netflix follows three fourth-cousins who find each other on 23andMe and their Heritage tour trip back to China.

This movie was painful for me to watch for a number of reasons. One of which being that they completely ignored facts and spun a very toxic fantasy for the benefit of the searching company, adoptive parent consciences, and the Chinese government.

So...in other words...my entire family watched the movie and had headaches from all the bullshit. One birthfather said he would love his child NO MATTER WHAT, girl or boy, because they were his. Then the paid "guide" turns somberly to the camera and translates for the audience that it is such a shame that Chinese people hate girls and only want boys. Um, okay, but that's not what he said. An astute audience member will notice in real time how Chinese censorship affects all of us. 

Is it a coincidence that "Meet Me on the Bridge" was allowed to be made, but the journalist who broke the story of family planning officials abducting children and funneling them into the internationally adopting orphanages had to flee mainland China and is now in hiding?

Maybe Found was good for getting adoptees to do DNA testing.

One of the people who watched this documentary and decided to do 23andMe, an autosomal DNA test, was a fourth cousin of mine! She was very excited that I was her closest relative match and she was my second closest relative. We were both adopted from the same province, both from orphanages pretty close together and connected to the Hunan trafficking scandal.

I think that it is so cool to find new relatives online, but fourth cousins is pretty distant and I'm honestly probably "distantly related" to all of my Chinese friends. It means whatever we want it to mean. 

I have been having to ask myself a lot lately what it means to never find my birthfamily. It used to be irrefutable fact that I would never find them, but now with DNAConnect, there is just enough hope that it's become torturous. I want to support their cause and help other adoptees fulfill their dreams any way I can, and I know I must try because I won't forgive myself if I don't. But if the answer truly is that nothing will ever show, can I ever be satisfied with what I have?

I know so many Chinese adoptees just from growing up around them in the school. We're not close. We never talk about Chinese adoption. And why on earth should we? Do white people gather ever month to talk about being white? No. So why should we be expected to sing and dance for a public just because we're adopted?

So yes, I know Chinese adoptees. I had a China group too that fell apart the way they all inevitably do because the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And every couple years or so I get a new "closest" relative on 23andMe who is still a "distant cousin." Is it enough? Will it ever be enough?

I'm happy we know we exist to each other and I can thank Found for that. But I don't have a lot of expectations for a life of sunsets and get togethers. The world of adoption is fraught with fantasy enough already.