Teacher Zhang inadvertently adds to my anxieties when he and two old women from the Family Planning Office at the tea collection center visit Spring Well to paste posters on the sides of buildings, marking the launch of a new campaign seeking to address “the dark side of the miracle” of the One Child policy. “China already has a huge surplus of men over women, and that number is expanding by about one million each year,” Teacher Zhang announces. Each poster has a different slogan, all bearing the same core message: Daughters constitute the next generation. Men and women build a harmonious society together. Nature will decide the sex of the newborn. Giving birth to a girl is the will of nature. The villagers don’t remove the posters, because all the slogans are in accordance with Akha Law. Then my three eleven-year-old nieces come home with memorized sayings, which they recite with alarming frequency.
“Care for girls. Support the girl class.”
“Protect girl children. Benefit the state, the people, and families.”
“To care for today’s girls is to show concern for the future of China.”
All this should make me want to have a girl, but the more I’m encouraged to give birth to one, the more apprehensive I become.
Let it be a son.
* * *
In October, five months after the confrontation with Ci-teh, Jin and I feel comfortable enough to go back to Guangzhou so he can take care of business and I can visit the tea market to research what it would take to open a new shop. We have to pass through Menghai to get to the airport in Jinghong, so, as promised, Jin and I stop at the Social Welfare Institute. The rains should be over, but today they’ve reappeared. A beggar woman sits under a makeshift shelter on the steps of the orphanage . . . in this weather, with no one about. I wonder if she’s the same person I saw sleeping under the cardboard sheets when we drove through Menghai on our way to Spring Well. Jin splits off, drops a few coins in her cup, and bounds up the steps to catch up to me as I enter the institute.
As soon as the door closes behind us, I’m overcome by the smell of urine, which seems exponentially multiplied by the day’s warmth and humidity. Toddlers scurry across the floor in walkers, foundlings squirm in metal cribs, and older children—most with physical or mental disorders—linger at the edges. One child—a boy—sits crumpled in a heap against a wall, his atrophied legs like broken twigs beneath him. Although leftover New Year’s couplets and other decorations festoon the walls, the room, while clean, lacks toys or books. Three women, wearing matching pink smocks and kerchiefs, hang diapers on a clothesline strung from ceiling hooks. One of the women leaves her chore when she sees us. As she wipes her hands on her smock, my a-ma’s bracelet slides into view. It’s Director Zhou. The room begins to swim.
“Welcome to Menghai’s Social Welfare Institute. Do you drink tea? Have you eaten yet?” she asks politely.
We’re shown to a sitting room with two overstuffed couches upholstered in faded fabric. Antimacassars cover the armrests and drape over each head position. The other two caretakers bring tea and a platter of sliced watermelon and lychees. The tea is poured, adding more heat and dampness to the chamber. Once everything is served, the two women join us, ready to be part of the conversation.
“Are you looking to adopt a boy or a girl?” Director Zhou inquires. “Many Chinese couples are adopting now, because they don’t want our children to leave the home country. Most want a boy, but all of ours have special needs. We are told they are the ‘rubbish of society.’?” She sighs. “If you can only have one child, you want it to be perfect. For birth parents and adoptive parents alike, no? I can offer many choices for girls. Do you want a newborn or one who can already do chores and care for herself?”
“We’re here on a different matter,” I say. As I recite the facts, Director Zhou nods slowly in recognition. The cardboard box was not unique—many babies probably arrive similarly—but the tea cake was. More important, San-pa and I were the only parents brave enough—or foolish enough—to come here to track down an illegally abandoned daughter.
“None of us have forgotten that day,” the director concedes. “I should have called Public Security to come and arrest you. Then you fainted. I am not without heart.”
The two other caretakers exchange furtive glances as the director pushes A-ma’s bracelet into her sleeve with her unadorned hand. This isn’t like last time, though. I have Jin with me, and he takes over. Sure, the women cover their mouths and tip their heads as if in deep contemplation over the ethical dilemma, but the cash he holds in his hand is too great a temptation.
“We were told she was sent to Hao Lai Wu—Hollywood,” the youngest one blurts.
Hollywood? I grip the armrests.
“Have you been there?” she asks.
I nod, unwilling to give away anything more.
All the women, including Director Zhou, brighten. Does everyone own a car? Do all the women paint their nails? Then the questions become more sinister.
“Is it true that Americans adopt our girls so they can raise them until they’re old enough to have their organs harvested?”
“Or do they adopt our girls purely for sex?”
“That’s government propaganda,” Jin chides. “You shouldn’t repeat such things.”
“Are you sure she’s in Hollywood?” I ask.
“Everyone wants to go to Hollywood!” the youngest caretaker exclaims.
“She knows not one thing about it,” Director Zhou says gruffly, drawing attention—and the offered bribe—back to her. She waits as Jin counts out bills and lays them in a stack on the table. When she’s satisfied, she says, “I told you last time that the baby was sent to Kunming. From there she went to Los Angeles. Somewhere in the Los Angeles prefecture,” she clarifies. “We like to think it was Hollywood.”
Los Angeles isn’t a prefecture, but the city is huge, and really, that could mean Yan-yeh’s anywhere from Venice Beach to San Gabriel, from Woodland Hills to . . . I don’t know. Disneyland?
“Will you show us the file?” Jin asks.
The director locates it easily and hands it to me. The folder contains a photograph—showing an infant a few days old with her head wrapped in an indigo cap decorated with silver charms—a footprint in red ink, and a single sheet of paper, which outlines the basics of Yan-yeh’s arrival at the institute. These three items constitute the only tangible proof of my daughter’s existence.
“Shouldn’t there be more?” I ask, running a finger over the photograph.
The director smiles at me sympathetically. “One of the photos and the rest of the paperwork went with your daughter to the Social Welfare Institute in Kunming for identification purposes, but a fire seven years ago destroyed their records. You could visit the new facility to see if anyone remembers something, but babies are sent to them from all over the province for foreign adoption. I don’t see how they’ll remember one out of so many.”
So no easy answers or traceable clues. Still, I now know where my daughter is—if this information is accurate, and if she and her parents have never moved. How could my daughter be in Los Angeles, of all places, and I haven’t been looking for her every moment? I begin to cry. The ladies are kind, patting me on the back, cooing, pouring more tea. The director even offers to return Jin’s money, saying, “We don’t often see the suffering of mothers here. We only see the babies.”
She gives me the photo and the footprint, then the three women escort us to the front door. Babies wail in their cribs. The toddlers in their walkers push their way toward us. The older children seek our eyes, hopeless, knowing we haven’t come for them. The director puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. The ridge of A-ma’s bracelet presses into my flesh.