Katie Maurer, 23, a Chinese adoptee, stands in front of the Williamsburg Bridge, March 21, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Katie Maurer

I think when I was younger, [my adoption] didn’t really shape [my identity] as much because I tried to blend in as much as possible. But in some ways, my identity of being Asian grew stronger the more I traveled. Because unfortunately, I have been subjected to verbal harassment and hypersexualization. I’ve come to realize that nobody’s going to ask when they come at me who my family is, what my background is, how I used to identify myself as white with an Asian veneer. So I feel like now it’s ok for me to go back and embrace the Asian side of myself. 

Ilona Kereki, 25, a Chinese adoptee, sits at her desk in Brooklyn, March 28, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Ilona Kereki

I find that when topics like transnational adoption, identity are brought up in casual conversation with other people who aren’t used to it, there’s a clear discomfort, and they clearly can’t manage their discomfort with the information. I’ve also found a recurring theme of “not-enoughness” in my adoption story. But that’s the world’s projection on me, that’s not how I truly feel about myself. I’ve just internalized these ideas of how things “should be.” Whether you think I’m not Chinese enough, whether you think I don’t look like an Asian person. An Asian person can look and behave in a way that you don’t think is traditionally Asian. 

Ben Smith, 27, a Chinese adoptee, sits in his bedroom with a glass of coffee in Brooklyn, April 7, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Ben Smith

Being raised in a nontraditional family, in an LGBTQ family, made me hyper-aware of my differences. Adoption is completely different for every single person. And each adoptee’s experience is completely unique in and of itself. News, and the public, and the media, they like to include adoptees as a blanket group, as a monolith. The reality is, especially with adoptees, that’s just not the case whatsoever. I would love to dispel that false understanding. 

Zoe Arditi, 23, a Chinese adoptee, sits in her bedroom in Manhattan, April 28, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Zoe Arditi

If I ever bring up that I’m adopted or if it ever comes up in a space, people usually shy away and never ask me about it. I feel like growing up, my identity has been silenced because other people feel uncomfortable. How do I even begin to talk about this if nobody wants to talk about it with me? 

Inga Parkel, 23, a Chinese adoptee, sits at her desk in her bedroom in Manhattan, April 15, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Inga Parkel

Growing up, I never wanted to confront my adoptee or Asian identity, but connecting with so many strong and resilient Asian adoptees has provided me a beautiful community of understanding. This time it’s not a community created by and for the adoptive parents, but it’s a community I choose to seek out on my own terms and on my own timeline. 

Joseph Pinney, 26, a Korean adoptee, sits in Central Park in New York City, March 13, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Joseph Pinney

The narratives for adoptees in most media is of “damaged” individuals. As if being adopted is something others should feel bad or sorry for. I think the best word to describe every single adoptee is resilient, the complete opposite of how the adoptee is expressed in most media sources these days with all of the overly emotional reunion videos. Not that those aren’t wonderful, but they’re definitely shown in a particular context and way for the general public to feel a type of way, which is usually translated to how people sometimes get this idea of fragility or “damaged.” When I think it’s the complete opposite.

Tori Smith, 25, a Korean adoptee, sits at her dining room table in Brooklyn, April 11, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Tori Smith

I was surrounded by white people. My friends were white. I wanted to be white too. I didn’t have any Asian role models to look up to, to say Asian features are beautiful. But as I got older, I started seeking out K-pop and seeing people who looked like me and were beautiful. And I began to think maybe my Asian features aren’t so bad.

Xiaoye Jiang, 25, a Chinese adoptee, sits in her bedroom in Brooklyn, March 12, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Xiaoye Jiang

Things like my name, and my age, and where I was born, these are all things I’ve been told and things I have to take at face value as truth, because what else am I going to believe in? I view being adopted as a hard truth, something that’s indisputable that I know about myself. I’ve definitely made that a big part of who I am.

Laura Balcerak, 26, a Chinese adoptee, sits on the stoop of her parent’s apartment building in Brooklyn, March 28, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Laura Balcerak

I don’t know if it’s a misconception or not, but I feel like a lot of people see [adoption] as a purely good thing. It really bugs me when people say, “oh wow, you must be so grateful,” or “it’s such a blessing.” I mean, you’re not wrong. I am grateful, and it is a blessing, but please don’t just disregard everything else. I am lucky. I do think my quality of life is better than in China. But you’re completely blanking over all the struggles, all the hardships. 

Emma Arabia, 25, a Chinese adoptee, sits in front of the Bryant Park fountain in Manhattan, April 9, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Emma Arabia

My identity is something that I can determine. For a long time, it felt like it was something that people would determine for me when they would ask those sort of questions that we [adoptees] all hear. Going through losing my mom has really helped me be more present and sincere, and honest with myself. Things happen to your life that you don’t plan and don’t expect.

Riley Burchell, 28, a Korean adoptee, sits on her couch in Manhattan, May 1, 2021. Photo by Inga Parkel

Riley Burchell

I’ve been insulated from the real and very dangerous aspects of racism in this country, just given the socio-economic nature of my upbringing and my parent’s situation. But since especially graduating college and coming here, for all intents and purposes, I navigate the world the same as any other Asian American and am perceived and interacted with by outside parties in that context– as an Asian American. The way that I internalize it is completely different as an adoptee, but those navigation and interactions are still very much the same. I still get called Chinaman on the street sometimes.

The post Asian Adoptees Reflect on Adoption and Identity appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

But as early reports of COVID-19 began making waves in late January 2020, China quickly closed its borders to all flights and halted all adoptions to reduce the spread of the virus.

“China has a really stable adoption process that spans a few decades…just with COVID that’s really thrown things off,” said Kym Lee.

Now, as COVID’s year anniversary has come and gone, the Lees are among hundreds of families still left in total darkness waiting for China to begin processing paperwork so that they may travel to bring their children home.

The hardest part about waiting has been “wondering how she’s doing, and not having regular updates,” said Lee.

Since China began international adoptions in 1992, it has consistently been the top country for international adoptions, as it typically has the easiest and least expensive process. During the year 2005, a peak of 7,903 Chinese children were adopted by Americans.

Although, as China’s economy has grown and domestic adoptions have increased, international adoption numbers have significantly declined since 2005 to an average of around 2,500. Yet, as a result of COVID, 2020 has the lowest number, with only a handful of successful adoptions before things were shut down. 

Katie Chaires knew immediately after the adoption of her first son, Asher, in 2016 that she didn’t want him to be an only child. So, in December of 2018, she filed for a second adoption. She received clearance to fly to China on January 28, 2020, to bring her daughter Noa, 3, home, but three days prior, she received word that China had officially ceased all travel. 

Katie Chairs and her son Asher, 6, March 7, 2021. Photo by Julie Johnson

“I feel like the hardest part has been not knowing how she’s doing, not being able to see her grow,” said Chaires. “I feel like I’ve missed a year of her growth and development and getting to know her. Because at this point, she should’ve been home for a year already.”

Chaires said Noa has Global Developmental Delay, and she suspects medical issues as well. Still, without many updates other than the occasional photo and short video clips the orphanage provides, she doesn’t know a lot about Noa’s wellbeing. 

Initially, adoption agencies had prepared families for a one to two-week delay. But, as COVID grew to a global pandemic, they have stopped predicting when things might resume. What was once the most prominent international adoptions system has swiftly fallen to radio silence, even as other countries like Bulgaria and Columbia have slowly reopened to international adoptions.

On New Year’s Day of 2020, Cynthia and Andrea Bonezzi touched down in Maoming, a city along the tip of China’s southern coast, to adopt their second daughter Anna, 3. 

During their two weeks in China, there were no emerging reports about COVID-19. The city was getting ready to celebrate the Chinese New Year and, “everything was normal,” said Cynthia Bonezzi.

They remain amid the few families to successfully bring their daughter home on January 18, 2020, before China halted all adoptions. 

“We were able to get it done in record time and just made it before everything shut down in the pandemic,” said Bonezzi.

Families who were on their way to China with connecting flights were turned away at their midpoint destinations and returned home childless, Bonezzi said. 

And if the Bonezzis had been one of the families turned away, Anna probably wouldn’t be alive, as she was in a fragile state medically due to a chronic illness, and required immediate surgery when they arrived home in New York City.

Cynthia Bonezzi and her two daughters Lily and Anna in China’s White Swan Hotel, January 2020. Photo Courtesy of Cynthia Bonezzi

 There have been no reported cases of COVID outbreaks in any orphanages or institutions as a result of the lockdown.

But studies have shown, the longer children are in these orphanages and institutions, the more significant setbacks in motor skills and cognitive function they may encounter. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia attributes these delays to a lack of verbal and physical stimulation from caregivers. 

According to Lisa Nalvin, MD, once a child is placed into an adoptive family, they typically “demonstrate remarkable ‘catch-up’ rates when given the appropriate support.”

The Lees celebrated their daughter’s fourth birthday in December by sending a cake and goodies to the orphanage. And as the days, weeks, and months slowly pass still with no word from China about when adoptions might resume, Kym Lee continues to remain hopeful that her daughter will be able to spend her next birthday at home.

“Everything’s really up in the air,” said Lee. “We’re praying and hoping and believing that she’ll be able to come home maybe this year.”

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 The report, published by the global environmental research organization Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), finds that China’s CO2 emissions surged back to a pre-lockdown level in May as power plants and factories reopened in the country. Emissions of health-harming pollutants such as PM2.5, NO2, and SO2 rose by 4% to 5% year-over-year, signaling an unwanted “dirty” recovery that might ruin the country’s efforts to go green over the past few years, the researchers say.

“All eyes are on China, as the first major economy to return to work after a lockdown,” the report said. “It’s obvious that once the economy starts to recover and production and transport to resume, much of the air pollution would return.”

 The study suggests that Chinese provinces that rely heavily on industrial productions are driving the increase, such as the coal-intensive Shanxi in central China and the chemical plants-filled Heilongjiang in the northeast. Meanwhile, air pollution was less severe in megacities like Beijing and Shanghai, which rely mostly on the service sector. 

 Lauri Myllyvirta, senior analyst covering China’s air quality and energy trends at CREA, suggests that the extent to which air pollution will rebound depends on the sources of pollution in different countries. China, for example, is dominated by industrial pollutants from its manufacturing sector, while most European countries are more concerned about carbon emissions produced by cars and other private transportations. Either way, “high-polluting industries have been fastest to recover from the crisis, whereas the service sector is left behind. [That’s why] the pollution has rebounded faster than the economy,” Myllyvirta said during an interview.

 From early February to mid-March, China’s strict lockdown measures caused the air pollution level to plummet by 25%, according to CREA’s analysis of the latest government data. And China is not alone. An article published in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change shows that by early April, daily global carbon emissions dropped by 17% year over year, of which China and the United States were the biggest contributors.

 Prior to the pandemic, the Chinese government had laid out ambitious plans to cut pollution and ease the climate crisis, such as decreasing its energy consumption by 15% before 2020. Yet as the pandemic took its toll, the country chose to prioritize its economic recovery over meeting those targets. In late May, China’s Premier Li Keqiang scrapped a key measurement on energy consumption, speaking only vaguely about “a further drop in energy consumption per unit of GDP” while he was expected to set a clear percentage decrease.

 The resurgence in air pollution in China after COVID-19 reminds Myllyvirta of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, for which China shut down factories within 300 miles of the capital but reopened shortly after the games. “I remember the extremely blue sky in Beijing during the Olympics,” Myllyvirta said. “But after that, the pollution comes back. It comes back even worse in the following years.”

Other countries are expected to follow suit. In Europe, where public transportation is being discouraged for the sake of social distancing, “congestion levels and private cars emissions are roughly back to the pre-COVID level even though people are moving around less.” In India, “even the recovery is slow, there is still a risk of pollution coming back next winter because winter is the pollution season.”

Some environmental experts hold a more positive view about the post-COVID outlook on climate change. Jochen Markard, researcher at the Group of Sustainability and Technology in Zurich, and Daniel Rosenbloom, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of political science at University of Toronto, co-wrote in the May issue of Science Magazine that “COVID-19 recovery presents a strategic opportunity to transition toward a more sustainable world” if governments around the world implement greener COVID recovery plans, such as shutting down carbon-intensive companies and encouraging remote working. 

A 48-page report published by the Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment also refers to fiscal recovery packages as the “biggest driver of the long-term impact on climate.” After surveying 231 key policymakers around the world, the report finds that there are multiple ways to meet both economic and climate goals, such as encouraging clean physical infrastructure investment, building efficiency retrofits, investing in education and training to address structural unemployment from decarbonization, etc.

Myllyvirta agrees that the solution lies in increasing the capacity of public transportation and supporting cleaner businesses rather than energy-intensive projects. Otherwise, the rebound “could cause strong reactions after the extremely pronounced clean air in the first half of this year.”

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By aggressively testing and tracing contacts, Beijing has managed to keep the rise in infections in single digits for a week. On July 4, the local government announced that it would no long require those who leave the city to be tested before departure. 

After three weeks of semi-shutdown, Beijing reopens. People gather in shopping centers, dance in parks, and cram into subways during rush hours. The only places left desolate are the nucleic test centers, where the city tested 11 million residents — more than half of its population – in less than three weeks.

A guard takes the temperature of customers coming into an Apple store in the
Sanlitun Shopping Center, Beijing. Photo by Hannah Zhang

A busy traffic intersection near the Ministry of Commerce, Beijing. Photo by Hannah Zhang

A subway transfer station at Line 6 Nanluoguxiang, Beijing. Photo by Hannah Zhang

People getting on and off subway Line 8 in Nanluoguxiang, Beijing. Photo by Hannah Zhang

People dance in a plaza in Dongdan, Beijing. Photo by Hannah Zhang

A closed test center at Tongren Hospital, Beijing. Photo by Hannah Zhang

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But the pandemic has altered what train travel looks like. Passengers now must wear masks during the entire trip. At the departure gate, a high-raised infrared thermometer detects the passengers’ temperature when they pass. And once on  the train, the attendant checks every passenger’s temperature.

When passengers arrive at their destination they must use WeChat or Alipay to scan a QR code to get an e-form to apply for a health code. For passengers who do not have a smartphone, they need to fill in a paper form to get a printed health code. A green code  means you may move about unrestricted. Someone with a yellow code may be asked to stay home for seven days. Red  code means you must quarantine for two weeks.

A train attendant  holds the thermometer used to take passengers  temperatures. Photo by Bohao Liu

A train attendant checks passengers’ temperature. Photo by Bohao Liu

High speed train to Guiyang. Photo by Bohao Liu

Passengers with mask on at Meishan Dong station. Photo by Bohao Liu

A passenger passes by the infrared thermometer at the destination. Photo by Bohao Liu

Passengers scan the QR code to apply for a health code of the destination city. Photo by Bohao Liu

Scanning the QR code to apply for a Health Code of the destination city is required once you get off  the train. Photo by Bohao Liu

An infrared thermometers at the exit of Chengdu Dong station. Photo by Bohao Liu

Passengers wearing masks pass by the infrared thermometer. Photo by Bohao Liu

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The proposal for a national security law in Hong Kong was passed in Beijing less than a month ago creating uncertainty for what is to come in the autonomous region.

After being returned to China from the United Kingdom in 1997, Hong Kong was supposed to be ruled under the “One Country, Two Systems” principle.

The law comes after a series of pro-democracy protests which started in March last year. Although the law is still being drafted, it is almost certain that it will give Beijing greater control over its special administrative region.

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