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More than 16 years after Hong Kong’s return to the motherland, many families separated owing to poverty or political upheavals still remain apart.儲存 Among organizations working actively to bring people back together is the Red Cross. Li Yao reports. Macy Luk, 52, didn’t want to get her hopes up when she approached the Hong Kong Red Cross in July asking for help to find her birth parents. She learned she was an adoptive child at the age of 11, when she stumbled upon a birth certificate for a girl born on the same day she was. She knew instinctively that she was Wong Ting-lam, the girl whose name was printed on the birth certificate. Curious as she was to learn the truth, it took her more than 40 years to muster the will to find her natural parents. At the time, the 11-year-old Luk felt too shy to confront her adoptive mother with the evidence. The girl quickly put the paper back in the drawer. Luk never saw the paper again, even after her adoptive mother died in 2005. Luk felt the issue was too sensitive a topic to discuss with the only mother she ever knew and loved. “My adoptive mother and I were very close. I didn’t want to do anything that might hurt her feelings,” Lu explained. The paper cleared some of Luk’s childhood doubts. Luk never knew her adoptive father and felt confused when her adoptive mother told her that her father had died years before Luk was born. She never was able to come to terms with the reality that her natural parents gave her up. She knew it might help for her to talk to somebody about the questions that plagued her but she was afraid. She feared anyone she talked to might betray her confidence and tell her adoptive mother. Luk’s memory of the birth certificate was indelible. In July, encouraged by her husband and daughter, Luk visited the Hong Kong Red Cross’s tracing team seeking to discover the whereabouts of her birth parents. She obtained a replacement birth certificate. It listed the address where she was born: a maternity home on Shanghai Street. The place was demolished long ago. “I understand my birth parents must have led a very difficult life. I don’t blame them. The only thing I care about is that they are well,” Luk said in early September. She presented a few photos and the birth certificate to local media. Media is one of the most effective channels the tracing team employs to get out the word. It worked for Luk. Members of her family saw the news, and within a short time concluded they were the ones Luk was trying to find. There was an emotional family reunion. Luk met her natural mother, her elder sister, and her younger brother. Her father had died in 2005. Ng Yee, Luk’s birth mother, is 78. Ng said she had lived all her life in guilt. Holding Luk’s hands, Ng recalled the heartbroken decision she made in 1961. Luk was only one month old, but the family was too poor to take proper care of an infant. Through a middleman, Ng found an adoptive family for Luk. Ng saw Luk again five months later, and promised that she would not seek to see her daughter ever again. “I owe you too much. I can only pray every day, and wish you are safe, healthy, and happy,” Ng told Luk, passing a vaccination certificate of Luk’s. Ng brought Luk to get the shot, and kept it as a souvenir. The era of family separation What happened to Luk was a common occurrence from the early years of the 20th century until the 1960s. Hong Kong’s population surged from less than a million in the early 1930s to 2.3 million in 1950. Mainland refugees poured in during the Japanese invasion but life wasn’t easy here. They continued their struggles through extremes of poverty, hunger, rationing of daily necessities. Unschooled in family planning, women gave birth to five, six children, or even more. Desperate parents unable to support so many children often sold their children or gave them away to people who were better off. As often as not the rejected ones, the ones given away, were girls. Ng Mai-lin, 58, remembers watching on a day long ago as her youngest sister was taken away by a couple she did not know迷你倉 It was 1961. Ng was six. Their father had been killed in an accident before the youngest sister was born. Their mother had four older children to look after. “I saw my mother talk to the couple in our house. The baby was crying. I was asked to carry her to a distance,” Mai-lin said. She heard that the couple, pharmacists, had come to Hong Kong to take the baby to the United States. They handed Mai-lin’s mother a red envelope containing HK$100. In the months that followed, Mai-lin recalled seeing her mother lying on the bed, crying. The heartbreak never left her. Mai-lin’s mother, now in her 80s, has been taking anti-depressants for decades. Mai-lin and her siblings would talk about where this sister is now and wish the best for her. They never dared ask their mother where their youngest sister had gone. “At that time, only wealthier families could afford to adopt a child. The couple seemed nice and educated. The youngest sister would have a great future and better chances than growing up with us,” she said. Liu Chun-fan, 81, remembers the day that changed his life. He was abducted from his home in Shantou, Guangdong, on a day when he went out searching for firewood. He followed a woman who had told him where he could find wood shavings. She led him to a boat and encouraged him to step aboard. “Once aboard, I knew I was abducted. For a scared 8-year-old, there was no turning back,” Liu recalled. Liu was taken to Xingning, where a different dialect to his familiar native tongue was spoken. He was sold and lived there for six years. In 1946, he made his way to Hong Kong. When he was able to scrape together enough money for bus fare, he headed home to find his parents. The neighborhood he remembered was no longer there. He couldn’t remember his family name. “My parents must have died by now. I may have a chance to find my siblings,” Liu said during an interview last month. Restoring family links Every year, the Hong Kong Red Cross opens about 220 cases like these. It boasts a success rate of 35 percent finding parents who gave up their children in the 1950s and 1960s. The tracing service is free. Bessy Tam, program officer of the tracing service, said the more information seekers can provide, the greater the chance they will find their lost family members. For the tracing team to accept a case, either the person being sought, or the person initiating the search, must live in Hong Kong. If a case does not meet either criterion, Tam recommends families to try other avenues, such as private investigators, and some other enterprises that will make enquiries for a fee. Even government death records may prove a useful resource. The tracing team has two full-time employees and nine volunteers, mostly retirees. “We don’t want to give people false hope. People come to us, regardless of the result. They have at least tried to come to terms with their past, and after they have tried, hold no more regrets,” Tam said. Siu Kwok-kin, a professor specializing in Hong Kong history and culture at Chu Hai College of Higher Education, has collected accounts detailing the selling of children to wealthier families. He found the accounts in local antique shops. He considered them invaluable archives, documenting Hong Kong’s past. “It was so prevalent during those difficult times, when people lived in poverty, and had no contraceptive knowledge,” Siu said. He cited his own mother as an example. Siu’s mother gave birth to eight children, until finally she went to a hospital to undergo a ligation to prevent further pregnancies. Ligation often was a choice known among only a few women at that time, Siu said. Contact the writer at liyao@chinadaily.com.cn I owe you too much. I can only pray every day, and wish you are safe, healthy, and happy.” ng yee birth mother of macy luk We don’t want to give people false hope. People come to us, regardless of the result. They have at least tried to come to terms with their past, and after they have tried, hold no more regrets.” bessy tam program officer, hong kong red cross tracing service 儲存倉