My Adoption and Friends

Before I found out out about my adoption, I never  thought about being adopted and never cared. There was a time that someone asked me if I wanted to be adopted, it was when I was about 7 or 8 years old. Most of the kids living at the orphanage in Beijing, including myself were on a field trip or something like a vacation one day.  On the trip I was invited to a room where the walls were decorated with trees and bamboo. Inside were at 2 people. One of the person were chinese, and the other was a foreigner. I sat on one of the two benches in the room, and then they asked me to draw a person, so I drew. When I was finished, they commented on the way that I drew the person.

“ Look he even drew the neck,” one of them said to the other in amazement. After that they asked me if I wanted to be adopted and I said no to them, so then I went back with the other children. I was happy with my life and didn’t want to leave all of my friends.

I waited about three years, so when I was about 9 or 10 before I considered the idea of adoption when my close friends were being adopted. I waited  a month before I got introduced to my new found parents.

That same day someone at the orphanage took me into a room where I was introduced to two foreigners sitting  and signing a paper. As I walked into the room they looked up and smiled at me,  someone then told me to hug them, I was scared to do so but I still did it anyway. I went up to my mother first and hugged her and said “I love you” in English and I did this because I wanted to show appreciation to them, then I went to what is now my ex-father and did the same thing to him. As we were leaving the orphanage I was holding my tears back. What would happen to my friends still at the orphanage? Would I ever be able to see them again?  

Later at Hong Kong we stayed at the airport and waited a couple of hours for our plane to America. On the plane we watched a movie and played video games for most of the ride. Then I went to sleep for a little bit and woke up to the darkness of the Philadelphia Airport. Then we saw my family waiting by a van to pick us up.

On my first day in Philadelphia I was introduced to my mother’s family. I remember that I was very nervous to meet them. But I got through that part very easily, the difficult part is next. When the family started to ask questions I couldn’t understand anything and all I did was sitting there and staring them.

A couple of day later my mom told me about my friends and how they were also being adopted. I wanted to talk to them, so I asked.

“Can I speak to my friends?” I said.

“I’ll see what I can do,” my mom said.

Then the next day she put one of my friend on Skype and told to talk to them. Whenever I saw her I got very happy, because she was a very good friend and her name is Alexis. We were talking in Chinese when we talked, but I was embarrassed because my mom was listening. Then I asked Alexis about my best friend Andy.

“Do you know Andy’s Skype?” I said.

“No,” she said.

At that moment I was disappointed, but then I turned to my mom and asked her the same question.

“Yes,” she said.

After that I kept talking to Alexis, and we told each other what happened in our adoptions. She told me what happened to my friends at the orphanage,

“Some of them were also adopted and some are still there” she said

Then after I finished talking to Alexis I called Andy. I was overly excited to see him. When he picked up I started to speak.

“Hi, how are you?” I said.

“Good, how about you?” Andy answered.

“Amazing!”

Then we just went back and forth asking each other question for a couple of hours. I told him everything that happened, EVERYTHING. Then we had to depart from each other, but I was still very happy. For the next couple of months Alexis, Andy, and myself called each other every week.

For me adoption meant a new life and new opportunities. This experience help me understand that life could be great if we choose to help others, as my parents helped me to be happy. I hope I get to help someone to be happy like I was then and now. With my friends I am happy that I get to see some of them again but to I still miss Beijing, which still have some of my close friends within it.