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Orphans look for birth family in Chongming
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CUI Zhanhong, a 45-year-old woman from Henan Province whose parents had given her up for adoption to an orphanage in Chongming Island during the hard economic times in the late 1960s, has tracked down her family members after a series of DNA tests.
She is the first to find her family among the “62 Chongming orphans” who came to Shanghai from Henan, Shandong, Shanxi and Jiangsu provinces in May to look for their lost blood relations.
“There have been many stories of orphans finding their parents. It has encouraged more people to make the effort and look for them,” said He Zhengjun, the 49-year-old leader of the 62-member group, and an orphan himself.
With help from local authorities and volunteers, Cui and others in the group distributed 30,000 brochures with information of the orphans to almost all towns and villages in Chongming in the first week of May.
Cui said a family surnamed Shi contacted her shortly after that. The DNA results confirmed their ties.
“I found my family on my very first trip to Chongming,” said an excited Cui, who said her late foster father asked her to look for her family in Shanghai several years ago.
Through documents in the orphanage, Cui also found her twin sister, Zhang Sufang, who lives in Ruzhou city in Henan. “We look just like twins,” Cui said. “But we’ll need to see if our genes match.”
He said 18 people from the group had agreed to DNA tests. Of the five results which were announced only Cui’s tests proved successful.
Cui’s family was among the many poor rural folks from Shanghai and Jiangsu Province who had left their children in local orphanages in the 1950s to 1970s because of hardships under the planned economy.
Many of the orphans were adopted by relatively better-off families in north China where the density of population was lower. The number of such orphans is estimated at tens of thousands.
“In Luoyang City alone, we believe that there are about 20,000 people who originally hail from Shanghai,” said He.
He works with Lu Shunfang, a farmer from Jiangsu Province, who has been helping people trace their birth parents since 2000. Lu has hooked up with a DNA testing company in beijing to help him in his effort.
Lu told Shanghai Daily that he negotiated the fees with the company. People over 65 years of age did not have to pay for the DNA tests which usually cost at least 3,000 yuan (US$484). But almost all of them are above 65.
“About 2,600 people have submitted their blood samples for tests so far which have helped more than 50 people to find their families,” she said. “Many others opted not to go for the DNA tests after tracing their family members with the help of pictures.”
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