Jane Liedtke remembers vividly the first time she set eyes on her adopted daughter.

 

"She was tiny, underfed and covered in lice," she said. "But we had an immediate bond; I could feel it so strongly."

 

It was 1994 and the then-university professor, who had traveled from her home in Bloomington, Illinois to China to adopt a child, had found Emily, a scrawny 17-month-old baby, living in a barren, State-run orphanage. She had been there for more than a year after being found abandoned on the steps of a small-town hospital.

 

Now Emily is a bubbly 13-year-old, and Liedtke is running a not-for-profit organization that helps hundreds of families from Europe and the US return to China with their adopted children. The Our Chinese Daughters Foundation (OCDF) has also helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for some of the country's most impoverished orphanages.

 

"Ten years ago, there was very little support for parents of adopted Chinese children," Liedtke said. "I started organizing culture camps in Bloomington, and I realized there were people who were adopting kids who had no connection with China. Some had never got on a plane before, let alone visited their children's country of birth."

 

In 1998, Liedtke, who had moved Emily back to China, began organizing tours for families and their adopted children.

 

"The idea was to help the kids fall in love with China," she said. "For most of these kids, they are living in total Caucasianville back in the US or Europe. Their only notion of China is the adoption story they were told by their parents, so coming back is incredibly powerful. It helps them understand their identity. The whole trip is about experiencing China for themselves and getting to know the reality."

 

About 60,000 adopted Chinese children are now living in the United States and Canada. A further 15,000 have been adopted by families in Europe.

 

And in increasing numbers, those parents are choosing to bring their children back to their birthplaces.

 

In 1998, 27 people signed up for OCDF's tours. The following year, 100 people jetted over to China. This year, OCDF is organizing tours for 650 people.

 

"These trips are extremely important for the adopted child and their families," Liedtke said. "And they can be very moving and emotional. A lot of the parents choose to take their children to the orphanage they were placed in or the doorways and steps where they were found.

 

(China Daily January 4, 2007)