Adopted Wen Xin searches for her biological family on a 'roots journey' in China: 'Feel a connection I haven't experienced before'

The Netherlands has about 40,000 adoptees from abroad. Often, they do not know their family history. If they want to learn more about it, a 'roots trip' to their country of birth is often the answer. That yields better results, as Wen Xin can attest.

'I feel like a Dutch person and definitely not Chinese. And I have no need to delve into Chinese culture,' reads 27-year-old Wen Xin van der Linden aloud. Those are the thoughts she shared in an opinion piece in 2016. She is silent for a moment. "I find those to be strong statements now," Wen Xin reflects while holding the newspaper in her hands.

Who am I really?

What Wen Xin could not have known at the time is that she would actually go in search of her family history in the future. "A few years after I wrote that opinion piece, I did start getting those questions," she says about her roots and feelings for China. She then wants to know more about where she comes from. "Who am I really? Do I still have brothers and sisters in China, and do I look like my biological father and mother?"

Up until that moment, she only knew what she had been told about her first years of life in China: she was supposedly abandoned in a park and then lived in an orphanage for 1.5 years. "That information was on the adoption papers, though. And of course, my date and place of birth as well."

Roots trip to China

However, Wen Xin does not entirely trust this data, and that is why she boarded a plane about two months ago to visit her native country.

It has recently become possible for adoptees to search for their biological parents through group tours, partly sponsored by the Dutch government. “I have actually been searching for my Chinese family since 2017. So I saw this roots trip as the perfect opportunity.”

Searching for family together

"I am here with four other Chinese adoptees who also want to search for their biological families," Wen Xin continues from her hotel room in Shanghai. "I have a beautiful view. But it is certainly not a sun, sea, and beach holiday. For us as adoptees, there is, of course, a completely different weight to it."

During the three weeks in China, the adoptees take turns searching for each other's biological family together with the advocacy organization Adoptiepedia. "After we had gotten used to the climate, the time difference, and the country after a few days, the real part began," says Wen Xin.

3 days per city

They travel through a part of the country. This is because the adoptees do not come from the same areas. Their roots are scattered across China, a country with a surface area of ​​9,597,000 square kilometers.

It is an intensive roots journey. "We stayed at each hotel for at most 3 nights, and then we had to move on to the next place," explains Wen Xin.

Stop by the police station

Together with the so-called 'searchers', who know the language and culture well, the group travels from the north to the south. "The searchers know which tactics and search methods are best to employ to track down your Chinese family," explains Wen Xin.

It is a kind of 'most wanted' poster; that is actually written above it in Chinese in red letters: I am looking for my biological family.

Wen Xin on handing out flyers with her face on them

During the tour, they go to the police station in every city. "To take a blood DNA test on location," she explains. "That is not something you can do from the Netherlands. That really has to be done at the local police." They also leave behind copies of their adoption papers.

Handing out flyers in the cities

Furthermore, in every city they put up flyers from the adoptee who comes from that area. "A sort of most wanted poster," Wen Xin cautiously calls it. "Because that is actually what it says above in Chinese in red letters: I am looking for my biological family."

All of this ensures that the adoptees are registered in the Chinese police system. Should a family member come forward, they can access the adoptees' files. "And that is what we spent the first two weeks working on," says Wen Xin about the help she provided to her fellow travelers during their search at the beginning of the journey.

Just like any other city

In the third week, it is finally Wen Xin's turn. The group is then in Hunan, the province where she was born according to her papers. "My birthplace was the last to be visited because it is located very far south in the province," she says about the city of Chenzhou.

Once she arrived in the city, Wen Xin noticed that her birthplace resembled many other cities in China. "There were shops, a mini-supermarket, and ordinary streets." The people didn't necessarily look unhappy, she also noted. However, she did realize that life there can be quite hard. "When it comes to the financial aspect, I don't think people earn very well."

I knew this day would come.

Besides exploring her hometown, Wen Xin is, of course, primarily there to search for family. And when she realizes that, the tension slowly creeps up on her. "For the first few weeks, I didn't really feel it," she reflects. "But the weekend before it was my turn, I did think: yes, now it is really going to happen." The roots journey, which initially revolved around others, is now about Wen Xin.

"Of course, I had known for a very long time that that day would come," she continues. "So in the moment I thought: we are actually going to do this. I am going for it 100 percent. But it was still such a realization-filled moment and confronting." Because for most people, it is not 'normal' not to know your family, she notes.

Why?

"And then I'm standing there with a few flyers, approaching all sorts of people: where is my family, I'm looking for them," says Wen Xin.

At that moment, she asks herself why she started the search. "Why do I have to do this? Why do I have to fly to the other side of the world to try to find my family?"