This has been a topic of major discussion and common knowledge throughout Anhai; I’m not revealing anything you can’t hear tell of in normal conversations about town. (Provided you speak Chinese, that is.)

It’s no secret, of course, that having a male child is highly coveted in China–the continuation of the family line and name is paramount. One of the worst insults you can say to someone in this country, in fact, translates approximately to “May Your Ancestral Line Be Cut Off.”

Unfortunately, some bad elements in society occasionally try to cash in on the preference for males in a mostly one-child policy country.

Sometime in the not too distant past, some of these bad elements began operating a child trafficking ring–male children only–with the intention of smuggling these boys, ages about two months to two years.

Some of the children were acquired, it was determined, by kidnapping. One nearby town called Cizao, in fact, experienced a wave of male child kidnapping from homes that weren’t locked and secured with “maximum security” in mind, though it wasn’t determined whether any of the children in this particular smuggling operation were taken from Cizao.

Other children were acquired, I’m sad to say, because their parents willing sold them to these bad elements. It was also determined that those selling their children to this ring were “immigrants” to Fujian Province–the “Northerners” mentioned in other posts. Both the kidnappers and the parents selling their infant and toddler sons were paid 5000 RMB per child. The plan, more or less, was to bring the children into Anhai and “sell” them into adoption to well-to-do families. (If someone doesn’t work for a government entity, they can afford to have more than one child because they can pay out of their own pockets any expenses that would normally be considered “government benefits.” That’s why you see quite a few families with more than one child born after 1980 around here.)

I’m not sure of the exact number of children being smuggled in this particular operation–my impression is that it was at least 12, and maybe 25 or more. The way they were bringing them to this part of the province, however, was by train. But rather than buying tickets for the kids, the youngsters were drugged into unconsciousness, packed into suitcases and other traveling bags, and stowed under the train car seats. I also didn’t hear how many bad element operatives were accompanying the “shipment,” but this makes me think there were either several, with each person carrying two bags with one or two unconscious children each, or maybe a “bad element” that had infiltrated the train staff was paid to help expedite the shipment.

The local police somehow found out about this operation and intercepted the trafficers with their “cargo.” Unfortunately, two of the children had died–suffocated–in transit.

I wish I could say that the ones who had been kidnapped were returned to their families, but they were not. For reasons I’m not clear on, the authorities were unable to trace where each child had come from and how many were kidnapped vs. sold by their parents. So the decision was made to offer these children for adoption locally, through official channels, going not to the highest well-to-do bidder, but to couples who were unable to have children of their own.

If I understand right, the adoption fee was the same as was going to be charged by the smugglers, 10,000 RMB per child.

When foreign couples adopt children from China, they typically travel to and meet their new child in the capital city of a province, such as Guangdong in Guangzhou Province or Fuzhou here in Fujian Province. But the orphanages where these children are not usually in the capital cities (although they do have some as well).

A number of children whose adoptions have been completed in Fuzhou, for example, were cared for first in the Jinjiang Child Welfare Institute right here in Anhai, not far from my Wife’s Elder Sister’s apartment and the Anhai Hospital where she works.

Since starting this blog a few weeks ago, it’s been my pleasure to be in touch with some parents who have adopted children that stayed in this orphanage and to provide them with some information about this area related to their children’s experience, such as how far from Anhai the town of Cizao lies, where one adopted child was found abandoned (it’s less than half an hour from here); where in Anhai another child was found (turns out it was the Longshan Temple we visited on New Year’s Day); where the Jinjiang Hospital, where another child was found is located (it’s in Qingyang, where my Wife’s Younger Sister lives and Younger Brother works).

I had considered making a visit to the orphanage, but schedules and bureaucracy unfortunately won’t match up well enough while we’re here for that to happen.

One couple whose adopted child came from this orphanage was able to visit sometime in the past few years, though; their story and some pictures of their visit are on the fujiankids.org, an informational Web site about orphanages in Fujian. There is also a Yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JinjiangFamilies/ for parents whose adopted children came from the Jinjiang orphanage here in Anhai.

Both my Mother-In-Law and Wife’s Elder Sister have visited this orphanage, however, and I asked them some general questions that I didn’t see addressed on the fujiankids.org Web site, so I’ll share these insights here.

First, I asked about the children–girls mostly–who end up being adopted from the orphanage. Were they abandoned by couples who instead wanted a son? Are they the children of the “Northerners,” the workers who come here mostly from Sichuan and Anhui Province? Some are, in both cases, but it turns out that most of these baby girls are the children of young local “unwed mothers” whose boyfriends chose not to or were not able to do the “honorable” thing by marrying them, but who didn’t want to terminate the pregnancy–which bureaucratically and “socially” would have been easier–often because of feelings for the unborn child.

That caught my attention. I’m not denying there are some ill effects of the preference for boys–heck, the Chinese government acknowledges that with major programs and information drives–but from my little platform here, I want to let parents who have adopted girls from China know that many of them were born because their birth mothers felt love for them even before they entered the world, and that they made it into the world and to the orphanages because of that affection. It’s not easy to hide an “unauthorized pregnancy” to term in China, and some of these young women probably went to great lengths with some personal risk to carry their pregnancies to term, and then they or probably some close relative left their children somewhere they were sure to be found safely: a busy tile market; a popular well-visited temple; a local hospital.

I haven’t read any of the books published in the West about girls adopted from China, but if none of them give this angle, then you can pass this on to your daughters when you feel the time is right.

I also asked about boys born to these mothers; why aren’t they in the orphanages in such great numbers? Some end up there, but most healthy boys whose mothers or parents can’t keep them are adopted in China, most even before they reach the orphanages, many times by relatives or family friends–and thus the mother can still see her child grow up.

And lastly, a few annotations on China’s one-child policy.

Is every couple restricted to just one child? No, there are exceptions. In _some_ rural areas where more hands are needed for work, two children are allowed, though in some cases only if the first-born is a girl. Some “ethnic minorities” are allowed more than one child (though this clause has prompted some families to go to great lengths, with historical research and court filings, to try to prove that they, by virture of their particular surname, are ethnic minorities–”Look, in this 1,000 year-old document, that parenthetical footnote says that some guy surnamed “Ni,” just like us, came to visit from that region over there, which of course as we all know was a hotbed for ethnic minorities!”); if a first child is born disabled, the parents are sometimes allowed a second child; and most pertinent to the Jinjiang region here: if the parents are self-employed–i.e. not government employees, from the Provincial Governor on down to the most humble field worker on a government-administered rice farm–and thus are receiving no government benefits, they can have as many children as they want. Or put better, they can have as many children as they can afford, because if you don’t receive government benefits, that means your health care costs are high, you have to pay to send your children even to the public schools, you have to pay a large fee to receive additional children’s identity cards, and so on. Basically, you receive zero financial support from the government, but have to pay _very_ high fees for otherwise free or “low cost” government services.

But this is Anhai, in Fujian Provinces Jinjiang region, where some vast fortunes have been made, and so some of the wealthier families have–and are able thusly to afford–two, three, four, and occasionally more children. These are typically the families with the sprawling “mansions,” large gated courtyards with a Benz, BMW and maybe a Volvo for grandpa and grandma parked therein, and–in one case–an elevator, the only one anywhere in town, carrying its inhabitants throughout the house’s five floors in the center of the house.

Every other trip I’ve made to this part of China (well, to any part of China, really), nearly every male acquaintance, friend or relative has greeted me–even if we just saw each other a couple hours earlier–by offering me a cigarette. And whenever sitting down to a meal–whether an evening meal at someone’s home or a meal out at a restaurant–out came the bottles of “bai jiu,” white wine, or more succinctly, rice liquor. Potent stuff. “It’s good for two things, degreasing engines and killing brain cells.”

But apparently things are changing here in Anhai and in this area in general now.

Only a few people have offered me cigarettes, and they’re mostly older men: late 50′s to 70′s. Far fewer young local men are smoking here now, I’ve learned, or quitting, and–this is a complete first in China for me–when I was visiting a thirty-something factory owner a couple days ago, he actually ASKED IF I MINDED IF HE SMOKED. (If you’ve spent any time in China in the past 20 years, you no doubt fell out of your seat after reading that.)

And the bottles of bai jiu haven’t come out at a single meal. Instead, Chinese-made red wine is what the locals have developed a taste for now, and some brands are actually pretty decent. Others, well, they’ll do in a pinch if there’s nothing else sitting around but bai jiu.

All this, of course, might seem to create a bit of a social vacuum. If men aren’t offering each other cigarettes and drinking themselves into silly stupors with bai jiu when getting together at one another’s home or sitting down to talk business, then just what are they doing?

The answer contains a new twist on an old theme: around here, they’re now into seeing who makes the best pot of tea. And I don’t mean just putting the kettle on and pouring it out. There’s a skill to it, and a great deal of competitive pride, and all this seems to have revitalized the tea culture here in southeast Fujian province in a way that’s quite surprising to me. They’re even showing up at each other’s homes or businesses with their own tea, which formerly would have been unthinkably rude, and with small portable tea sets.

I’ll write more about the local method of making and drinking tea itself in a later post.