Once adopted, forever a child

Sept. 19, 2012

I’m trying so hard to keep my mind open to exploring and understanding this different culture, but I feel my brain shutting down. I’m trying to wrap my head around how to understand Taiwanese culture without comparing it to what I know, but I can’t break through. Perhaps it’s mental exhaustion, or emotional wariness, or some combination.

This week has been tough. Throughout my life, there have been people who have hurt me in various ways — directly and indirectly. To get to a safe and stable place today, I have ceased contact with those individuals and people connected with them.

Friday, one of those individuals attempted to email me. Since they did not have any personal contact information for me (by design!), they instead emailed my boss. My boss then printed the email and called me into her office to sit down and discuss what is an immensely personal and private topic.

I am so frustrated and tired and confused. I feel violated. These people who it seems had no care in the past for my physical and emotional well-being now also seem to have no respect for my professional reputation. My mind knows this is an unfair statement — their intentions in the past were good, despite the consequences to me — but my heart feels so hurt and hardened toward them.

This is very difficult, and I have a choice to make. When we travel to Taiwan, do I wish to reach out to them? Or, do I keep that door closed? This individual may be able to answer some of the questions that I have, but at what cost? Which culture’s rules must I follow? An individual-oriented culture that tells me I owe no one anything, that I have a right to personal information and no obligation to provide anything in return? Or a socially-oriented culture that requires a tit for a tat, by whose rules I must earn the privilege to information? Do I really want to open Pandora’s box, anyway?

When we talk about culture and values, all I see are rules that were designed to control a society — to keep the masses in line, to uphold the power of the ruling class. China has one of the longest sustained cultures, and surely that is creditable to its socially-oriented, collectivist values.

The rules of adoption have been set primarily by adoptive parents and adoption agencies. Money always has, and always will, equal power. Even though I am now an adult, when it comes to my adoption, I am permanently treated as a powerless child. Rules prevent me from disturbing the adults who are responsible for my past. “Children should be seen, not heard,” my mother would say. Even today, no one wants to hear me. The rules are designed to prevent me from calling out the grown-ups who were supposed to protect, not harm me. They keep me silent because I am dependent on them for even basic information about the circumstances of my origin. U.S. laws restrict information under the guise of protecting someone else’s privacy. Taiwanese culture restricts my ability to claim by figurative force knowledge that should be mine. Pride prevents me from seeking information from people I would rather pretend did not exist. I am Dorothy, caught in an emotional tornado, wishing to be home. Except I’m not exactly sure where home is.