Adoption in the Land of Make-Believe

Toot toot! Last trolley leaving the station!

I think I’d like to tie an invisible red thread around the vital bits of the person who first misappropriated the Chinese red thread lore about marriage and turned it into something resembling a Precious Moments Confucius say-edition figurine. Convenient how this blatantly repurposed lore serves to varnish over a child’s existing heritage with a faux-Oriental “destiny” and “good fortune” lacquer.

Convenient, perhaps, for dressing the truth up to fit into a more charming mythos.

Although I haven’t gotten into the meat of my research on how this bit of Chinese mythology came to be transmuted for the personal delight of the adoption community, my initial jaunts around the Internet have turned up these tidbits on the original significance of the “invisible red thread” (not to be confused with Madonna’s and Ashton Kutcher’s stylish Kabbalah-wear):

The final day of Chinese New Year is called ‘Chap Goh Mei’ or ‘Yuan Xiao’. It is said that the God of Marriages from the moon is in his happiest mood, and hence the air is filled with romance. He would tie a magical and invisible red thread around the legs of newborns and singles to another person. When children grow up, the intended couple would be drawn together by a powerful bond. There will be a happy marriage if their paths cross.

and

Chieh Lin, or Yueh Lao, the God of Marriage, who is supposed to connect persons that are destined to marry with an invisible red thread, is also associated with the moon.

and

In the beginning of the world, there was an old man assigned to create the souls of those who would populate the earth. He would knead the clay and create little figures in pairs, male and female, connected by a red thread that he would use to hang them upside-down to dry. When his work was finished, the thread, from the left foot of one and the right foot of the other, would be severed and the souls would be sent to populate the earth, where they spend a lifetime finding the one they were connected to at their creation. This is what we call yuen.

and

According to the legend, the Old Man under the moon is the God of Matchmaking who brings lovers together and then uses a red thread to bind them to each other. Thus, temples dedicated to this legendary character are constantly filled with eager young worshipers.

Yet somehow, during the recent China intercountry baby boom, the “red thread” has come to grace the headers of more “Journey to _____” blogs than I can shake a chopstick at, in this carefully adapted form — word for word, almost without fail:

“An invisible red thread connects those that are destined to meet regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may tangle but will never break.” ~ Ancient Chinese proverb

That misappropriated “proverb” casts quite the shadow for young adoptees to grow up in.

I’m so glad (might I even venture so far as to say the big “G” word — “grateful”?) that my parents never spooned this “destiny” business onto my plate — much less this Orientalist brand of destiny in that awful, chinky calligraphic font. You know the one.

As if my Korean mother was “destined” to be abused, demoralized, and not allowed to keep her fourth-born child, and as if I was “destined” to be merely birthed from her Korean body so that my Korean body could come of age in white Scandinavian America in the dairy-rich U.S. heartland.

Destiny. Fate. “Meant to be.” No thank you, folks. That’s too much sugar for me to stomach, and I wouldn’t insult my parents’ intelligence by asking them if they subscribe to this kind of artificially sweetened goo.

Big-picture reality check: I think it’s a pretty bizarre thing that I should be born to a family of five in Seoul, yet wind up the youngest daughter of white Americans of Swedish lineage on a farm in Iowa. No doubt, we adoptees can’t turn back the clock for ourselves to change what’s happened, for us or for our families. I embrace my adoptive family as family, and see them as nothing less — yet at the same time, I’m unwilling to minimize the significance of my Korean family and the ethnic heritage that’s as plain as the nose on my face, to make other people feel comfortable.

“How wonderful, to be adopted!” “How lucky you were!” “Fate has been kind to you!”

Folks say these things for their own peace of mind, leaving no room for the many other sides of my story. I’m supposed to smile and nod.

Instead, I consider how much energy I want to expend, regaling these people with tales of loss, of han, of racism, of humiliation, of marginalization, of isolation — and translating my Korean mother’s wails and breathless gasps. Fate was not kind to her. I challenge these strangers to take comfort in her story.

Red threads bind adoptees too tightly. I will not relinquish my cultural birthrights to convenient bits of lore that are plagiarized, contorted and respelled as “F-A-T-E.”

Fate and destiny are nice ideas for fortune cookies, but I cannot muster a smile & a nod at the suggestion that children are destined for abandonment or abduction, or that mothers are destined for abuse, poverty, rape or coercion. “Fate” is a mean fortune to assign to an adoptee.

Does “fate” also guide those adoptive parents who change their minds and return their adopted child to the agency?

Ascribing adoption to “destiny” absolves everyone of responsibility — except for the adoptees, who are left to bear the responsibilities of accepting the oft-invented mythology of their origins, and relinquishing control of their life’s path.

“Destiny” is a two-sided pacifier to comfort those who swear by it and to silence those among us who dare to ask questions.