The News Lens
Date: 2018/05/16
By: Maureen Welscher

Interview conducted by Maureen Welscher

I’ve never been so busy with my biological family in Taiwan.

But not so long ago, I just felt purely Dutch. I have a home here, I thought, so why go to Taiwan? Then, around my 16th birthday, I met some other Taiwanese adolescent adoptees with the help of our Dutch adoption association, Meiling.

Some had already traveled to Taiwan. They told me what a cool country it was and how special it had been meeting their biological family.

I couldn’t help but be curious about the experience and what it might mean to me – I knew that I had two older sisters and that my parents had to relinquish me for adoption because I was born prematurely. I’d heard I had to stay in an incubator to survive, but my parents had no hospital insurance – that was about all I knew.

Emma’s journey
On my 20th birthday, I finally went to Taiwan with three adopted friends (whom you can see in the cover photo).

I stayed for two weeks at Cathwel (天主教福利會) children’s home, where I took on some voluntary work and met my family.    [FULL  STORY]