Can anyone give me any information on adoption in Taiwan? Thanks.
well bugger me - who would have guessed a search engine could help
Taiwan Adoption Agencies
google.com.au/search?hl=en&q … s%22&meta=
Taiwan Adoption
google.com.au/search?hl=en&q … arch&meta=
Thanks for the links, but that’s not why I posted here. I can find links myself, I was interested in personal experiences.
But thanks again. 
No worries - but it does highlight the fact you need to be specific in yr requests
That’s certainly true. I’ve learned my lesson, and no mistake.
Hi,
I’m also curious about adopting in Taiwan. Have you received any replies to your post?
We are currently in the midst of adopting here through the local municipality and I volunteer at a Christian orphanage.
What’s your situation?
FWIW, I noticed today that if you’re Canadian, you must contact the Canadian adoption agency in order to start the process, otherwise they get all sniffy and won’t let your new child into the country.
I’m curious to hear thoughts on the subject: We are in midst of a local adoption. From our Taipei friends and family I have encountered time and again the sentiment that adopting is nothing less than shameful for everyone involved. Their across the board reaction is “why? don’t you want to have a baby of your own?”
I have heard a common practice if a family must adopt is to move away and pretend the baby is biologically theirs. While visiting home in the States I ran into 5 couples adopting babies from China. It seems the East/West attitudes are vastly different.
Thoughts?
I’m not certain that this is an East/West thing, but who cares?
Adoptive parents fulfill all of the functions natural parents do. Anyone who has anything bad to say about adoptions or adoptive parents must advocate that children who need to be adopted are worthless pieces of crap who should be locked up in state institutions instead.
So I say, very simply, ignore these boneheads who retain such casual prejudice. It’s the child’s welfare that counts, not the worthless sensibilities of some ugly adults.
My response to most Taiwanese, and I’m thinking about those who cart their kids off to grandma or auntie’s for weeks at a time in particular, would be “Don’t you want to raise your own kid? Haven’t you already adopted the kid out to someone else rather than face up to your own responsibilities?”
zhujianlun said it well. Don’t be deterred by those ignorant fools who say anything bad about adoption. Adults can take care of themselves, but what could be sadder than a helpless child abandoned and left to fate? The greatest act of kindness one could possibly perform is to adopt a child and raise it in a loving home.
My cousin and his wife, both white, adopted a Korean baby and two black babies born to separate crack-addict mothers. And they live in Kentucky, which has a history of racism and forced integration, so they surely endure lots of ignorant, nasty and racist comments. I am still overwhelmed by what they have done. And it’s not charity either: they love their children, treat them as well as any biological child would hope to be treated, and the children have prospered.
And my brother and his wife are now adopting a baby from Nepal. They’ve already visited him there and hope to bring him home within a month or so. I think it’s great. My brother’s wife is getting a little old to bear a child (42), was apparently worried about genetic health issues in her family, and didn’t want the trouble of pregnancy and childbirth, but they wanted a child. What a great solution. If you’ve ever been to Nepal, one of the world’s poorest countries, you would see swarms of children living and sleeping in the streets. This child will have better medical care, education, food, clothing and opportunities than those left behind to fend for themselves.
There is an East/West element to the subject. Chinese people have more hangups about adoption than Westerners. Even my wife, who is fairly kind, open-minded and intelligent didn’t understand at first why one would adopt a child, but I’ve explained the above situations to her and now she gets it. Who knows, maybe she would even consider adopting our second child to go along with our biological child. I have discussed that possibility with her.
Don’t be angry with locals who don’t understand. Their views are based on ignorance and superstition. What you’re doing is fantastic. Good for you. Good luck with the process, I hope you get your beautiful child as planned, and I hope you are also able to educate others around you.
Mother Theresa, I found your post rather offensive, and ironic given your lambasteing of “nasty racist comments”.
Both of my wife’s parents were adopted, and as far as I can tell there’s no stigma attached at all to them or their own respective parents. What I can see, though, is that adoption carries very specific social connotations in Chinese society that, apparently, are completely lost on you.
White Man’s Burden, anyone? 
[quote=“Sam Vimes”]Mother Theresa, I found your post rather offensive, and ironic given your lambasteing of “nasty racist comments”.
Both of my wife’s parents were adopted, and as far as I can tell there’s no stigma attached at all to them or their own respective parents. What I can see, though, is that adoption carries very specific social connotations in Chinese society that, apparently, are completely lost on you. . .
White Man’s Burden, anyone? 
[/quote]
I have no idea what you are talking about.
Please explain what I said that you found offensive.
Do you deny that Westerners are more open to the idea of adopting a child than Chinese people are?
Do you deny that superstition plays a role in many Chinese people’s unwillingness to adopt?
I have nothing against people who adopt or people who were adopted, so I’m not sure what you meant by referring to your adopted parents. I don’t believe I said anything that could be construed as insulting towards them.
Can you please explain the special connotations of adoption in Chinese society that you believe are lost on me.
What do you mean by white man’s burden in this context?
I am honestly confused by your response and would be curious to hear a further explanation. :s
I’ve had my disagreements with MT in the past, but he seems to be an alright guy. I don’t see anything offensive in what he wrote.
For what it’s worth, I also consider my wife to be a pretty nice and educated woman, but she also had trouble understanding why somebody would want to adopt. “But why spend your money on a stranger’s child”. Not one of the moments when I was the most proud of her, but I don’t think this was an isolated case. I agree that Taiwanese (can’t speak about all Asians since I don’t know) are much less open to the idea of adoption than Americans (where I happen to be from).
[quote=“VirtualTea”]I’m curious to hear thoughts on the subject: We are in midst of a local adoption. From our Taipei friends and family I have encountered time and again the sentiment that adopting is nothing less than shameful for everyone involved. Their across the board reaction is “why? don’t you want to have a baby of your own?”
I have heard a common practice if a family must adopt is to move away and pretend the baby is biologically theirs. While visiting home in the States I ran into 5 couples adopting babies from China. It seems the East/West attitudes are vastly different.
Thoughts?[/quote]
I don’t know if it’s considered exactly shameful, given my the experience of my parents in law. But I think it’s assumed that adoption indicates some kind of problem either in the adopting family or in the adoptee’s.
For example, my mother in law was the daughter of the fourth wife of a very rich landlord during the Japanese era. Very low on the family totem pole. On the other hand, the family who adopted her was of relatively modest means, but up to then were unable to produce a child. So a sort of contract was made–and, I suspect, the adopting family was given some additional compensation for taking on the burden of a daughter who might not be around to support the parents in their old age.
There was nothing shameful about all this, and my mother in law is very close with both her adopted family and her original family. But it was understood that the adoption took place in order to resolve a problem facing both families.
So are is my mother in law’s family a tribe of ignorant savages? No, I’d say that they’re much more enlightened regarding family relationships than most Westerners I’ve met. It’s easier to see that once you take away your own prejudices and see the social context for what it is, not what you as an outsider think it ought to be.
I don’t know if any of this helps with your situation, except maybe the lesson that all foreigners must learn eventually: the Chinese have their own way of approaching things and their own reasons for approaching them that way. Go ahead and do what you know is right for you and your family, but don’t take on the futility and frustration of trying to “educate” the people around you.
My mother in law was also “traded” to a family that had no daughters. Both families seem fine with it now. I think Taiwanese people who do adopt in Taiwan are naturally less ignorant and biased. However, those unfamiliar with adoption very well might be less than sensitive…as seen by the “Why don’t you have children of your own?” comment.
The thing about moving away is this…if you stay, every neighbor with loose lips will talk and sooner or later your kid will hear this…maybe before you’re ready for him or her to know…
Best of luck!
Sorry if referring to the “White Man’s Burden” was a bit over the top–I didn’t mean any offence in turn.
But this really does chap my hide:
[quote=“Mother Theresa”]
Do you deny that superstition plays a role in many Chinese people’s unwillingness to adopt?[/quote]
What superstition? Outmoded social assumptions, maybe, but why do you ascribe a disagreeable social attitude with superstition and ignorance? From the Chinese perspective, there appear to be very good (historical, now possibly outmoded) reasons for regarding adoption as they do. It doesn’t make it right, but it might help the OP to understand that this has arisen not not just because he’s surrounded by ignorant superstitious natives.
It just smacks of the whole inscrutible Oriental schtick.
And sorry, but I do find it a little weird to emphasize that your cousin and brother are white, and they’ve gone out of their way effectively to rescue children of other races. Why not just say that they’ve adopted, they’re happy, and leave it at that?
[quote=“Sam Vimes”]
And sorry, but I do find it a little weird to emphasize that your cousin and brother are white, and they’ve gone out of their way effectively to rescue children of other races. Why not just say that they’ve adopted, they’re happy, and leave it at that?[/quote]
I would guess and say MT was trying to point out the social and racial obstacles that many adotive parents must overcome…and do so willingly.
[quote=“Sam Vimes”][quote=“Mother Theresa”]
Do you deny that superstition plays a role in many Chinese people’s unwillingness to adopt?[/quote]
What superstition? Outmoded social assumptions, maybe, but why do you ascribe a disagreeable social attitude with superstition and ignorance? [/quote]
Ok, outmoded social assumptions. As for my use of the word ignorance, I intentionally did not say stupid. Instead I said ignorant, which doesn’t mean people are bad, it just means they lack knowledge of a particular subject and, in my opinion anyone who has a complete lack of understanding concerning why a person might choose to adopt (too old, health issues, and most importantly lots of abandoned babies in dire need of parents) is ignorant. Apparently the OP has met lots of people with no understanding of why one would adopt and so have I.
Because it’s relevant that my cousin adopted black children of crack addicts, the type of children that are among the least desirable to prospective adoptive parents. Healthy white babies a few months old are in the highest demand. The waiting list for them is long. Healthy Chinese or Korean babies are also in high demand. Children with physical, mental or social problems, who are born to alcoholics or drug addicts, are black or are older, are harder to place with adoptive parents and often go from one foster home to another to another. Those are the kids that need to be adopted into a good home most badly and those are the kids that, in many cases, will be most difficult for adoptive parents to raise. That’s not my opinion; those are the facts that any adoption agency will admit to. Consequently, I am especially impressed with anyone who elects to take on such special challenges, because those are the orphaned or abandoned kids that need help the most.
As for why I mentioned that my brother was adopting a Nepali baby, I guess there were a few reasons: the OP is also adopting from a foreign country so I thought he might be interested; someone else out there might be adopting from Nepal or know someone who did and might therefore be interested; and – back to the original point, people asking the OP why someone would choose to adopt – as I explained, Nepal is among the world’s poorest nations and has scores of homeless kids living in the streets, so it should be abundantly clear why adoption of those kids, in particular, is desirable.
I’m sorry if you found my comments offensive. They weren’t meant to be. I dated for several years and almost married a girl who was abandoned and then adopted, and struggled with various difficulties as a result, and it was through my experience with her that I really started to empathize with such kids, especially the ones who are lower on the list of desirability to prospective parents.
There are a lot of special circumstances surrouning adption in Chinese and Taiwanese culture. I don’t know about most fo them, but one custom in Taiwan was for families who would have trouble finding wives for their sons to adopt a girl who would later marry her adoptive brother.
I’m pretty sure there’s other ‘special cases’ of adoption. These special customs might make it hard for Taiwanese to accept the idea of adoption when these circumstances are absent. Like “adoption is done for these reasons - you don’t have any of these reasons - why do you want to adopt?”
Brian