March 31, 2022

S2-E4 - Searching for the "Motherland"

S2-E4 - Searching for the "Motherland"
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S2-E4 - Searching for the "Motherland"

Western-style adoption (as in a couple taking a baby home from an orphanage) has not been and is still not very common in Taiwan. But there are plenty of local ways kids find new homes here, including a now-abandoned, rather shocking "brother-sister/husband-wife" arrangement! And -- for a time -- quite a few girls, in particular, were adopted by American, Australian and European parents, who raised the children back in their home countries. Several of these foreign-raised Taiwan-born girls would become local media sensations when they returned to the island in search of their "mother-land."

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Cover Image: Via PressReader/GoldCoast Eye Australia (Note: Formosa Files is a non-profit, educational podcast. No copyright infringement intended and images are used with links to original publisher)

ARTICLE: LOST LITTLE GIRL - GoldCoast Eye/ PressReader (2015) 

Below: Images from article link above show Kartya Wunderle and her adoptive parents and birth mother. 

Below left: Nora Wunderle with a teenage Kartya 

Below right: Kartya Wunderle with her son  

Kartya's Story_ A Daughter's Suffering. A Mother's Unconditional Love. An Extraordinary Story of Hope and Survival

REUTERS REPORT: TAIWAN: DNA TESTS RE-UNITE AUSTRALIAN TEENAGER KARTYA WUNDERLE WITH HER BIOLOGICAL MOTHER WHOSE BOYFRIEND SOLD HER IN TAIWAN 17 YEARS AGO

Video from the Taiwan reunion 

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AMAZON LINK to: Lucky Girl by Professor Mei-Ling Hopgood (2010)

Facebook page for Mei-Ling Hopgood, journalist, author and professor at Northwestern University. Her books include 'Lucky Girl: A Memoir' (available in English and Chinese) and 'How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm'

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Below: An image of a "Shim-pua" (新婦仔) wedding and wedding contract 

Images via: Wikipedia - Tongyangxi/Shimpua marriage

 

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