An elaborated perspective on my time in China thus far

By: Molli Derfuss

Where did I leave off? 

Oh right: the airport. Well, now, it has been twenty-four days since I arrived in Shanghai, and this has been the thought ringing in my head: maybe I can’t breathe this air. I’m here to answer a calling, but I’ve lost the words that I know; I’ve lost the air that I know how to breathe, and now, it feels like I’m suffocating. 

Monday, June 2nd, at 3:00 PM marked the beginning of my language pledge. 

Ironically, I signed with my (“English”) name. “I, Molli Derfuss,” I wrote, vow to speak only Chinese for my remaining time in this program. I didn’t know then, but I do now know what that pledge actually means. For me, it’s a commitment born out of dedication…

For her, it’s a promise that I can finally keep…but maybe I can’t breathe this air. You know, I don’t know what she knew, and I think that’s what makes us different, but it’s this language that keeps us apart. For the first time in 20 years, we’re breathing the same air, but my lungs are rejecting it. I am not simply translating Chinese to English (then back again), but translating an identity over time. I want so desperately to be seen, but I feel like I’m just a ghost of a Chinese girl who was more Chinese when she was discarded in an orphanage than I am right now. So to both questions, “Who is this for” and “What is at stake,” I have the same answer: her. 

It’s her. 

This is all for her. 

That is not to say that this project means nothing to everyone else, for it offers you perspective on why I’m here, why I think it’s vital for Chinese adoptees to know what it is like to come back to the beginning. China is a strange place. What I’ve realized about Shanghai is its pervasive rejection of what I imagined China to be—not that China has any responsibility to align with my expectations or imagination. However, I wish, just for a moment, that it did. That way, I could feel closer to her. That way, I could close the gap between us, and choose, maybe for the first time, to be both. 

Shanghai Pilgrims

So, the language is a laborious part of this exercise of return. My Uncle Jerry cleverly named our group chat with my Aunt Lisa, “Shanghai Pilgrims.” It’s not the first time I’ve thought of this trip as a pilgrimage, but it was the first time I considered their role in this: the pilgrimage of the adoptive parents. I prefer not to use the qualifier “adoptive” in front of parents, because it is only my biological parents who need such a clarification. However, it is useful here. 

It is also relevant to Sara Dorow’s “Transnational Adoption: A Cultural Economy of Race, Gender, and Kinship,” the work that has shaped my approach to thinking about adoption, and this trip at large. She enlightened me on the perspective of the parents, perhaps not on their pilgrimage, but on their adoption journey and all that comes after. I’ve now crossed the threshold of a different kind of perspective, one that you might think is automatic, but, in fact, must be chosen. It must be lived. It is one I share with approximately 160,000 others. 

So, if this is my pilgrimage, then the place to which I journey, you might think, is Shanghai, my place of study, or, perhaps, Lu’an, the city of my orphanage. However, I am starting to think that it is both and neither, because this place I am looking for has everything to do with space and everything to do with time. I can’t return to the Lu’an, the Anhui, or the China that I left. It lives only in the Fall of 2006. And I am right here in a different China, attempting to fold time onto itself and bring 陆笑笑 (Lù Xiào Xiào), who knew so much and so little, a little bit closer to me, Molli Xiào Xiào Derfuss. 

One Breath at a Time…

Do me a favor: before you start to read this last part, start listening to The Cinematic Orchestra’s “To Build a Home.” If you watched Dan Fogelman’s 2016 This Is Us series, this song will likely be familiar. If so, I ask that you clear your mind of prior interpretations and attempt to listen to this song as it applies to my story. 

Once you arrive at this lyric, continue reading: “When the gust came around to blow me down…”

…

Sometimes, I wish it were still a dream. I wish my questions were just fleeting thoughts. I wish I couldn’t see the answer so clearly in front of me. That China is different, I realize, is not profound. However, it has profoundly shifted the angle of my research inquiry. It is not just about who I am and who I can choose to be, but who I am here, in this place, with these people. 

So yes, at times it is hard to breathe. At other times, it feels like I am suffocating. At times, I can remember why I am here. At other times, I believe that I want to be anywhere but here. Regardless, my ability to breathe is not dependent on the air that surrounds me now, but on the air the Lord gave me when he “knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” So after all of this perspective, allow me to leave you with this (as you enjoy the rest of the song):

The Spirit of God has made me;

the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

Job 33:4 NIV

直到下次! (Until next time!)