Joyce was born in 1995 into an unusual family in Brussels, the capital of Belgium. With her yellow **, dark eyes and black hair, she is out of step with her surroundings.
In this community dominated by blue eyes, high nose bridges, and white **, her strange appearance aroused deep doubts in her heart.
After going to school, despite speaking the same language and having similar lifestyle habits as white children of the same ageBut because of her Asian appearance, she was plagued by discrimination from her classmates.
One day, Joyce plucked up the courage to ask her parents about her true origins, a question that had been haunting her for years, but now she finally decided to find out.
Mom, Dad, I've always wondered, who the hell am I?Joyce's voice trembled, as if he feared that his question would hurt them.
The Bakers exchanged glances, as if they had expected this moment. The mother sighed softly, hugged Joyce, and began to tell a story that shocked her. "Baby, we love you, but. Mother's voice was slightly heavy"You weren't born to us. ”
Joyce froze, his eyes filled with disbelief. She listened to her parents and learned that she was adopted. It turned out that in order not to pass on congenital heart disease to their children, they adopted a boy and a girl in Bolivia and China respectively while traveling around the world. And Joyce is the daughter they adopted at the Hunan Yiyang Welfare Institute.
Joyce was flattered by the news. She sat on the couch, her eyes fixed on her parents, her mind in chaos. Then, a warm current welled up in my heart. Although not biological, the parents treated her as their own daughter.
I. I really thank you guys, no matter what, you have always been my parents. Joyce took her parents' hands, her eyes full of gratitude and understanding. This decision marked a new chapter in Joyce's life. Gratitude to her parents made her cherish everything in front of her even more, and it also inspired her to explore the unknown.
In 2017, at the age of 22, Joyce graduated from school and decided to pursue her roots。She embarks on a journey to find her relatives and to China, a mysterious country she has heard of but never experienced first-hand. Considering her unfamiliarity with China, her adoptive parents contacted the Chinese family tracing volunteer team in advance to help her in an unfamiliar land.
Joyce set foot on Chinese soil, hoping to find those blood relatives who loomed in the depths of her memory. She works closely with a team of family tracing volunteersAccording to the clues provided by her adoptive parents, she worked hard to find the Hunan Yiyang Welfare Institute that adopted her back then.
However, time has washed the traces of 22 years in front of the welfare home. The former site of the courtyard has long been in ruins, like a drop in the ocean, as if it has disappeared in the boundless years. Joyce was saddened, and the hope in her heart was pounded by the unforgiving reality, which made her feel a pang of despair.
The volunteers continued to work hard and inquired deeply, not wanting to let the trip end in failure. Finally, they learned about the new location of the orphanage. However, the new situation has made the whole process of searching for relatives more tortuous.
After years of ups and downs, the person in charge of the adoption has long since left or retired, leaving behind only some residual files and clues.
On Joyce's notarial certificate of adoption, the name she saw was not given by her biological parents, but the name given by the director of the welfare home at the time, a name intended to wish her a plain and elegant orchid - Yi Su Lan.
This unexpected discovery further puzzled Joyce, who had thought that the search would bring her answers, but the reality became more and more confusing.
What's even more frustrating is that Joyce was adopted by the Bakers from BelgiumHer file information with the country's public security bureau was also erased many years ago. This means that the clues about Joyce's identity have been almost completely cut off, and her search for her relatives is once again in trouble.
The enthusiastic volunteers proposed a new plan to ask for help from the popular "Looking for Relatives" program team on Hunan Metropolis Channel. The program is dedicated to reuniting separated relatives and has successfully helped tens of thousands of lost people return home.
The efficient operation of the program team is surprising, in just half a month or so, they collected the information of thousands of families looking for relatives, and compared them with the clues provided by Joyce one by one. Eventually, they shortlisted the 5 families with the highest likelihoodand assisted Joyce with DNA paternity tests with these families.
Before the results were announced, Joyce traveled to the families to try to find the shadows of their loved ones in their eyes. Every encounter is a mixture of anticipation and tension, but when the results of the appraisal are revealed, all hope seems to have come to naught.
DNA tests revealed that the families were not related to Joyce. The two months she had spent searching for her loved ones seemed to have been in vain.
Although the birth parents were not found, Joyce did not consider the trip to be a nowhere for nothing. She experienced the warmth of the land and felt the care and kindness from her compatriots.
When she returned to Europe, she was already proud to say that she was from Yiyang, China, and this sense of belonging became the most cherished memory in her heart.