An Abandoned Daughter Returns to China

Editors Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian and David Wertime talk to Jenna Cook about how the quest to find her birth mother captivated China — and why she finally decided to write her side of the story for FP.

FP_podcast_article_artwork-1-ER
FP_podcast_article_artwork-1-ER

In the summer of 2012, 20-year-old Jenna Cook of Newburyport, Massachusetts, decided to return to China, the country of her birth, in order to find the parents who abandoned her in the city of Wuhan in March 1992.

In the summer of 2012, 20-year-old Jenna Cook of Newburyport, Massachusetts, decided to return to China, the country of her birth, in order to find the parents who abandoned her in the city of Wuhan in March 1992.

A local newspaper in Wuhan picked up the story, and it soon went national. Countless readers, viewers, and web users began to follow Cook’s search. Dozens of families — who had also abandoned a baby daughter in the same month, on the same year, and on the same street in Wuhan — came forward, hoping Jenna was theirs.

These families told devastating stories of loss, poverty, and shame. Although Cook has yet to find her own birth parents, her quest, and the connections she forged with other families, brought her a deeper understanding of the country where she was born, what her birth parents may have faced, and her own place in the world. In May 2016, after years of reflection, Cook wrote her own article about her findings for Foreign Policy. It published online in both English and Chinese — the first such bilingual article in FP’s history — and was widely shared and discussed in both languages.

In this episode of The Backstory, Cook joins her editor, David Wertime, and host Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian to discuss her remarkable story, the larger issues of adoption and family it engages, and how Cook turned it all into a remarkable piece of journalism.

About the participants:

Jenna Cook received a Fulbright scholarship through her undergraduate institution, Yale College, to study orphans and adoption in China.

David Wertime is the co-founder and senior editor at FP’s China channel, Tea Leaf Nation, and focuses on Chinese Internet freedom, social trends, politics, and law. A former lawyer in New York and Hong Kong, Wertime first encountered China as a Peace Corps volunteer. He is a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the National Committee on United States-China Relations. Follow him on Twitter at: @dwertime.

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian is an assistant editor at Tea Leaf Nation. Before joining FP, she lived and worked in China for more than four years. Bethany is a Jefferson fellow with the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Follow her on Twitter at: @BethanyAllenEbr.

Subscribe to The Backstory podcast and other FP podcasts on iTunes here.

Tag: China

More from Foreign Policy

Residents evacuated from Shebekino and other Russian towns near the border with Ukraine are seen in a temporary shelter in Belgorod, Russia, on June 2.
Residents evacuated from Shebekino and other Russian towns near the border with Ukraine are seen in a temporary shelter in Belgorod, Russia, on June 2.

Russians Are Unraveling Before Our Eyes

A wave of fresh humiliations has the Kremlin struggling to control the narrative.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva shake hands in Beijing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva shake hands in Beijing.

A BRICS Currency Could Shake the Dollar’s Dominance

De-dollarization’s moment might finally be here.

Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in an episode of The Diplomat
Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in an episode of The Diplomat

Is Netflix’s ‘The Diplomat’ Factual or Farcical?

A former U.S. ambassador, an Iran expert, a Libya expert, and a former U.K. Conservative Party advisor weigh in.

An illustration shows the faces of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin interrupted by wavy lines of a fragmented map of Europe and Asia.
An illustration shows the faces of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin interrupted by wavy lines of a fragmented map of Europe and Asia.

The Battle for Eurasia

China, Russia, and their autocratic friends are leading another epic clash over the world’s largest landmass.