Insight of MBL Norway Conference
挪威之行 - 收养家庭访问会议记录
母爱桥志愿者 小天
2023年3月23日到27日，我和另外一名母爱桥志愿者Aurora在欣然的带领下去到挪威，进行了五天与挪威政府收养办公室和挪威收养家庭的访问、学习和探讨。
Led by Xinran, from 23 to 27 March 2023, Aurora, another Mother's Love Bridge volunteer, and I went to Norway, for five days to visit, to learn and to discuss with the Norwegian government adoption office and Norwegian adoptive families about the current adoption issues.
奥斯陆城市印象：
City impressions of Oslo:
我出生并长与中国一座人口千万的二线城市，目前在伦敦的一座戏剧学院读研究生。在中国的语境之下，所有的欧洲国家仿佛都可以笼统放入于一幅诗意的乡村油画中，我对挪威的认知也仅限于其是北欧一个冰天雪地的国家，来了之后发现挪威的个性是值得细品的。
I was born and raised in a second-tier city in China with a population of 10 million and am currently a postgraduate student at a drama school in London. In the Chinese context, all European countries seem to fit into a poetic countryside oil painting, and my perception of Norway was limited to the fact that it was a snowy Northern European country. But after the trip I found that Norway's personality is something worth savouring.
挪威无疑是富足的发达国家，从人均收入和当地人对“贫穷”的理解来看，温饱已经不是被考虑的问题，人的尊严被更多的纳入了考虑范围之内，他们在讲起对苦难之人的同情时脸上所洋溢的圣洁的光，很难在发展中国家那些在为生计奔波的人身上看到。
Norway is undoubtedly a rich, developed country where, in terms of per capita income and the local understanding of 'poverty', showing that food and clothing are no longer a consideration. Human dignity is taken more into account. When people speak of their compassion for the suffering, the holy light on their faces is hard to be found in those in developing countries who are struggling to make a living.
而在精致的城市建设和丰富的人文氛围下，自然环境严酷而不宜人居的线索仿佛也从未被掩盖。我们去的时候已适逢初春，而挪威依旧处于时而阴雨连绵的严寒，再从其较为粗犷的饮食起居文化和博物馆的历史资料看，我也不免想象在石油被开采销往世界之前，这里的风雪曾怎样磨练出这个民族坚忍内敛的民族性格。
And amidst the exquisite urbanism and rich cultural atmosphere, the clues that the natural environment is harsh and uninhabitable never seem to be hidden. It was early spring when we visited, and Norway was still in its sometimes rainy and bitter cold. With its rugged food culture and museum history, I wondered how the wintry weather had sharpened the nation's resilient and restrained character before oil was exploited and sold to the world.
会议有感：
这次我作为母爱桥的志愿者共参与了两次关于收养的会议。其中一次是在挪威的内政部，和其他组织讨论包括韩国、越南、哥伦比亚等多国家的收养问题。令我感触最深的是收养环节当中的性别议题，重男轻女在不同的国家得到了不同的表达。由于独生子女政策，在中国被收养的孩子几乎全为女孩，这是中国家庭认为必须由男孩来传承血脉的执念，致使对于女性后代的放弃。而在同样受儒家思想影响的韩国，被西方国家收养的却基本为男孩，这是因为韩国家庭更看重血脉的纯净，怕收养的男孩生出血脉不一致的下一代。女权主义一个观点认为，父权制是对男女双方的压迫，我深以为然，在人类这个族群中，作用力和反作用力会平等的给所有人留下创伤。
Conference insights:
This time I participated in a total of two meetings on adoption as a volunteer for MBL. One of them was at the Norwegian adoption office, where we discussed adoption issues in various countries, including Korea, Vietnam and Colombia, with other organisations. What struck me most was the gender aspect of the adoption process, where the preference for sons is expressed differently in different countries. Due to the one-child policy, almost all adopted children in China are girls, as a result of the Chinese family's obsession that a boy must carry on the lineage, resulting in the abandonment of female offspring. In Korea, which is also influenced by Confucianism, the majority of children adopted by Western countries are boys, because Korean families place a higher value on the purity of the bloodline and fear that the adopted boys will produce a generation of inconsistent children. One feminist view is that patriarchy is oppressive to both men and women, and I am deeply convinced that in the human race, the forces of action and reaction will leave trauma on all equally.
另一次会议是与挪威当地收养家庭直接的接触，这些家庭对欣然提出的问题都聚焦在“如何为收养的中国孩子寻根”这个母题下。我从父母们的“放手”中看到了大爱。首先，对于在中国的生母，欣然从残酷的时代政治环境和文化背景出发，猜测了抛弃孩子的母亲并不是因为不爱，而是因为她们本身也生活在泥沼中，无力给孩子提供良好的生存环境，在大多数家庭选择溺死女婴的背景下，她们勇敢的将孩子送走，已经是拼尽全力的“放手”。而对于养父母而言，我敬佩于他们对于孩子创伤的尊重，将自我的占有欲和掌控欲搁置在一旁，带着孩子千里迢迢到中国寻找亲生父母，只试图让孩子的人生更加圆满。这种“放手”让我更加相信人性的欲望是可以被一种具体的爱所战胜的。
Another meeting was a direct encounter with local Norwegian adoptive families, whose questions to Xinran were focused on the mother theme of "how to find the roots of adopted Chinese children". I saw a great measure of love in the parents' "let go". Firstly, in the case of the birth mothers in China, Xinran speculates that the mothers who abandoned their children not because they did not love them, but because they themselves were living in a quagmire and were unable to provide a good living environment for their children, and against the background of most families choosing to drown their baby girls, they were brave enough to "let go" by giving them away. “Let go" for the adoptive parents, I admire their respect for the trauma of their child, putting aside their own possessiveness and desire to control, and taking the child all the way to China to find her biological parents, in an attempt to make her life complete. This 'let go' reinforced my belief that human desires can be overcome by a concrete love.
作为母爱桥志愿者的收获：
Takeaways as a MBL volunteer:
和我曾经历的单纯的游玩不太一样，这次我在志愿者的身份下窥探到的不再仅是山河秀丽和岁月静好。不论是收养家庭还是我与母爱桥的其他两位志愿者，好像每个人的人生都有或大或小的裂缝，我们向外挣扎、试图去封存过往或彼此舔舐伤口，但终究都要重新掀开它向内看，找到破茧而出的力量，而这种力量也会鼓舞身边的人。作为志愿者，想要为他人带来萤火的愿望也同样激励着正在成长的我，这次旅程的每个人都是幸运的，因为我们看到了彼此，看到了夜晚的风雪里有其他温暖的灯。
Unlike the simple excursions I had experienced, what I got to see in my volunteer capacity was not just the beauty of the landscape. Whether it was the adoptive families or the two other volunteers, it seems that we all have cracks in our lives, big or small, that we are struggling with, trying to seal up the past or lick each other's wounds. But in the end we all have to lift it back up and look inward to find the strength to break out of the cocoon, and that strength will inspire those around us. As a volunteer, the desire to bring light to others also inspires me. I also feel everyone on this journey is lucky, because we see each other, see that there are other lamps of warmth in the stormy night.