Coming full circle

Source: www.hometownannapolis.com

Minna Pauly, 12, of Annapolis, and her mother, Kristin, look at pictures from their recent trip to China.




Minna and her mother travel to China to trace her roots



By THERESA WINSLOW, Staff Writer
Published August 30, 2007
She was found by a gate to the entrance of a police station. Abandoned by her parents, the baby girl wound up in a nearby orphanage.
And there she might have remained if Kristin Pauly, a then-51-year-old single woman, hadn't traveled more than 8,000 miles to Changzhou, China, to adopt her. "It was one of those instant inspirations I felt drawn to do," said Ms. Pauly, an Annapolis resident who is managing director for a charitable family trust in Washington, D.C.

Fast forward 11 years, and her daughter, Minna, is about to start seventh grade at The Key School. Minna, now 12, takes private Chinese language classes and her mother has made it a priority to teach her about her birthplace. The real lessons, though, came this summer, when the Paulys returned to China. They spent three weeks investigating life there and tracing Minna's roots, even returning to the police station and the orphanage.

It's impossible to track down her birth parents, according to Ms. Pauly, and Minna said she's not particularly interested in that, but they both called the trip a profound experience.

Minna, who describes herself as Chinese American, said she left feeling "lucky" to have the life she has. After observing poor people labor in the heat on the streets of Changzhou, she said she realized that could have been her fate if she hadn't been adopted. "It made me think of how privileged I am here," Minna said earlier this week, sitting at a table filled with pictures and souvenirs from the trip.

Still, she didn't find the experience shocking or disturbing. "It felt very normal," she said. "I don't know why; like I was meant to see it. That is where I started my life."

Her favorite part of the trip took place in another part of China, where she got to play with baby giant pandas at a preserve.

Minna said she was too shy to use the Chinese she's learned in class, and didn't know quite enough to respond to some questions anyway. "They'd go (too) fast," she said.

Regardless, Minna said she was treated like she was Chinese even though most of time "I still felt like a tourist."

The Paulys went with five other American families who have adopted Chinese children. They're part of a group of 11 that used the same adoption agency and originally traveled to China together in 1995 to pick up their children.

The families kept in touch through the years and scheduled the return trip together. They dubbed the journey "Coming Full Circle."

"We made a pact we'd do it together," said Janet Bass of Bethesda, who went on the July trip with her husband and adopted daughter. "We've all been together. We've all been through this journey for 12 years."

Ms. Bass called the Paulys "an incredible family," and said mother and daughter were "meant for each other."

Circle of life

In a sense, the entire adoption experience was a way for Ms. Pauly's life to come full circle.

She has a grown son with three children of his own, but she gave him up for adoption when she 19. Ms. Pauly was a college student at the time - too young, she said, to be a mother and unsure about the state of her relationship with the boy's father. She reconnected with her son, now 44, two decades ago.

Ms. Pauly said being an older parent has had its challenges, but not anything she hasn't been able to handle. She said she relies on friends for help and support.

For her, the return journey to China was emotional. It was also more physically taxing than she initially thought, since the group covered a lot of ground between July 7 and July 21.

Ms. Pauly said it was moving to return to the orphanage, which is now a home for the elderly, and see some of the same people from nearly a dozen years ago. But the part of the trip that had the most impact was simply arriving at the hotel in Minna's hometown. Ms. Pauly said she wept tears of joy.

"It was about all of us having made the effort to get back," she said. "I feel like there's a completeness now, like I've done my job."