China Daughter Meets Parents

“Zoe Halbeisen’s 15-hour flight from the U.S. to Shanghai was months in the making.

Her birth parents found her just six months ago, more than 20 years after leaving her on the steps of a department store in Changzhou, China.

It was a desperate act. The couple was in violation of the country’s former one-child policy. Zoe, 23, learned that this spring. Years spent believing they had abandoned her were replaced with an understanding of their desperation then and their regret now.

Zoe, who was adopted at age 3 by American parents, grew up in Charlotte and graduated from Grand Ledge High School. She spent the last several months in anticipation, waiting for her trip to China and the chance to connect face to face with her long, lost birth family.

Her story seemed like a fairy tale, even as she boarded at train in Shanghai, she said.

Then she stepped off the train in Changzhou and was greeted by a group of Chinese relatives, birth father Chen Xin Zhong and mother Wang Xu Mei among them.

It became real when they embraced her.

“I was not expecting that many people,” she said. “When I saw that big group I was just amazed. We were all kind of in shock that it was actually happening.”

The warm welcome came with a sense of belonging, she said.

“The whole trip was just beyond expectations. I can’t really put it into words.”

Before Zoe left for China Aug. 30, with her adoptive father Stephen Halbeisen and her boyfriend, Blaine Love, accompanying her, she’d been getting to know her birth family from afar.

There were a few video chats and messages exchanged, but her two-week trip gave her the chance to stay up late and chat with her sisters, Chen Lin and Chen Hong, to meet and visit with grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins.

There was also a visit to Tian Long Department Store, where employees found Zoe, nine days old and wrapped in a blanket, that surprised even Stephen Halbeisen.

Today the store is a hotel, but several of the employees who worked there when Zoe was found still have jobs there, she said. They were waiting when Zoe and Stephen came back.

“We thought we’d be meeting with a couple people,” Zoe said. “There were over 20 people there. They had an electric sign on the hotel that said, ‘Welcome home Zoe,’ and in English, no less.”

Another banner welcoming her hung in a banquet hall inside the hotel. The group offered them a meal and shared pictures they had saved of Zoe as a baby.

“I was overwhelmed,” Stephen said.

The orphanage where Zoe stayed as an infant, Changzhou Social Children’s Welfare Institute, isn’t standing today, but the Halbeisens visited the property where it sat. A senior living community is there now, she said.

Another banner welcoming her hung in a banquet hall inside the hotel. The group offered them a meal and shared pictures they had saved of Zoe as a baby.

“I was overwhelmed,” Stephen said.

The orphanage where Zoe stayed as an infant, Changzhou Social Children’s Welfare Institute, isn’t standing today, but the Halbeisens visited the property where it sat. A senior living community is there now, she said.

“It was just incredible,” she said. “There are so many people. It’s such a big family.”

The entire family spent time exploring Shanghai together, Zoe said.

“I just thought the country was beautiful,” she said. “There’s so much to do and see that you obviously can’t do it in one trip. I have a whole list of things I still want to do yet in China, but this trip was about family.”

‘All these pieces just came together right’

“I didn’t do anything,” she said. “All I did was exist. It’s everybody else that was remarkable.”

Her adoptive parents traveled to China to make her part of their family in Michigan, she said, and her birth parents spent 20 years searching for her after she left, never giving up hope that they would see her again.

Lan and Brian Stuy’s nonprofit DNAConnect.Org helped bring them all together.

“All these pieces just came together right,” Zoe said.

Today, Zoe said, her family has expanded to include her Chinese parents, sisters and extended relatives.

“I have a home there. I have a home here,” she said. “I don’t even look at it as two families. I see one huge family. I have lots of places to call home.”

Stephen Halbeisen said he feels the same way. Zoe’s sisters and a cousin in China feel like his children now, he said.

“I feel like I’ve got seven daughters now instead of four,” he said.

Zoe said she left China feeling loved.

“I could have gone my whole life without having met any of them,” she said. “What a shame it would have been if I hadn’t found out, and we hadn’t all connected.””

China Adoption Zoe Halbeisen meets birth family in Changzhou

[Lansing State Journal 9/19/19 by Rachel Greco]

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