關注社會:收養中國女孩難了

28 March is the 11th birthday of my daughter Fu Xinke, whom I adopted 10 years ago from China. Many babies like her, these days, are either not born at all or certainly not adopted. What a difference a decade makes.

今年3月28日是我養女付新科（音譯）的11歲生日。10年前，我從中國收養了她。放到現在，許多像她這樣的孩子根本沒有機會出世，更別提被收養了。十年時間，變化竟然如此之大。

Last week I returned to her home town of Chuzhou, in China's eastern Anhui province, to see just how the one-child policy – quite likely to be the reason she became my daughter – is getting on these days in a province that was once a significant exporter of babies for overseas adoption.

上週，我回到我養女的家鄉——中國東部省份安徽省滁州市，去看看如今計劃生育政策在這個曾爲海外輸送了大量領養兒童的省份的執行情況。這項政策很有可能也是這個孩子當初成爲我養女的原因。

When Xinke was born, many Chinese adoptions involved Anhui babies; but by 2010, international adoptions there had fallen to zero. Has Anhui outgrown foreign adoption – or has it outgrown having surplus babies at all?

在我養女出生的年代，人們從中國收養的孩子許多都來自安徽省。但到2010年，安徽兒童被海外人士收養的數量已爲零。安徽究竟是已不再有可供海外人士收養的孩子，還是根本已不再有"多餘"的孩子需要別人收養？

The answer could affect much more than adoption statistics: China's attitude to childbirth is changing in ways that, according to demographers, could even affect the mainland's economic miracle. I went for answers to the local family planning office of an outlying district of her city – to find that all its civil servants had gone for a long lunch. But at a hostelry nearby, I found one answer to my questions: 30-odd people setting off fireworks and consuming a 24-inch birthday cake to celebrate the birthday of a one-year-old girl.

這個問題的答案影響的遠不止收養方面的統計數字：中國對計劃生育政策的態度正在發生轉變，人口統計學家們認爲，這種轉變甚至可能影響中國大陸的經濟奇蹟。我來到位於滁州偏遠地段的一個計劃生育辦公室，想找尋答案，卻發現辦公室的人都去吃午飯了，遲遲未歸。但在附近的一家餐館，我找到了解答我的問題的一條線索：有30多人聚在一起，放鞭炮，圍着一個24英寸的生日蛋糕，爲一名剛滿1歲的小姑娘慶生。

It was the kind of place where, 10 years ago, the birth of a girl would seldom merit a birthday cake two feet wide. In traditional areas like this, boys were needed to carry on the family name and support parents in old age; the birth of a first girl was tolerated (because in rural areas peasants can try again if their first is female); but the second child absolutely had to be a boy. If it was a girl instead, abandonment (or worse) was often seen as the only option.

10年前，在這樣的地區，人們很少會爲女孩買兩英尺見方的蛋糕慶生。在這樣的傳統地區，人們需要生男孩，來延續香火、爲自己養老送終。如果頭胎是女孩，還可以接受（因爲在農村，如果頭胎是女孩，可以生第二胎），但第二胎就必須生個男孩了。如果第二胎是個女孩，人們往往就只能選擇遺棄（甚至更糟）。

Today there are more options: in the words of one Chuzhou government official, "once you have enough to eat, you do not throw away your child". Put simply, people can afford to raise girls these days rather than abandon them. Some may pay a fine of Rmb2,000-5,000 ($320-$790) for an excess child; and the really rich may go overseas to deliver. If she were born today, Xinke might not have been abandoned.

如今，人們有了更多的選擇。用滁州一位政府官員的話來說："只要吃得飽肚子，誰都不會不要自己的孩子。"簡單說，如今人們養得起女孩了，用不着遺棄她們。有的父母可能會爲超生的孩子支付2000至5000元人民幣（合320至790美元）的罰款，還有些真正有錢的人可能會赴海外生產。如果我養女生在現在，她可能不會被遺棄。

But there is also a more sinister option: in the clinic next door to the restaurant where the baby girl was being feted, "midterm abortion" is advertised for a mere Rmb360 ($60). Sex-selective abortion is illegal – but widely practised. Government statistics tell all: among Chuzhou children born in 2009, the ratio of boys to girls among first children is 105:100 – but it rises to nearly 300:100 for third and fourth births. My Xinke may well have been a second or third daughter; if conceived today, she might not have been born at all.

但如今還有一種更見不得人的選擇：在那個爲小姑娘舉辦慶生宴的餐館隔壁，一家診所打出"人流"的廣告，手術費用僅360元（合60美元）。性別選擇性墮胎是非法的，但許多人這麼做。官方統計數據說明了一切：2009年，滁州頭胎新生兒男女性別比爲105:100，但第三胎和第四胎的這一比率就升到了近300:100。我的養女很可能是她生母懷的第二個或第三個女兒，放在今天，她可能根本就不會出生。

These days it seems that ultrasound machines and the market are doing the work of the birth planners. So the vast family planning bureaucracy has turned to cleaning up its image, with a national "face washing" campaign aimed at eradicating the brutal slogans of the past (including one that offered a noose to any forcibly sterilised woman who contemplates suicide, and another urging people to raise pigs, not kids).

如今，超聲波儀器和市場似乎充當起了計生員。於是，龐大的計生機構開始美化自己的形象，展開了全國性的"洗臉"運動，旨在徹底清除過去那些野蠻的計生工作宣傳畫和標語（包括爲因被迫絕育而意圖自殺的婦女提供繩索上吊的宣傳畫，和"少生孩子多養豬"的標語）。

In Xinke's home town, and all over China, the one-child policy seems to be getting a "hearts and minds" makeover – at exactly the time when many Chinese argue that it is no longer necessary or even wise. For as Xinke enters her tween years, the simple truth that made her my daughter – that China had too many babies – has undergone a stunning reversal. China has, or soon will have, too many elderly and too few kids.

在我養女的家鄉乃至整個中國，計劃生育政策似乎正在進行徹底的改頭換面——與此同時，許多中國人也開始主張，計劃生育政策已變得沒有必要、甚至不明智。隨着新科即將步入青春期，當初導致她成爲我養女的一個簡單事實——中國的孩子太多了——已發生了徹底的逆轉。中國已經或很快將面臨的情況是，老人太多而孩子太少。

One recent opinion poll showed that only 16 per cent of urban women thought the main reason for marriage was procreation. In Shanghai, where residents can have two kids (if both parents are only children), few want to do so.

最近的一份調查顯示，只有16%的城市女性認爲結婚的主要目的是繁衍後代。上海允許夫妻生二胎（如果夫妻雙方都是獨生子女的話），但沒有多少夫妻願意這樣做。

Many are delaying childbearing so long that China now has 50m infertile couples – fuelling an underground "rent-a-womb" industry of surrogacy, which recently yielded a highly controversial case of in-vitro octuplets.

許多夫妻因錯過了適宜懷孕的年齡而無法生育，中國如今有5000萬對不孕不育的夫婦。這令一個地下產業——代孕——興旺了起來。最近，一對夫婦通過試管嬰兒技術產下了八胞胎，引起許多爭議。

Ironically, the number of Chinese babies born in the US each year because their rich parents went there for "birth tourism" is now roughly the same as the number of abandoned Chinese infants imported to America through adoption, when Fu Xinke was born. What a difference a decade makes.

具有諷刺意味的是，如今每年中國富裕產婦赴美產子產下的寶寶數量，約等於我養女出生時每年美國人收養中國棄嬰的數量。十年時間，變化竟然如此之大。