Interview with Xinran
by Marjorie Coughlan*

Xinran was born in Beijing in 1958. She became a well-known radio presenter whose ground-breaking show attracted correspondence from women all over China.  She has since shared these women’s stories with the rest of the world through her acclaimed books, starting with Good Women of China (Vintage, 2003). Xinran moved to the UK in 1997 and now writes a regular column for The Guardian.  In 2004 she set up the UK-based charity The Mother's Bridge of Love (MBL) with the purpose of “reaching out to Chinese children in all corners of the world: those who have been raised abroad, those who have been adopted by Western families, and those living in China, often in destitute conditions”. 

PaperTigers caught up with Xinran in the midst of a busy schedule to talk about her recent collaboration with Barefoot Books to publish the picture book Motherbridge of Love, a poem sent anonymously to the charity.

.............................................................................................................

Besides being a renowned journalist, you are the founder of The Mothers’ Bridge of Love (MBL), a charitable organization established to foster understanding between China and the West and to help internationally adopted children understand their Chinese heritage. Can you give us a bit of background as to why and how you started it? Please also tell us about your ongoing work, via the organization, with orphans in China and adoptive families abroad – and how important is it to you to have that link within the organisation?

I founded MBL to try to provide an answer to these questions in particular: firstly, from Chinese all over the world, “What is Chinese culture?”; secondly, from adopted children, “Why didn’t my Chinese mummy want me?”; and thirdly, from children in the Chinese countryside, “How can I ever go to school?”.

MBL volunteers are reaching out to Chinese young people and children in all corners of the world: those who have been raised abroad, those who have been adopted by western families, and those living in rural China, often in destitute conditions. MBL is also striving both to introduce an authentic China to the West and to disseminate information about adopted Chinese children’s lives, and the lives of overseas Chinese in the West to people in China. It is for all these children that MBL wants to build three bridges: between China and the West; between birth and the adoptive culture; between rich and poor.

By building the first two bridges MBL will strive to enlarge its network for all to work together to build the third bridge, over the huge poverty gap which still exists in today’s China.

How did you first come across the poem, which has become the book Motherbridge of Love?

One American family sent this poem to me personally as their ‘heart gift’ when MBL had just been set up in 2004. We now use it as our website ‘opening poem’. In 2006, Ms Tessa Strickland of Barefoot Books came to MBL and asked about using it to produce a book for all of the Chinese children adopted from China. We chose Ms Josée Masse as the illustrator because of her passionate drawing on the feelings of those birth mothers who might never have a later chance to see their daughters in their life time. Josée herself has an adoptive family so her heart is so close to our girls.

Have you found out since who actually wrote the poem?

Not yet, we are waiting for this author who must be a woman with a soul and heart for other women’s hearts and feelings…

Can you tell us a bit about your collaboration with Barefoot Books to publish the poem?

Barefoot Books and MBL both believed we should make a life book for adopted children and help them to ‘feel and understand’ their birth mothers who are in their lives as a spring wind, a moonbeam, a drop of water of the ocean, or the breath of mountains…as they are touched by nature every day and night…Then we worked together on the same passion - Barefoot to produce and publish it; MBL to act as its  PR, which is my job during my book-tours around the world (my books have been published in more than 30 languages). Mainly, its income will go towards MBL’s projects for the care of disabled orphans and for the adopted children exchange with Chinese girls in China. Springing as a result of this children’s book, MBL has launched its Girl to Girl project, which is to call all the girls adopted in the west to share their stories, their toys, and their pocket money with their siblings in the Chinese orphanages.

In the case of international, interracial adoption, do you think it has become easier in recent years for adoptive parents to bring up their adopted children with an awareness of their roots?

Many people have thought that it should be easier for adoptive parents to bring up their adopted children with an awareness of their roots: but I don’t think so. There are more than 120,000 Chinese orphans, mainly girls, who have been adopted in 27 countries since the 1990’s.  Yet how much Chinese culture, history and literacy is there in those countries’ education programmes? How much information is there about this 5000 year old nation and its civilization in general reading or the daily media? This is the main reasoning behind MBL’s goal – Culture for children; Chinese culture for our Chinese children!

Can you suggest some ways adoptive parents can carry forward these goals at home?

Reading about Chinese culture, getting to know other chinese people, travelling around China, and often talking about 'colorful' news from China around the family dining table.

Although you yourself weren’t adopted, you were separated from your parents for most of your childhood.  Do you think that your experiences have tuned your awareness of these issues; were they a prompt for you to set up MBL?

Yes, that’s true! The reason for my deep feelings about and rich understanding of both sides – that is, of the adopted girls and their birth mothers whom I have met, is because of my own painful and lonely childhood. The details can be found in my first book ‘The Good Women of China’.

When and why did you adopt the name Xinran – I’ve heard that you took it from a poem, is that true?

Yes, I adopted this name when I was 15, when I published my first poem in a newspaper. My radio show was one of the very first ‘open minded’ talk shows after China relaxed its media control in 1989. I felt it was like the first opening of the eyes to the warm spring after a long cold winter in China - as Mr Ziqing Zhu wrote in his poem in the early 20 century: "Open your eyes when the spring is coming" (most life being asleep in winter, spring is the time to ’wake up’).

Motherbridge of Love is your first book for children but you are already the acclaimed author of books for adults,, which focus on the life experiences of women in China. Can you tell us about the path that led you from talking to these women to setting up MBL?

My dream of being a close daughter of my own mother, and my education from those women whom I interviewed face to face since becoming a journalist in the1980’s, have both guided me to MBL.

What made you decide to leave China for the UK, when you already had a well-established and respected career as a journalist there?  Did you expect it to be a long-term move?

After eight years on my radio show and talking to so many Chinese women, I needed to recharge my batteries and broaden my international horizons…

I didn’t think that it would be a long-term move at all. It's my British friends and the richness of the European culture, and the possibility for me to represent the voice of Chinese women, together with a hope that my son might gain a better future in the West: all of these made me ‘plant’ my late future in the UK.

What are your hopes for the future of Motherbridge of Love?

That through MBL, all adopted Chinese children, wherever they may be, might have a global path to the roots of their culture; and that we will be able to provide support for orphans, particularly disabled orphans, in China. And at the moment, we need more support for setting up a bigger team and a bigger office for MBL’s fast growing needs!

Have you ever thought about writing a children’s book yourself?

After writing The Good Women of China, Sky Burial, What Chinese Don’t Eat, Miss Chopsticks and China Witness (due out in 2008), I am going to start working on a book for Chinese adopted daughters with the working title Message from Chinese Tummy Mum.

I would love to write children’s books: for my missing childhood, for other Chinese girls... I am not sure I could write for boys... I would probably have to ask my son Panpan for help there.

*Marjorie Coughlan is PaperTigers Associate Editor

Posted September 2007

back to top