[Movie Review] Found (2021) : "You are in the wrong gender, they don't want you, and you know that." | sillyandordinarygirl
By Lasmarya Hadi Purwanto - November 11, 2021
"Found" (2021) is a Netflix documentary about three Chinese teenage girls (Lily, Sadie, and Chloe) adopted when they were still babies and raised in American families. They discovered one another as blood-related cousins through the website 23andMe (by submitting their DNA samples). With the help of a guide named Liu Hao from the China Roots, they traveled together to China and found traces about their past, their identity and family history.
It is a beautiful documentary but also a heartbreaking one indeed. It gives me several perspectives to think: about the "One Child Policy" as the main issue, about how parents had no other choices but to give up their children, how those decisions might haunt you for life but still there's no way to undo it, and about the children feeling abandoned and not wanted,
Watching "Found" left me feeling sentimental for the day. It makes me rethink about myself, and how lucky I was and I am (still) being born as a girl and the third child in a Chinese family in Indonesia. Well, if my parents had been living in mainland China during the times of "One Child Policy", I would probably have never been born, I would not be here right now, typing this post and smiling awkwardly thinking about how weird it would be.
Here's my logic, with the policy, I would not have stood a chance as the third child. They would probably stop having child after my eldest brother was born. He was a baby boy, he would carry the family name, and they would for sure keep him in the family. My second brother would still stand a chance, maybe, but since he was a baby boy too, I don't think they would send him to orphanage and give him up for adoption abroad, he probably would be adopted by a close relative, but he'd still be around. While for me, as the third child, as a baby girl, I really don't think they would have much choice. The penalty would be too much for them to cover, and no other relatives might want a baby girl. So either they don't have me at all after the second child, or they really should give me up. My mom stopped by to watch some parts when I was watching the documentary, and she said "They were still lucky to get adopted in good families, I heard that some families even left their babies to die and even floated them on the river, with a very small chance of surviving." *shocked
See how lucky I was? I would have almost NO chance living with my family if I was born in mainland China that year. Although I doubt that my family would let me die XD or float me on any river, but still, I would probably be separated from my biological parents and brothers, or maybe, I wouldn't even exist at all XD I'm not saying that being adopted by another family is a bad case, NOT AT ALL, the babies might have much better lives living with their adoptive parents. My point is, it was so unfair for baby girls, they didn't get to choose their genders, but just at the very moment that they were born, they faced discrimination right away.
On the other side, the documentary also lets us see from the perspective of the parents who had to give up their children. They were often left with no choice and how heartbroken they must have been, having to leave their children, not knowing whether they will live or not, not knowing what will become of them. These parents might have guilt, remorse, and regret haunting their lives, and most people who don't understand would just point their fingers to them and criticize them for being "bad parents who threw their children away". They must have felt sad too thinking that their children might hate them for giving them up, that the children would feel abandoned and unwanted and blame them for that. But we never knew how they have been feeling inside all this time. Just because they leave their children, doesn't mean they wanted to do that.
Here are some quotes that I really like from the documentary.
"I always knew about the one-child policy 'cause a lot of my relatives, they just...give up their children, their girls. And my parents, they almost gave up me, because they don't want to pay the penalty. But I'm very lucky 'cause my grandparents, they said, "No, we want to keep her." So I just don't have a very good relationship with my father. I remember one time my father wanted to take my brother to a very fancy restaurant. You can get little cute dim sum here. And, you know, I really loved that one. And he just wanted to take my brother there, and I asked him if I can go with them. And he just pushed me out of the elevator, said "No, you can't go". It was very difficult for me because you know you're not welcome. You are in the wrong gender, they don't want you, and you know that. It's very hard."
- Liu Hao
"She was by this tree in a cardboard box. Whichever parent left it probably was watching, waiting... 'Cause you were found really early in the morning, before 7:00. Before it got too busy, but they put you here so when people started getting busy, that...you'd be found right away. So you wouldn't be cold, and all this -- I think you were wrapped in a coat. In an adult raincoat or something."
- Victoria, Sadie's mom
(This one really opens my eyes and let me see things from the parents' perspective. Maybe adopted children would always think that they are unwanted, unloved, and wonder why their biological parents didn't want to keep them and so on. But you can see, I mean if their parents really didn't love them, why would they even care to wrap the babies in a coat keeping it from cold, and even waited until someone found the babies. If they really didn't love their children, they could just leave the babies in the middle of nowhere, or maybe like what my mom said, let the babies float away, right?)
Go watch the documentary in Netflix! I hope you like it as much as I do! :)
