Growing Pains for Child Adoption in China

Back in 1971, Kay Johnson joined a group of fellow American academics on a trip to Beijing at the invitation of Premier Zhou Enlai. On subsequent journeys, she researched post-Cultural Revolution China and was honored as a "special friend" of the Chinese government.

Johnson's experience influenced her decision 20 years ago to adopt a baby girl from an orphanage in Wuhan, Hubei Province. She remembers paying the orphanage US$ 3,000 – the going rate in those years before China enacted an adoption law and started formally allowing its children to be adopted overseas.