Insight
工程技術，地產投資，信仰家園，時尚生活
《境界》獨立出品【靈光掠影】
文/嚴行
子孫綿延是否會被打破？
孩子，是觸動親情的敏感點，隻輕輕一撥，心就會顫動。苦情戲常常會打孩子的牌，就是要在孩子身上賺取眼淚，從而賺取大把票房。多年前，《世上隻有媽媽好》一片就是這樣撈了個缽滿盤滿，現在，導演陳可辛攜《親愛的》登上今年的加拿大多倫多電影節，打的也是親情牌。
《親愛的》片名，乍一看還以為是戀情片呢，其實，在中國文化裏，小孩是比情人更重要、更親愛的對象。情人可以分手，夫妻可以離婚，但孩子永遠是自己的，孩子有自己的血脈，孩子是自己的未來，所以，在中國傳統家族文化裏，妻子如衣服，兄弟如手足，孩子卻是一切。因此才有這樣的說法——“無後為大”！連阿Q想跟女傭人吳媽好，主要都不是為了性欲，而是怕“斷子絕孫”。
千百年來，在沒有宗教的中國文化裏，子孫綿延，支撐了中國人的世俗信仰，愚公就曾充滿自負地說：“雖我之死，有子存焉；子又生孫，孫又生子；子又有子，子又有孫；子子孫孫，無窮匱也”。你看，愚公能夠不畏懼死亡，原因就在於他相信他的子子孫孫會無窮無盡！
愚公根本沒預料過另一種可能：子孫綿延是否會被打破？
陳可辛就把這個可能搬進電影裏來了，而且用的是十分極端的方式：孩子被拐了！
天哪！還有比這更可怕的事嗎？出事之後，當父親的像挨了一棒，天旋地轉；當母親的像被掏去了心，失魂落魄。
在這個有幾千年曆史的不信神的文化裏，士大夫把信仰寄托在曆史中，謀求“留取丹心照汗青”，期望他的名萬世留芳；而百姓則把指望交托給肉身，由子孫傳遞他的血脈，他便可以活在他子孫的生命綿延中。
傳道書所說的“神又將永遠安置在世人心裏”，在中國文化中就表現為這兩種追求。舉目四望，世上哪個民族有華人的家譜熱？如此來看，沒有孩子，這家譜可怎麽傳下去呢？
“小家夥”是家庭的偶像
孩子，親愛的小孩，其實是中國文化的救世主彌賽亞。一個家庭得了兒子的時候，都會本能地期望這兒子是拯救他們家庭的人，是這個家庭的希望之光。
若不理解這一點，將很難理解影片中失去子女的父母的絕望。孩子沒了，這日子可怎麽過下去？找回孩子，必須的！從此這就是他們活著的主題。因為他們沒有別的了，隻剩下這個了，沒了這個就什麽也沒有了！
他們組成“尋子會”，用傳銷的方式互相鼓勵，四處奔走，遍撒傳單，在沒有政府配合社會支持的情況下，曆盡艱辛地尋找。
原來，拐孩子的家庭，也是因為沒有生育能力，要使出這種歪招來得個兒子。
演員趙薇飾演的孩子的養母，操著濃重的鄉音，一口一個“小家夥”，不停地講她對孩子的熱切之情。
一個孩子，撒裂了兩個家庭。丟失孩子的家庭， 奔波在尋親中；拐孩子的家庭，也麵對養了幾年的孩子被領走的痛苦。陳可辛始終把電影情節的焦點對準孩子，雖然“小家夥”並不是影片的主人公，但一直是影片的中心。因為，“小家夥”是家庭的偶像。
聖經裏有這樣一組完全不同的場景。亞伯拉罕帶著他所愛的獨子以撒，走了三天，到摩利亞山，準備把這孩子向耶和華獻為燔祭。這孩子本是他的唯一，他的血脈也要靠這孩子來延續，他蒙神所賜的福份也要因這孩子傳遞。
但亞伯拉罕更尊神為大，願神的旨意成全，獨子以撒不能成為亞伯拉罕的偶像，他的信仰在神那裏，始終是神。獻祭之際，神親手攔阻了他，說：“現在我知道你是敬畏神的了。因為你沒有將你的兒子，就是你獨生的兒子，留下不給我。”
神大大祝福亞伯拉罕，地上萬國都因他的後裔得福，直至今日。
以撒之後兩千年，耶和華神的獨子，真正的救主耶穌基督在十字架上獻祭，把“因他的後裔得福”的那個福音，全然展現出來，讓信他的人都得著了這個福。
隻是這個福，不在世上，反而是把人從罪惡的世上救贖出來。
《親愛的》導演隻知道影片中丟失的兒子，卻不認識十字架上的聖子。所以
這部影片，隻能把世上的幸福，寄托在“小家夥”身上。
作為一部目前中國電影市場中難得的現實題材影片，《親愛的》確實觸及了許多社會問題，如拐賣婦女兒童現象，計劃生育政策，民間互助組織，司法律師係統，地方保護主義……
隻是由於對這些現象無力解讀，使影片停留在浮光掠影上，無法給出真正的盼望。於是導演拿世上永恒不敗的主題，如“母愛”、“親情”用來立意，靠滾滾淚水，泛溢的情緒，把觀眾裹入感情的旋渦。因此，電影拍得很缺乏節製，一如現實的混亂與喧嚷。
魯迅一直批判中國文化是“殺子文化”，隻是，魯迅沒有看到，殺子的方式，竟是膜拜子，將子當成救主。
任何文化的問題，核心都是信仰問題。中國文化的祖先崇拜和子嗣追求，是一體兩麵的，在沒有神的地方，或者將先人舉為神明，或者將後人視為偶像。願先人佑庇家族，願後人光宗耀祖。
但先人不是神，後人也不是。孩子若能夠成為可期望的，隻能是將他們放在神的手中，不然，小孩子隻是——“小家夥”。
【公益故事】
“甜甜圈寶寶”的中美奇跡之旅
文/亞薩（讀者家人）
這幾年，明星富豪們“慈善秀”越來越多了。而“暴力慈善”、“詐捐門”等花樣頻出，也讓眾人覺得慈善慢慢變了味，變成了專屬有錢人的一種遊戲。真正的慈善，應是什麽味道呢？讓我們來看一則某國外駐上海記者講述的真實的故事：
2010年一個寒冷漆黑的冬天晚上，該記者和朋友正從上海一間酒店不遠的一家甜甜圈店門口經過時，發現了一個大約6個月大的疾病纏身的無名棄嬰。她身子底下墊著兩個塑料袋，裏麵裝著新生兒的衣服、幾罐配方奶粉、幾包尿布和洗刷幹淨的奶瓶——這些是一位母親對自己將永遠別離的孩子，唯一能留下的愛意。
後來發現，這位被昵稱為“甜甜圈寶寶”的孩子有很多疾病，包括先天性心髒病、雙目白內障失明和部分蹼足。
包括記者在內，誰也沒有料到，從那天起，她的故事便由悲劇轉變成基督教童話：近四年前，她還是個在寒冷漆黑的窄巷裏啼哭的孤兒；如今，她已是在陽光明媚的路易斯安那州享受美麗人生的嬌蠻幼童。
這個童話的締造者——不是明星，不是巨富，甚至夠不上普通的中產階級——傑裏米·斯特裏克蘭(Jeremy Strickland)夫婦——當時正在1.2萬公裏之外的美國小鎮上過著清貧生活。
事實上，這對夫婦於2012年7月開始辦理領養手續時，他們的積蓄僅有100美元。傑裏米因慢性頭疼已從美國空軍(USAir Force)病退，妻子拉卡莎則剛剛辭職，把更多時間投身於教會工作。
從理性上來看，領養一個重病纏身的小孩顯然不是他們下一步該做的。連他們的美國領養機構都警告他們這個寶寶有“太多危險信號”。
但傑裏米夫婦清楚自己為什麽要這樣做：除了種種其他原因，還因為上帝希望他們這樣做。“主將領養的念頭放到我們心裏。”拉卡莎說，“主激起我們的渴望，於是我們開始尋覓這樣的機會。”
從中國領養一個有特殊需求的孩子，費用最多可達3萬美元，包括文書工作、翻譯和旅行費用。而撫養這樣一個孩子，哪怕在美國，這筆費用無疑也相當可觀。所以他們不隻是做出決定，他們發起了一場運動。
2012年10月，他們發起了“帶貝拉寶寶到美國”的活動。他們不但請來家人、朋友、教友幫忙募捐，而且開始想其他一切可能的辦法。他們在當地沃爾瑪(Walmart)的停車場支起帳篷售賣T恤，衣服上印著《雅各書》第一章第27節：“在神我們的父麵前，那清潔沒有玷汙的虔誠，就是看顧在患難中的孤兒寡婦。”他們在教堂午餐會上賣出了260盤“雞肉奶酪意大利麵”，籌集到2500美元。他們甚至拎著桶子，舉著貝拉的海報站在紅綠燈下籌集善款 ……
對於這段經曆，拉卡莎在自己的博文《從上帝的口袋領養寶寶》(Adoption from God’s Pocket)中寫道：“開頭很難，我既自豪，又覺得這樣很蠢。但過了片刻後，漸漸有車子停下來，開始詢問她的事情，然後往我們的桶裏投錢。
我們分享著貝拉的故事，還有上帝之愛，以及對貝拉的生活規劃。”她總結道：“這便是傳教！上帝為我們提供了與陌生人談論他、他所做過且仍將繼續做的事的方式。還有什麽話題比談論一個有需要的孩子更容易聊呢。”
接著他們又奇跡般地收到了一筆3110美元銀行匯款，斯特裏克蘭夫婦至今沒猜出這筆錢的來源，但他們知道社工進行“家庭調查”的費用正是3110美元，該調查是從中國領養小孩的先決條件。同時，他們曾經的一位姻親向人借了4000美元來幫助他們。斯特裏克蘭夫婦去銀行辦理房屋貸款時，一位銀行職員居然主動為他們排除了障礙。
雖然他們籌到了資金，但”甜甜圈寶寶”仍在上海一家孤兒院以蔣新倩的名字生活著。傑裏米夫婦給她起了個英文名——貝拉.克萊爾。
早在貝拉到路易斯安那州以前，她就已經是這個家庭的一員了。她在孤兒院過2歲生日的當天，斯特裏克蘭家照了張全家福，每人手裏都抓著個甜甜圈，象征他們與甜甜圈寶寶的親情關係。那一年他們家的聖誕合影上有拉卡莎、傑裏米、他們的兒子佩頓(Peyton)和一張貝拉的相片。拉卡莎甚至在他們飛往上海前把頭發染成黑色，這樣貝拉就不會對她的樣子太過驚奇——因為在中國幾乎每個人的頭發都是烏黑的。
當然，這個童話般的結局開始時並不順利。2013年5月貝拉被移交給斯特裏克蘭夫婦時，她已經兩歲半了，她不僅拒絕被擁抱，而且掙紮著要逃跑。拉卡莎拍下了她當時淒慘絕望的表情，並把視頻傳到YouTube上。
但在48小時後，貝拉已活潑起來，兩條小細腿磕磕絆絆地探索著新環境，就像她沒什麽走路經驗似的……拉卡莎、傑裏米和佩頓都已迷上了她，他們指著她眼中的白內障、腳趾的蹼膜的樣子，就像別的家長在炫耀孩子的酒窩，他們還讓記者摸她胸腔上初期心髒修複手術所留下的船首狀突起。
由於領養的中國兒童身有殘疾，他們所要付出的無私的愛更是常人難以企及。中國
內地人大多不願領養殘疾兒童，即便在海外也很難為這些需要領養的孩子找到足夠的家長。相當多領養特殊需求孩子的外國人都有強烈的宗教信仰，他們認為這些孩子尤為值得基督教慈善事業的關懷。
現在貝拉已經適應了她的新生活。“她經常跟她哥哥比賽。如果他說話，她就說得更大聲。她非常聰明，她喜歡數數、唱歌，和獨立作祈禱。”拉卡莎還補充說，貝拉剛來頭幾個月常做惡夢，如今已逐漸減少了：“她小小的身體裏有太多憤怒。”拉卡沙希望，
貝拉的親生父母有一天能讀到記者寫的這篇文章，知道他們的寶寶在路易斯安那州快樂地生活著。但即便他們沒看到這篇文字，也無需為甜甜圈寶寶擔憂。
慈善的施與者，往往會麵臨一個巨大的誘惑：以救贖者自居，產生高人一等的道德優越感。而這種心態是真正慈善的死敵：它不僅嚴重地傷害被救助者，最後也會使施與者喪失動力。
或許，聖經哥林多前書十三章的一段關於愛的頌歌，更清楚地揭示了慈善的本質:愛是恒久忍耐，又有恩慈，愛是不嫉妒，愛是不自誇，不張狂，不做害羞的事，不求自己的益處，不輕易發怒，不計算人的惡，不喜歡不義，隻喜歡真理……
這，才是慈善真正的味道。
FT Magazine
July 25, 2014 12:28 pm
Adopting an abandoned Chinese baby: a family’s experience
By Patti Waldmeir
In 2010, Patti Waldmeir found a seriously ill newborn in a Shanghai alley. Since then the story has turned from communist tragedy to Christian fairy tale
Bella Xin KaLare with her adoptive parents LaKasha and Jeremy Strickland
Baby Bella made her debut in this magazine in 2011, under a different name, “Baby Donuts”, given for the Dunkin’ Donuts outlet where her birth parents chose to leave her in December 2010. She was about six weeks old. More than 110,000 children born in China have been adopted by families overseas in the past two decades. But Bella has the dubious distinction of being the only Chinese baby yet abandoned at the feet of an FT journalist.
A friend and I found her one night, only steps from one of Shanghai’s top hotels. She was lying on top of two plastic bags that bulged with new baby clothes, tins of infant formula, packs of newborn nappies and scrubbed-clean baby bottles: the only love note a mother could dare to leave, for a child she would never know.
The fact that her parents chose to leave her at a place frequented by foreigners may mean they wanted her to end up living overseas. Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe they wanted a healthy baby, if they were only going to have one child. (China has since slightly relaxed its one-child policy but babies are still being abandoned.) Bella has a number of disabilities, including a congenital heart defect, blindness in both eyes from cataracts and a partially webbed foot. Perhaps her parents simply couldn’t cope.
Baby Donuts (aka Bella), shortly after she was found
In lots of ways, theirs was an entirely rational decision: in China, many families have only minimal health insurance, and the cost of all the surgery Baby Donuts needed (along with the bribes paid to doctors) could have bankrupted even a family of substantial means. Abandoning her meant that she would become a ward of the state, which would at least pay to keep her alive. China says it has about 700,000 “orphans” (meaning children whose parents can’t care for them). About 100,000 live in state institutions but most of the rest collect a government subsidy.
What seems less rational is why LaKasha and Jeremy Strickland, living on a shoestring in a town 12,000km away, felt able, not to mention willing, to do for Baby Donuts what her birth family could not. Even their US adoption agency, through which they first heard about Bella, warned them off, saying the baby had “too many red flags”. When they started the adoption process in July 2012, the couple had just $100 in savings. Jeremy had been medically retired from the US Air Force for chronic headaches and LaKasha had just left her job to become more involved with her church. Adopting a child with serious medical needs wasn’t the obvious next move.
But the Stricklands are clear about why they did it: among other things, because God wanted them to. “God put adoption in our hearts,” LaKasha says. “God stirred our hearts and we started searching.” And they didn’t just make a decision, they mounted a crusade. It can cost upwards of $30,000 to adopt a special needs child from China, including paperwork, translations and travel costs. Raising such a child, even in the promised land of Obamacare, will doubtless cost considerably more (in spite of Jeremy’s excellent medical insurance as an ex-serviceman).
Undeterred, the Stricklands launched a “Bring Baby Bella to America” campaign in October 2012, enlisting family, friends, members of their church and even the Bible to fundraise. They set up a tent in the parking lot of the local Walmart to sell T-shirts emblazoned with these words from James 1:27: “Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father is to care for orphans in their troubles.” They sold 260 plates of “chicken cheesy spaghetti” at a church lunch, raising $2,500. They even stood at traffic lights with a bucket and a poster of Bella, collecting dollar bills.
"It can cost $30,000 to adopt a special needs child from China. The couple had just $100 of savings"
LaKasha says she was shocked when Jeremy came up with the idea of panhandling to raise money for Bella. But their experience at the traffic lights yielded both cash and encouragement, as she shares on her blog “Adoption from God’s Pocket”. “It was so hard at first, feeling silly and prideful,” she writes. “But after a little wait a few cars started pulling in and asking about her and putting dollars in our bucket. We got to share about her and about God’s love and plan for her life,” she says, adding: “This was ministry!! He has given us a way to talk to strangers about Him and what He has done and will continue to do. There’s nothing easier to talk about than a child in need.”
And then there was the miracle of the $3,110 bank deposit: the Stricklands have never figured out exactly where it came from, but they do know that $3,110 was exactly what they needed to pay for the “home study” by social workers, which is a prerequisite of any adoption from China. And there was the former sister-in-law who borrowed $4,000 to help them, and the bank employee who cleared the way, unexpectedly, for the Stricklands to refinance their home.
While they raised money, Bella was still living at the Shanghai orphanage under the name Jiang Xinqian. The Stricklands decided that her American name was to be Bella KaLare (pronounced “Claire”). “I talked to God a lot that day about if I was making the right choice,” LaKasha writes on her blog. “He showed me that her name was beauty and clarity and I knew he was happy with it: beauty, with her imperfections, and clarity, within her mind without delays.” Later on the Stricklands added “Xin” to honour her Chinese roots.
Bella became a member of the family long before she got to Louisiana. On her second birthday (which she spent in the orphanage), the Stricklands posed for a family portrait, each clutching a donut, to symbolise their bond with the baby. Their Christmas photo that year shows LaKasha, Jeremy, their son Peyton and a framed portrait of Bella. LaKasha even dyed her hair black before they flew to Shanghai, so that Bella would not be too shocked at her appearance (in China nearly everyone’s hair is jet black, including septuagenarians).
Bella Xin KaLare Strickland
Bella today
Of course, any parent who adopts from China has to demonstrate great commitment. The process is lengthy, costly and – when the vast majority of Chinese children available for adoption are disabled – requires a level of selflessness not many of us can muster. Mainlanders mostly refuse to adopt disabled children, and even overseas it is hard to find enough parents for the children who need them. Many non-Chinese who adopt special needs babies have strong religious beliefs and see these children as being especially worthy of Christian charity.
In spite of limited financial means, stretched further by repeated adoptions, they remortgage homes, sell chicken cheesy spaghetti, T-shirts – anything to make the adoption happen.
I adopted my own two (healthy) Chinese daughters as infants in 2000 and 2002 using the money I had saved during a lifetime of working. But whether we beg, borrow or finance our adoptions from our trust fund, most adoptive parents go through the same agonising moment when an orphanage nanny hands us our child – and they shriek in outrage. Bella, then two-and-a-half years old, went one better: she tried to escape. The abject misery in her face at the handover to the Stricklands in May 2013 is captured in a video LaKasha posted on YouTube entitled “Gotcha Day/Bella Xin KaLare.” The fairy-tale ending got off to a very rough start.
But by the time I joined the family 48 hours later, Bella had already begun to blossom. I remembered a beautiful newborn in a blanket: what I saw two years later was a determined, winsome and mischievous toddler, tripping off on her little spindly legs – which looked like they hadn’t much experience of the world of walking – to explore her surroundings.
"I remembered a beautiful newborn: what I saw was a determined, winsome toddler"
LaKasha, Jeremy and Peyton were all besotted with her already, pointing out the cataracts in her eyes and the webbing of her toes like other parents might brag about dimples, and inviting me to feel the prow-like protrusion of her ribcage left after her heart defect had its initial repair. And what about the prominent bruise in the middle of one cheek? “The orphanage said they weren’t sure how that happened,” says LaKasha. Orphanage staff had told the Stricklands that Bella was “very strong-willed” – perhaps heartening for an adoptive parent to hear, since strong will may be just what got her through that night in the alleyway, and the many illnesses of her infanthood.
Later we took Bella to the Dunkin’ Donuts where our story began, in the company of my friend John Fearon, the British businessman who first heard her abandoned cries. Not surprisingly, she couldn’t have cared less (especially since the donut shop had closed). But we adults all spent a moment feeling the tragic miracle that is every Chinese adoption – and the pain of birth parents who cannot keep their child – before we set off to McDonald’s to feed Bella her first all-American French fries.
Bella is now “settling in beautifully” to her new life. “She is constantly competing with her brother. If he talks she talks louder. She is so smart: she loves to count and sing and say her prayers all by herself,” LaKasha says, adding that the night terrors of Bella’s first months at home are beginning to abate: “She has a lot of anger in that little body.”
LaKasha hopes Bella’s birth parents may one day read these words, and know they can find their baby living happily in Louisiana. But unless and until they do, no one need worry about Baby Donuts. She’s just where she needs to be. Hallelujah.
Patti Waldmeir is the FT’s Shanghai correspondent. With additional reporting by
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