The Finding Ad

Before traveling to China to meet Elizabeth, I contacted Brian Stuy (www.Research-China.org) to request her finding ad. The fact that an abandoned child was found on a certain date at a particular location must be published in the local newspaper in the unlikely event that someone would come forward to claim her. (It is a crime in China to abandon a child). Within a few days, I received a package with the ORIGINAL newspaper, the Jiangxi Economic Daily, published on November 29, 2004, containing her finding ad (it is just heart-wrenching to see pages and pages of babies’ finding ads in the newspaper, considering that this is just one newspaper from one city published on one particular day…); a close-up photograph of the finding ad itself; the negative of the photograph; and an English translation of the finding ad. It reads: “Jing Shen Yan, A girl, Birth date: 10/26/04, Finding date: 10/27/04, Found abandoned at the gate of a massage clinic of city, She has thick hair, and had an average body when was found.” Her finding ad is absolutely precious to me, as I now have what was probably the first picture ever taken of Elizabeth!