red thread

There is a Chinese folktale that says those destined to meet are tied together by a red thread of fate. In one version of the story, during the Tang Dynasty, a young man named Wei Gu is walking in his village when he spots an older man reading a book. Intrigued, Wei Gu asks him what he is reading because the script is unfamiliar. The older man, Yue Lao, responds that it is his journal that lists all engagements and marriages. When Wei Gu asks him who his future wife is, Yue Lao points towards a young girl walking with her blind grandmother. Offended and in disbelief, Wei Gu throws a rock at the girl, which hits her between the eyes. ​

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Years later, Wei Gu became a prominent government official. The governor arranges for him to marry his young daughter, who, while beautiful, had difficulty finding suitors. On their wedding night, Wei Gu noticed that she wore a headband that covered her forehead. When she removes the wrapping, he sees a mark, right between her eyes. 

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I remember being quite young when I first heard about why my sister was my parent's biological daughter and I was adopted. I was in Montana, at the funeral of my grandparents' friend. It was swelteringly hot—the kind that made my Grandma's face melt off, the foundation coming down in beads and mascara smudging underneath the eyes. I stood impatiently near the car while my Papa and Grandma chatted. My Papa introduced me to his friend. And in the way only a grandparent could, he launched into a story about my sister's birth. How my mom had almost died when she had my sister. That my parents did not want to risk having a biological child again. That's why they chose to adopt. I never brought this up with my parents, but it was commonly known that I was adopted because of the complications with Myah's birth. 

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This past winter break, my parents and I talked about my adoption again, in a way we never had. I told them I knew they chose to adopt me because they wanted another child and didn't want to risk the same health complications. My mom asked, but why China? 

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These things, these moments, these choices, are the stuff of red threads. Without my mom's near death, I may not have been adopted by them. Silver linings, I suppose. 

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She told me that it wasn't just about not wanting to have biological children. She said it was because Chinese babies were meant to be healthy. There were so many of us being given up for adoption. Perfectly healthy beautiful young girls. Most countries couldn't say that their daughters were perfect, healthy, beautiful. 

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The Chinese adoption industry loves to use the red thread of fate as their mascot. Perhaps we are not visibly connected by physical attributes, but we are intertwined by the red thread. 

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I don't blame my parents for wanting to adopt a beautiful, healthy child. They had been through so much and wanted to ensure that the child they would have did not have health complications. That was what they believed to be best for them. 

 

The red thread intertwines us for better or for worse. Wei Gu's story is not a happy one. Their fates converge, not out of beauty, but out of an ugly act. Red thread, like blood, like violence, coursing through these routes and our entanglements, carrying oxygen to these different parts of our stories and removing the waste. We have blood ties, we are always implicated, entangled, the invisible threads that interlink us with pasts.