Update on Jun

Picture taken in UK, as shown on page A12 in Guang Ming Daily, a Chinese newspaper in Malaysia, dated September 2, 2007.


Seven weeks after we handed over Jun to her grandma in Malaysia, we visited them last weekend.

As what I had feared, Jun did not take to us immediately, most probably because of her traumatic experience of being taken away from her parents, and left in the care of a Malaysian home in a disciplinary environment. In the UK, parents seen hitting or slapping a child can be reported for child abuse. Grandma described Jun to her mum as 'beyond control'!

It is a matter of approach. According to her dad, she joined a nursery in UK as soon as she reached 2 years old, as required, and they were told that a parent had to be with the child for at least 2 weeks initially. Yet, she took to the kids like duck to water and 2 hours later, when her mum asked if she could go, she replied, 'yes go now' while waving her hand. There were 3 Chinese nursery workers, 2 of them from Hong Kong. After about 1 year and 4 months when she had to leave for Malaysia, the 2 actually cried! They told them that it was the first time any child affected them that much!

The whole exercise was an expensive mistake as one month later, her dad came back as he could not bear his daughter complaining about being away from them. Jun's mum too could not bear the separation and had been nagging him to do something, yet it was her great idea! He has already booked ticket for her to return to UK on October 8.

I took the opportunity to introduce Jun to my side of the family, meeting her other grand uncles and grand aunts and some young uncles and aunts. Each time my wife got her cosy, it is time to say goodbye and she wanted to be with her.

I still could not get over this: William was having lunch with one of his brothers in KL and Eddie took a Chinese newspaper on the table and flipped the pages. Both of them are not literate in Chinese. Eddie saw picture of a little girl with 2 English girls. He asked, 'Is this your daughter?' William had the same picture in his handphone! The short write-up was about a Chinese girl wearing western dress and boots while an English girl was wearing a Chinese cheongsam! I presume the picture was one of a few which were published when Queen Elizabeth was visiting Camden Chinese Community Centre last year where Jun got the chance to shake her hand! The chance of seeing that particular picture in a Chinese paper on that particular day was so slim that it was incredible.

I am sure the journalist who wrote that article would never have expected the girl's father to have seen it!