I'm sitting in a coffee shop right now with my friend Sarah, and we are reading this new article in the Wall Street Journal about adoption in China. Sarah remarks that it's interesting that there is a one-child policy for biological children but no limits on the number of kids you can adopt.

All in the Family: Adoption Comes Home to China

Every evening after that, Ms. Koh visited the orphanage after work
to care for the baby. She called her Portia, after the heroine in
Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice." In Chinese, she was Bao-sha — bao for treasure and sha for the first character in Shakespeare's Chinese name.

Samantha Sin for The Wall Street Journal

Mui Koh and her adopted daughter Portia at home in Guangdong province

Two
months went by and Ms. Koh's love for the baby grew. Then the orphanage
warned her that unless she adopted Portia — now perfectly healthy —
the baby would be adopted by someone else.

Ms. Koh was stumped: "I didn't even know the concept of adoption at the time," she says.

No wonder. While China is known overseas as a place many go to adopt
babies, until recently adoption was uncommon among Chinese families
themselves. That's partly because of limited financial resources, and
partly because the country's Confucian culture emphasizes family and
filial piety.

Read the whole article here