logo
episode-header-image
Jun 2022
8m 59s

Hong Kong: Abandoned children

Bbc World Service
About this episode

In the 1950s and '60s hundreds of thousands of Chinese people fled to the British colony of Hong Kong to escape famine. Conditions for the arrivals were so desperate that some families chose to abandon their children in the streets so they would be taken in by orphanages. Many were adopted in homes in Britain and other English-speaking countries. Laura FitzPatrick talks to one of the adopted children, now known as Debbie Cook.

(Photo: The young Debbie Cook with kind permission from the family)

Up next
Apr 2025
The Cu Chi tunnels of the Vietnam War
During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese VietCong guerrillas built a vast network of tunnels in the south of the country as part of the insurgency against the South Vietnamese government and their American allies. The tunnel network was a key base and shelter for the North Vietna ... Show More
9m 43s
Yesterday
India goes to the UN
<p>In 1946, an Indian woman made history by leading her country’s first delegation to the United Nations.</p><p>Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit described it as a moment that reshaped her life.</p><p>As the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, she was already in the pub ... Show More
10m 33s
Nov 26
The Howard Hughes literary hoax
<p>In 1971, the publishing world was rocked by one of the biggest hoaxes in literary history – a fake autobiography of the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes.</p><p>Hughes was an aerospace engineer, film producer, record-breaking aviator and business tycoon, who’d built a $2 bil ... Show More
10m 4s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2023
A Family History in Chinatown
In seeking to learn more about her family history, author Ava Chin was able to trace many of her relatives back to one building on Mott Street in Chinatown. From the Chinese Exclusion Act to present day, Chin traces the history of her family, and the Chinese community in America, ... Show More
16m 52s
Dec 2015
Malaysia's Runaway Children
The deaths of five school children in Malaysia have provoked an anguished debate about education and what it means to be Malay. The children ran away from their boarding school in Kelantan State and died of starvation in the jungle. They were afraid of harsh punishment from their ... Show More
28m 26s
Jan 2024
What’s parenting like after a traumatic childhood?
Peter Mutabazi is a Ugandan single dad who has fostered 38 children and adopted three of those kids. He lives in North Carolina in the US and these children come from different backgrounds and walks of life. This is something that gets him regularly noticed when he’s out with his ... Show More
23m 25s
Jul 2022
Hong Kong: 25 years since the handover from British to Chinese rule
<p>Stories from Hong Kong, 25 years on since the handover from British to Chinese rule. We hear from the last governor of Hong Kong, a pro democracy campaigner and about life in Kowloon Walled City.</p><p>(Photo: Chris Patten at the handover ceremony of Hong Kong from Britain to ... Show More
51m 3s
May 2022
Why was I adopted? Women looking for birth stories
<p>What's it like being adopted into a country far away from your birth and into a family that looks very different to you? International and transracial adoptions both come with challenges for children and parents. Beatriz de la Pava talks to two women born in Colombia and South ... Show More
31m 56s
Apr 2024
El Salvador's missing children
During El Salvador’s brutal civil war hundreds of children were separated from their families. Some were seized by soldiers during military operations against left-wing rebels, and later found living with new families in Europe and North America. Others were given up for adoption ... Show More
52m 58s
Jun 2022
No Man's Land
Tens of thousands of children were adopted from other countries by parents in the U.S., only to discover as adults a quirk in federal law that meant they had never been guaranteed American citizenship. Much like the Dreamers, these adoptees are now fighting for legal status to en ... Show More
34m 45s
Jun 2023
New York's Chinatown Through the Eyes of a Family That's Been There for Generations
New York City's Chinatown is arguably one of the most famous neighborhoods in the world—and perhaps one of the most storied, too. Ava Chin, whose memoir, Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming, came out this spring, chats with Lale about the ap ... Show More
29m 2s