Welcome

Changing the World

One Child at a Time

Welcome to my website within which I would like to share with you the background to "Child of the Land", a literary journey I embarked upon in 1997 while living in Singapore.

I began keeping a journal in high school. Throughout the years I have maintained my writing hobby.  It was in 1997, when opportunities gave me the freedom to turn back some of those pages and reflect on the events of my life. I determined that there was one story, so profound and heartbreaking, that it needed to be told.

The abandoned children of China first came to my attention, whilst living in Hong Kong in 1989.  I read an article with the heading, "Children Condemned to Die". A law imposed by a government that they'd never meet had altered the innocent lives of these young children.  The article detailed the horrific conditions of Chinese orphanages where often these children ended up in "dying rooms" - an abandonment which offered no hope.

I embarked on a journey, hoping, even in some small way, to change the lives of the suffering infants. I traveled to the city of Zhaoqing in mainland China, into an orphanage which finally brought me face to face with the reality of the "dying rooms".

The experience exposed me to a world unlike any other. However, it was the eyes of the children that haunted me most. One child, a quiet, watchful little girl named Yu Yan, with whom I shared a look of love and despair, touched my heart with such resonance that both our lives would be forever changed.

I wrote Child of the Land in the hopes of portraying the resilience and strength of these forgotten children, but also to describe the odyssey I was to experience whilst holding the hand of YuYan.    I’d like to invite the reader to accompany me on a cultural journey that shows how blind faith can overcome insurmountable obstacles.

Thank you for visiting my website. I hope my story will interest, challenge and perhaps inspire you, and encourage you to share it with your families and friends.