Love Across Twenty Years: An American Couple and a Chinese Girl’s Journey Home
Love Across Twenty Years: An American Couple and a Chinese Girl’s Journey Home
Twenty years ago, an American couple travelled to the Changsha No. 1 Welfare Institute in China, where they adopted a baby girl named Du Chunjia. She was not yet one year old. Fate had taken her parents away but also brought her into the embrace of a love that crossed oceans.
According to the staff at the welfare institute, all the children admitted that year were given the surname Du after the director. The name Chunjia — meaning “spring” and “beauty” — carried a wish for her life to be as bright and full of vitality as spring itself.
Two decades later, the tiny baby once swaddled in a welfare home has grown into a young woman about to graduate from university. Before graduation, she decided to return to China to search for her birth parents — a journey of roots and remembrance, and the most meaningful gift she could give herself.
This journey carries both her longing for her origins and her adoptive parents’ deep devotion. Her American parents brought with them a thick photo album recording every moment of her growth from infancy to adulthood. They also printed 500 copies of a “search notice,” hand-carrying them from the southern United States to Changsha — a journey of 14,000 kilometres — hoping her birth parents might see what their daughter looks like today.
Under the scorching summer sun in Changsha, her adoptive parents, now in their sixties, accompanied her through the city streets, distributing flyers and asking for clues. Though they could not speak Chinese, they smiled, bowed, and waved — their sincerity and persistence deeply moved everyone they met.
So far, no concrete leads have been found, but Chunjia remains hopeful. “Even if I don’t find them,” she said, “I just want my parents to know that I’m doing well — and to thank them for giving me life.”
This love that spans twenty years is more than a story of searching — it is a journey of connection and remembrance.
Just like her name, Spring Beauty, love has never been absent — it simply continues to blossom on different soil.
Click here to watch the video and read the full story in Chinese.
跨越二十年的爱：美国夫妇与中国女孩的寻亲之旅
二十年前，一对来自美国的夫妇在长沙市第一福利院，收养了一名名叫“杜春佳”的中国女婴。那一年，她还不足一岁。命运让她早早失去了父母，却也让她遇见了跨越大洋的爱。
福利院的工作人员回忆说，那年所有入院的孩子都随院长姓“杜”，“春佳”这个名字寄托了祝愿——希望她的人生如春天般明亮。二十年后，那个曾在襁褓中的小女孩，如今已是即将大学毕业的青年。她决定在毕业前，踏上回国寻亲的旅程，把这次“寻根之行”作为送给自己最特别的礼物。
这趟旅程，承载着她对血脉的思念，也凝结着养父母的深情。她的美国父母带来了厚厚一本成长相册，记录了杜春佳从婴儿到青年的每一个瞬间。他们还印制了五百份寻亲传单，从美国南部飞越一万四千公里，亲手带到长沙，只为能让她的亲生父母看到女儿如今的模样。
长沙的盛夏酷热难耐，六十多岁的养父母依然陪伴着她，在街头巷尾分发传单、询问线索。尽管语言不通，他们依旧微笑、鞠躬、挥手——那份真诚与坚持，感动了无数路人。
虽然暂时还未找到确切的线索，但杜春佳并不失望。她说：“即使找不到，我也想让父母知道，我过得很好，也想告诉他们——谢谢你们给了我生命。”
这段跨越二十年的爱，不只是一个寻亲的故事，更是关于连接与回望的旅程。
就像春天的名字一样，爱从未缺席，只是在不同的土地上继续生长。
点击这里观看视频。