Abandoned at birth, young Texan seeks Chinese parents amid the Shanghai throng
Marinna Eckel was raised happily with a loving US family but still longs for knowledge of her roots
Locating someone you have never met before in a city the size of Shanghai is certainly not easy. On January 1, Marinna Tang Yi Eckel, a young American woman who was abandoned at birth in the city some 20 years ago, returned to the metropolis with the family from Texas – who adopted her at age 21/2 – in the slim hope of finding her biological parents.
While she is perfectly happy with her American family, Marinna had always harboured a longing to meet the mother who left her in a hospital toilet block, if only to let her know that she was happy and well.
Though her search was unsuccessful this time, Marinna is not yet ready give up her “searching for a needle in a haystack” quest.
During their brief stay in Shanghai, Marinna, her parents and three siblings visited the Zhabei District Central Hospital where Marinna was found abandoned, probably because she was born without a left hand. They also went to the Shanghai Children’s Home, an orphanage where she lived until she was adopted. They were unable to find any information about Marinna’s Chinese parents because staff at both organisations were away on that day.
Having returned home to Denton, near Dallas, Marinna told the Post that she would keep on searching. If luck is on her side, she hopes to write to her biological parents and send them pictures of her happy life in the United States. She had no plan to move back to China to live with them, she said.
Her adoptive mother, Brenda Eckel, said the visit to Shanghai was a good experience for the family and they were surprised by Shanghai’s sheer size.
