Travel Information

What is Homeland Tour?

In the early 1990s China made it easier for families from abroad to adopt Chinese orphans, most of whom were girls. Today about 60,000 adopted Chinese children live in North America, and about 15,000 live in Europe. Many families take special tours to give their adopted daughters a chance to experience Chinese culture and visit their orphanages.

When parents from other countries adopt a Chinese orphan, they are often asked to promise that they will teach their child about Chinese culture. Many families go a step further and bring their children back to China. They often sign up for what are called homeland tours.

There are many reasons for bringing the adopted children on a homeland tour. The most important goal of the tours is to give adopted children a sense of pride in their Chinese identity. To connect with their home culture, to see where they came from and have some understanding where they came from, and without doing it in a heavy-handed way, show them what their life might have been.

A homeland tour group usually visits traditional tourist sites, such as the Great Wall or a panda reserve. Then the group disperses so families can go to orphanages where their children lived.
On a homeland tour, orphanage visit is the most important, adoptive parents and their child will be meeting with the orphanage director and nannies. They might have a chance to look at their child’s adoption file, and to talk to the nannies that used to take care of the child. If they like, they can take the orphanage director and other staff out for a meal, and exchange gifts.
The other big feature of an orphanage visit is going to where an abandoned child was found. Many parents say their children were left in front of a police station or an orphanage, near a hospital or at a train station.

Through talking to orphanage director, sometimes they can find out the person who brought the child to the orphanage or the police station, and then from that they track down the person who actually found her. So there are many interesting moments linked with that orphanage visit."

After coming to China, many children told us they love Chinese food! They love eating the rice, they love to use the chopsticks, they love pandas, and they love the Great Wall. So they fall in love with China.

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