Report, Photos, and Audio-Video

As discussed in the section The Process and Costs, step 3 involves our agents going to meet the biological parents. If all goes well whereby we get the permission of the biological parent(s), then a full report would include all of the following, both the original Thai version and an English translation:

• Photos of the biological parent(s), their family(s) and community(s). A photo is worth more than a thousand words to an adoptee. Photos include:
  • Photos from our digital cameras of the people on the day we meet them, and their environment
  • Scanned photos from their photo album, using our portable scanner and notebook computer

• Extensive video and audio.

• A history of their life(s), their current occupation, and their situation overall.

• Addresses and phone numbers (with the permission of each person), and any email addresses and chat apps, especially the Line app which is very popular in Thailand and has high privacy

• A log of how we performed this case, step by step, and what happened

If you wish, after we put you in contact with the biological family (if they are willing), we can continue to serve you by translating letters. Often, the biological parents write to us on paper and send by Thailand post, whereby we translate it into English, send the translation by email and then mail the Thai letter together with a printout of the English translation. In the other direction, we receive your English letters and translate them into Thai then send them through the Thai post. We can do the same with photos by printing/scanning them. We have also handled packages, especially those which must be sent out from Thailand by a secured means, or which will arrive in Thailand but may have customs charges.

Before we visit, we usually review a list of things which the adopted person or their adoptive parents/guardians want to find out. We have a standard set based on what other adoptees have wanted to know, and some of our suggestions, but we first listen to your requests.

We report all identification and contact details which the biological parent(s) gives us permission to pass on, and we give them whatever contact details you give us permission to pass on. After this, both parties can mail each other directly.

Some adoptive parents (not many) prefer to keep some of their identity details confidential from the biological parents (even though there's no way the adoption process can be reversed legally, and usually a trivially small chance the biological parents could get a travel visa or the money to travel to a foreign land and make their way around to pay a surprise visit). We can smooth this over by just explaining that we know the adoptive parents only by name and internet email address and have never mailed them by paper mail ourselves so we don't have that information, but besides, they cannot read or speak Thai, and we are their translator, so please go thru us. The biological parents are normally happy to go thru us.

The biological parents often wish to stay in contact with the child, and will send some letters. It is common for an adoptee to communicate via a biological family via chat apps. Just be aware that machine translations between European languages and Thai can be very poor, confusing, misleading, and create misunderstandings, some serious. As long as both sides understand this, that translations can be bad to misleading, then you can live with that for quick chats.

As our company also has a professional Thai-English translation division at www.ThaiEnglish.com , we would be happy to translate your letters back and forth. In many cases, the Thai family exchanges letters with us via the Thai surface mail postal service. With translation in-between, we exchange communications with the adoptive parents by email, with a paper follow of the originals by surface mail. Likewise, we can print photos at the local photo shop to deliver or mail to the family, or else quickly on our inkjet printer if many, or else you can just mail those directly. In our initial visit for adoption tracing, we normally make high quality prints of photos you send by going to a photo shop. These are nicer, last longer, and are more appropriate for framing.

The above are the basics.

In addition, as part of our reporting, we try to characterize the biological parents' personalities, families, situations, and general state of existence, with considerable attention given to understanding the Thai cultural aspects which may be significantly different from the perceptions of those raised in western civilization. However, to what extent we are able to do this varies from case to case.

The videos also convey some of this. A video is worth ten thousand words.

After we provide our report, we are here to answer questions and elaborate on anything.

In many cases, the dialogue with the biological family continues, as noted above, and sometimes the adoptive family and/or adopted person come to visit Thailand and we go out with them as local guide and interpreter.

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