A NEW COMMUNITY COMES OF AGE.

ONTARIO; CANADA

In a room cluttered with photos, dolls and other girlhood trinkets, Samiee Pei-Pei Singleton beams over her prized possession: a weighty medallion awarded for her participation on the Brookville Elementary soccer team. Emma Yu Ju, her sister and bunk-bed cohabitant, deliberates before revealing her most cherished keepsake: a pale jade necklace, a gift from her po-po, the Chinese nanny who watched over her until she was three months old. Arriving in 1993, Emma was one of the first Chinese adoptees to come to Ontario. Since the middle of the past decade, they have represented about one-third of all international adoptions, jumping in 1998 and again in 2002 to fully 41 per cent. Pat Fenton, executive director of the Adoption Council of Ontario, attributes China's popularity to a variety of factors: a well-organized international program that carries a relatively low price tag (about $20,000), the families' strong post-adoption support network, and the appeal of offering a home to someone abandoned because of the country's one-child social policy and cultural preference for boys.