KUNMING - A 22-year-old woman from the United States is continuing efforts to find her biological parents in Southwest China's Yunnan province after her previous attempt failed last year.

Ming Foxweldon, a student at the University of Vermont, is sending a new poster around to Chinese media in the hope of gaining the public's attention.

She came to Yunnan University in June last year to study Chinese and look for her birth parents. She was abandoned at birth in 1990 because her feet were slightly deformed, and was later adopted at the age of four from Kunming Orphange by a US couple.

At first, she had difficulty getting information about her life in Yunnan. Kunming Orphanage could not give her any useful information about her life before she was adopted because of the lapse of time. She had all but some childhood photos and certificates of abandonment. Language also posed a barrier

After a few months of fruitless effort, things took a turn in November when her teacher at Yunnan University told her story to Yunnan TV Station. After her story was broadcast by the TV station a couple in a village near her birthplace contacted the station, saying that Foxweldon may have been the baby they had abandoned about 20 years ago.

"That day around 20 years ago, we put the baby (Foxweldon) into a paper box on the side of the road that links Luxi to Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan province, and we hid at a distance. We didn't leave until we saw a vehicle with a plate registered in Kunming stop, a man get out, notice the baby in the box, and take it into the vehicle," He Jinneng, Foxweldon's presumed uncle, told the TV station.

However, a DNA test showed there was no blood relation between her and the couple, so she returned to the US to continue her studies.

"Although I am living happily in the US, still I hope to find my root in China," Foxweldon said in a poster sent to China Daily on Monday.

"I want to say to my birth parents: thank you for bringing me to the world. Whatever the reason you gave me up I totally understand. I hope to have a chance to thank you for giving me a life and to fulfill my duty as your child," she said.

"Please contact Mr Zhu (mobile: 15887038560) or Mr Fu (15877974507) if you have any source," the poster said.

Since China enacted the Adoption Act in late 1991, a number of foreign families have successfully adopted children from China. About 110,000 Chinese children have been adopted by foreign families, according to Zhou Hong, an official with the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council.