KUNMING - A 22-year-old American woman is resuming her search for 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, appealed to the people of Yunnan for help through the Chinese media Monday.

"Although I am living happily in the US, I still hope to find my roots in China," Foxweldon said in the Chinese language poster she sent to China Daily.

Foxweldon was abandoned at birth in 1990 because her feet were slightly deformed. She was later adopted as a 4-year-old by an American couple from a Kunming orphanage.

Last June, she came to Yunnan University to study Chinese and to look for her birth parents. She had nothing but some childhood photos and a certificate indicating when and where she was abandoned. Language also posed a barrier

After a few months of fruitless efforts, things took a turn in November when her teacher at Yunnan University told her story to Yunnan on television. After the broadcast, a couple in a village near her birthplace contacted the television station.

However, a DNA test proved that there was no blood relation between her and the couple, so Foxweldon returned to the US empty-handed.

She has not given up her search.

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

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

Since China enacted the Adoption Act in late 1991, some 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.