{"id":1690,"date":"2014-07-22T05:00:49","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/?p=1690"},"modified":"2014-07-22T16:53:58","modified_gmt":"2014-07-22T23:53:58","slug":"1690","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/china\/1690\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Chinese Wife, a memoir"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"Good<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

When you join the army or sign up for an iron man race or commit to climbing a mountain, if the going gets tough, you put on your macho face and suck it up. You may be scared or tired or cold. You\u2019re certainly not comfortable. But flush toilets and comfy beds are not what you signed up for.<\/p>\n

Moving abroad can be something like that. The toilets, beds, traffic, weather, language \u2026 Nothing\u2019s the same as back home. But you chose to move there, so you put on your macho face and suck it up. You even feel proud that you can handle it. You\u2019re tougher than you thought.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>

photo courtesy of Susan Blumberg-Kason<\/p><\/div>\n

In her memoir, Good Chinese Wife,<\/em> Susan Blumberg-Kason recounts her life as a shy but brave young woman who leaves her home in Chicago and moves to Hong Kong in the early 1990s to earn a graduate degree. She has lived in Hong Kong before as part of a college exchange program, and she loves it. When circumstances are less than ideal, she\u2019s prepared to suck it up.<\/p>\n

Upon arrival in Hong Kong, she’s twenty-four years old. She has never had a long-term relationship, and she’s worried that she never will. Then she meets Cai, and she\u2019s immediately attracted to him. He\u2019s Chinese from the Mainland. Six feet tall and handsome, a self-assured, stylish PhD candidate with an infectious smile. She tutors him in English in her dorm room, meets him at a dance.<\/p>\n

When he behaves strangely, she wonders about it, and then almost immediately she chalks it up to cultural differences. As a reader, I joined the author in wondering how much of Cai\u2019s behavior could be explained by his background.<\/p>\n

Was it his upbringing in a small town in central China? Was it the trauma of the Cultural Revolution, a national movement that resulted in the closure of schools all over the country and sent him away from home to travel around Hubei Province playing the cello with an opera group?<\/p>\n

I think for a while that, considering his background, maybe Susan should give him the benefit of the doubt. And she does.<\/p>\n

When Cai invites her to meet him at a dance and then leaves her standing alone the whole evening because people were talking about them and he\u2019s embarrassed, she lets it go. When he asks her to start dating and to marry him all in the same breath and then asks if he can kiss her for the first time, she says yes without hesitation. He kisses her, and as he gazes into her eyes, he asks, \u201cDo you have any bad habits?\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh, dear!<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>

photo courtesy of Susan Blumberg-Kason<\/p><\/div>\n

Good Chinese Wife<\/em> is not an adventure story, it\u2019s a memoir. The subtitle is: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong,<\/em> so we know what\u2019s going to happen. And yet, for me, it was a page turner. All the way through I found myself wondering what Cai would do next and how Susan would handle it.<\/p>\n

After they marry in a tiny, disappointing ceremony, Susan tries her best to be a good Chinese wife. Even when Cai\u2019s behavior goes from merely unusual and culturally different to increasingly abusive, she doesn\u2019t want to give up\u2026. Not until the day years later when she fears she is going to lose her son.<\/p>\n

This well written book brings the reader deep into two cultures and the troubles of one marriage. I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n

Good Chinese Wife <\/em>will be available on July 29 at Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com and independent bookstores around the country. You can pre-order it on Amazon at a discounted price.<\/p>\n

For a revealing interview of the author, check out Janet Brown’s blog, Tone Deaf in Thailand<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

And if you live in the United States and would like to win a personalized signed copy of Susan’s memoir, all you have to do is leave your name in the comment section below. I guarantee that one of you will win the free book and it will be sent to you, all postage paid.<\/p>\n

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 When you join the army or sign up for an iron man race or commit to climbing a mountain, if the going gets tough, you put on your macho face and suck it up. You may be scared or tired or cold. You\u2019re certainly not comfortable. But flush toilets and comfy beds are not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[343,13,29,155],"tags":[391,389,390,385,388,387,386],"class_list":["post-1690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-china","category-culture","category-family","tag-book-review","tag-cultural-differences","tag-dating-and-marriage","tag-good-chinese-wife","tag-hong-kong","tag-interracial-marriage","tag-susan-blumberg-kason"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s3Kn1e-1690","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":373,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/culture\/my-interracial-marriage\/","url_meta":{"origin":1690,"position":0},"title":"My Interracial Marriage","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"November 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Every marriage is an\u00a0intercultural marriage. 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The air-conditioner in Uncle Gregorio\u2019s car sputtered in a lame attempt to reach the back seat where I sat with two of our three daughters. Since the Chinese Cemetery was on the far side of town, we'd left the baby at home with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philippines"","block_context":{"text":"Philippines","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/philippines\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Main entrance to the cemetery, photo courtesy of Henson Wongaiham","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/P1130803.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/P1130803.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/P1130803.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4937,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/tiger-tail-soup\/translation-is-that-what-i-wrote\/","url_meta":{"origin":1690,"position":2},"title":"Translation: Is That What I Wrote?","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"April 10, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"My novel looks so different in translation. I look at all those Chinese characters and I wonder, is this really my novel? If only I could read Chinese! I did study it for a while. But that was years ago, and with the passage of time, the words just slipped\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "books"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"by Gracenotes","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/by-gracenotes-Wikipe-tan_shocked.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6076,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/tiger-tail-soup\/can-you-count-online-friends-as-friends\/","url_meta":{"origin":1690,"position":3},"title":"Are Online Friends Really Friends?","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"July 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Most of the bloggers listed in the blogroll on your right are people I\u2019ve never met in the flesh. 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