Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong

Name: Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong
Rating: 3 (2 reviews)

Susan Blumberg-Kason

Jul 2014 · Sourcebooks, Inc.

3.0

2 reviews

Ebook

352

Pages

Eligible

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About this ebook

A stunning memoir of an intercultural marriage gone wrong

When Susan, a shy Midwesterner in love with Chinese culture, started graduate school in Hong Kong, she quickly fell for Cai, the Chinese man of her dreams. As they exchanged vows, Susan thought she'd stumbled into an exotic fairy tale, until she realized Cai—and his culture—where not what she thought.

In her riveting memoir, Susan recounts her struggle to be the perfect traditional "Chinese" wife to her increasingly controlling and abusive husband. With keen insight and heart-wrenching candor, she confronts the hopes and hazards of intercultural marriage, including dismissing her own values and needs to save her relationship and protect her newborn son, Jake. But when Cai threatens to take Jake back to China for good, Susan must find the courage to stand up for herself, her son, and her future.

Moving between rural China and the bustling cities of Hong Kong and San Francisco, Good Chinese Wife is an eye-opening look at marriage and family in contemporary China and America and an inspiring testament to the resilience of a mother's love—across any border.

Ratings and reviews

3.0

2 reviews

Mohammad Khdeir

October 19, 2014

While I felt sympathy for the failure of the writer's first marriage, I believe that she over victimized her position. In a matter of fact, her rush decisions to get married were part of the problem. When I saw the title of the book, I thought that the writer will be exposing us to the Chinese culture of marriage, but the the book turned out to be about the failure of a relationship with psycho!! Never did I feel that her problems were associated with a race, but with hasty incorrect decisions on selecting her husband. The writer also unfairly blamed Chinese people for why they lived in a poor country where sophisticated facilities and services like the ones in first world countries were not available. I really recommend she changes the title of her book to something that is more relevant.

1 person found this review helpful

A Google user

August 3, 2014

This book is a personal account of Susan Blumberg-Kason's failed marriage to a man from Mainland China. It's a fascinating story of how she met her husband Cai while studying in Hong Kong, their subsequent marriage, and, sadly, their eventual divorce. If you remove the cross-cultural elements from this story, this could have been the story of any failed marriage in either US or China. Susan is careful in not blaming Chinese culture for this failed relationship. Her husband's background certainly contributed to some of the problems such not being able to find a decent job after moving to the US. But then again, financial problems are a major source of marital stress regardless of whether the couple is a interracial one. I enjoyed reading this book and I highly recommend it.

About the author

Susan Blumberg-Kason is a freelance journalist in Chicago. As a child growing up in suburban Chicago, she dreamed of traveling to China and the then-British colony of Hong Kong. She went on to study Mandarin and complete a master’s degree in political science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Susan now lives in the Chicago area with her husband, three kids, and a surly cat. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Sun Times, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, and Chicago Parent magazine. She blogs at www.susanbkason.com about travel, books, and teaching her kids about Chinese culture. You can also follow her on Twitter at Susan_BK, on Facebook at Susan Blumberg-Kason, and on Instagram at susanbkason.

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