The Lost Daughters Of China

Proclaimed an instant classic upon its hardcover publication, The Lost Daughters of China is at once compelling and informative. Journalist Karin Evans tells the story of adopting her daughter, Kelly, who was once one of the hundreds of thousands of infant girls who wait for parents in orphanages all over China. Weaving her personal account with extensive research, Evans investigates the conditions that have led to generations of abandoned Chinese girls and a legacy of lost women. With a new epilogue added for the paperback edition, this book will appeal to anyone interested in China and in the emotional ties that connect people regardless of genes or culture. In the words of bestselling novelist Amy Tan, The Lost Daughters of China is "not only an evocative memoir on East-West adoption but also a bridge to East-West understanding of human rights in China."

In 1997 journalist Karin Evans walked into an orphanage in southern China and met her new daughter, a beautiful one-year-old baby girl. In this fateful moment Evans became part of a profound, increasingly common human drama that links abandoned Chinese girls with foreigners who have traveled many miles to complete their families. At once a compelling personal narrative and an evocative portrait of contemporary China, The Lost Daughters of China has also served as an invaluable guide for thousands of readers as they navigated the process of adopting from China. However, much has changed in terms of the Chinese government?s policies on adoption since this book was originally published and in this revised and updated edition Evans addresses these developments. Also new to this edition is a riveting chapter in which she describes her return to China in 2000 to adopt her second daughter who was nearly three at the time. Many of the first girls to be adopted from China are now in the teens (China only opened its doors to adoption in the 1990s), and this edition includes accounts of their experiences growing up in the US and, in some cases, of returning to China in search of their roots. Illuminating the real-life stories behind the statistics, The Lost Daughters of China is an unforgettable account of the red thread that winds form China?s orphanages to loving families around the globe.

Geling Yan traces the lives of two individuals separated by prejudice and mistrust, but bound forever by their passion for one another. Fusang is a Chinese girl shanghaied from her village in China, brought to California and sold into the seedy underworld of prostitution. Soon she falls into an obsessive relationship with a young boy, Chris. But many barriers are laid between the lovers - by Chris's wealthy family, and most menacingly by Fusang's murderous pimp, who bestrides Chinatown with a clutch of daggers at his waist.

In the late 1860s, a young woman named Fusang is kidnapped from China and sold into prostitution in San Francisco's Chinatown. Chris, her first customer, is twelve years old. For weeks, he has spied on her; now, he meets the object of his obsession and can only gaze at her, stunned by her beauty.The Lost Daughter of Happiness is an epic and moving love story of individuals intoxicated with one another and yet repeatedly separated by prejudice and mistrust. The relationships are full of passion and rage, and the novel chronicles the lives of the main characters over decades against a back-drop of social turmoil -- the anti-Chinese hysteria that plagued San Francisco.Fusang is an extraordinary character, both powerful and resigned; Chris finds himself torn between the security of his staid, white world and the sensual allure of hers. And then there is the gangster Da Yong, who is rumored to carry daggers dipped in ancient poison, who wears a ring on every finger, and who sells his naked photograph, which is used as a talisman -- evil to ward off evil. He enters Fusang's life with brutal force, but when his world and Chris's eventu

Ten chapters, ten women and many stories of heartbreak, including her own: Xinran once again takes us right into the lives of Chinese women and their lost daughters. Whether as a consequence of the single-child policy, destructive age-old traditions or hideous economic necessity, these women had to give up their daughters for adoption, others were forced to abandon them - on city streets, outside hospitals, orphanages or on station platforms - and others even had to watch their baby daughters being taken away at birth, and drowned. Personal, immediate, full of sorrow but also full of hope, this books sends a heart-rending message to Chinese girls who have been adopted to show them how things really were for their mothers, and to tell them they were loved and will never be forgotten.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 edition. Excerpt: ...a small portion of their time; but the most beautiful specimens of work are done by men; the women are astonishingly deficient in the use of the needle, and as to being able to read their own language, probably not one in a hundred, even of the better class, receive any instruction from native teachers. "Parents sometimes destroy their female offspring soon after birth, and in cases of want, some of both sexes are left to starvation in the streets. All this seems to be done without compunction of conscience. Many are maimed, to be made beggars; their eyes are put out; a foot perhaps amputated; sometimes children are exhibited in the streets, apparantly covered with small-pox, to excite pity, and extort money. You examine DAUGHTERS. 127 the child and it is all a deception; something is put upon the face that appears like the disease, by which the passer-by is deceived. It is well known that the Chinese place little or no value upon their daughters; and if questioned as to how many children they have, they answer according to the number of their sons, omitting to bring their daughters into the account. I once asked a tailor, "Why do your people always rejoice at the birth of a son, and not at the birth of a daughter?" "Because the girls are so much trouble and expense, they cannot work and get money." Again I asked an officer of government, "Why do you not teach your daughters as well as your sons to read?" He replied, "It is of no use." I said, "Will you send your little daughter to me to be taught?" His answer in broken English was, "No can do;" meaning that it would be of no use. f The higher classes there are not yet accessible, but " to the poor the gospel is...

Three generations of Chinese-American women in a San Francisco family must confront their past and carve out a future in this extraordinary novel, a “haunting” debut full of “shimmering and unforgettable” characters. (New York Times Book Review) The Kong women are in crisis. A disastrous trip to visit her "home" orphanage in China has plunged eighteen-year-old Ari into a self-destructive spiral. Her adoptive mother, Charlie, a lawyer with a great heart, is desperate to keep her daughter safe. Meanwhile, Charlie must endure the prickly scrutiny of her beautiful, Bryn Mawr educated mother, Gran—who, as the daughter of a cultured Chinese doctor, came to America to survive Mao's Revolution—and her sister, Les, a brilliant judge with a penchant to rule over everyone's lives. As they cope with Ari's journey of discovery and its aftermath, the Kong women will come face to face with the truths of their lives—four powerful intertwining stories of accomplishment, tenacity, secrets, loneliness, and love. Beautifully illuminating the bonds of family and blood, The Year She Left Us explores the promise and pain of adoption, the price of assimilation and achievement, the debt we owe to others, and what we owe ourselves.