A new Must Read book

For all families with Children from China or waiting to bring home their children from China, this book is a must read. Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother is a collection of stories and interviews with birthfamilies in China. That vastly oversimplifies the book to state in in such a way, but it is the best "quick" explanation I can put together right now. I have read another of Xinran's books and she is a wonderful author. The translation is superb, the subject matter is interesting, the insight is invaluable.

You will not be able to put this book down if you buy it. I read it in just a few days and I am already planning to re-read it this weekend.

I also just discovered that she has an english language blog:
http://www.xinranbooks.co.uk/blog/

I feel often that there is a real lack of knowledge in MUCH of the Chinese adoption community about real chinese culture. I'm not talking about celebrating chinese new year or eating mooncakes at full moon festival. I'm talking about not feeling anger towards your children's birth family because you can understand that the combination of culture and laws have created a situation under which your child came to be separated from their birth family. If your child at an older age wants to feel anger, that is their perogative, and as parents we must be supportive of that range of emotions that our children may experience. But it is not for us to tell them what their feelings are. And it is not for us to lead the way when it comes to feeling negative feelings towards their birth country. There are a few books that I feel can really help adoptive families to feel compassion, understanding, and really LEARN about China, the history, the previous situation in the 90's, and the current situation with child abandonment in China.

First is WILD SWANS by Jung Chang. This impressive book follows 3 generations of women in China from the time of Warlords and concubines (Grandmother), through the Nationalists and the Communists battle to the top (Mother), through the Cultural revolution (daughter). This book is long but it is also filled with information from a wide expanse of history, brought together in one place and presented in a very readable manner.

The second is Wanting a Daughter, Needing a son: Abandonment, Adoption and Orphanage care in China. This book is a collection of papers done over several years about the above mentioned topics in China. Also easy to read and put together in easy to digest chunks-as I recall one of the papers are too long so you can easily read one, spend some time to digest it, and come back on another day to read another. There is clearl and well researched data here that I have never seen anywhere else, and I feel strengthened in my ability to understand and feel compassion towards the possible circumstances for my own daugther's abandonment because of having read this book.

The third book is Xinran's new book- Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother. This book is presented as a series of short stories or rather interactions with birth families and people somehow connected to adoption in China as recently as 2006 or 2008. This book, among these 3, is the one that is probably most shocking and eye opening, but in a positive way. A dear friend called me when she started reading it and said to me in a very sort of shocked way, "I thought I knew, oh my gosh, I just thought I knew. I've done all this reading and I have learned so much but now there is this, I just thought I knew...." It was a little Wizard of oz-esque where Dorothy's house lands in OZ and she opens the door and she sees that EVERYTHING she held as true and reality was suddenly dumped on it's head. This whole other truth exists and she had no idea until just that moment.

Reading Xinran's book is a bit like that. You thought you knew the truth, but it expands the world for you to see probably just a few more of the possible scenarios under which our children may have been abandoned. You cannot have a heart and finish that book without feeling complete compassion for the families within it's pages.

Our new agency requires the adoptive Parents to do book reports on 3 books each to show they are educating themselves about adoption. I have a bookshelf of books to choose from, I wonder what 3 it will be in the end? I have no doubt Xinran's book will be among them.