Wuhu Diary: On Taking My Adopted Daughter Back to Her Hometown in China [Hardcover]

Emily Prager (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 2001

All Emily Prager had at first was a blurred photograph of a baby, but it would be her baby—if she journeyed to China to pick her up.

Emily brought back to America the baby chosen for her. She was named Lulu, and Emily was determined to honor Lulu's heritage by sending her to a Chinese school in New York City's Chinatown. But of course there were always questions from Lulu about her past and the town of Wuhu, where she was born. And Emily herself had a special affinity for China, because she had spent part of her own childhood there. So together they journeyed to Wuhu, eager to discover anything they could. But finding answers was difficult, and at first they were met with suspicion, particularly after the U.S. accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Kosovo.

Wuhu Diary is unique in that it tells of encountering—and understanding—a modern but ancient culture through the irresistible presence of a child, while it reveals the emotional bond that grows between Emily and Lulu as they try to become a part of this Chinese city.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Childless and in her 40s, novelist Prager (Roger Fishbite, etc.) realized that her generation has taken a terribly long time to "understand what children could bring us." Ironically (since she's a feminist), she took advantage of the sexism that has emerged in the execution of China's "one-child policy" and adopted an unwanted baby girl from Wuhu, a village in southern China. This is the journal of the return voyage Prager made with LuLu, her five-year-old daughter, in an effort to come to terms with the circumstances of her adoption and to reintroduce LuLu to her roots. Acknowledging that travel with young children often "opens different doors," she recounts her visits with LuLu to nursery schools, hospital waiting rooms and delightfully "un-p.c." amusement parks, instead of museums and national monuments. As LuLu becomes a "local," hanging out with the hotel's bellboys, chambermaids and musicians, Prager wanders the department stores and watches TV, in between futile efforts to find out more about LuLu's birthparents. In the end, it's the whole process they've gone through that lessens LuLu's adoption angst, rather than learning the circumstances of her adoption: "She came back from China... unencumbered by old doubts or anxieties, having reclaimed... some essential part of her self." Writing in a "daily diary" format, Prager keeps the pages turning. By the end, the unsent letter she wrote to the undiscovered birth parents, explaining all the ways she would love their child, may inspire a few tears. Photos not seen by PW. (Sept. 4)Forecast: If Prager is able to tap into the highly organized and active networks of adoptive parents of Chinese children, this book will be heartily embraced in hardcover and an evergreen paperback.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This moving story of a single mother's two-month trip to Wuhu, China, in 2001 with her five-year-old adopted daughter, LuLu, combines memoir, travelog, and a bit of philosophy. A novelist (Roger Fishbite) and satirical columnist for the Village Voice, among other publications, Prager herself spent some of her childhood in LuLu's homeland. For anyone considering multicultural adoption or already involved in one, this compelling work offers encouragement and an example of how to help an adopted child get acquainted with her roots and build her sense of self. For others, it provides a wonderful view of a part of China seldom written about. Readers will also gain insight into the strengthening bonds between children and their adopted parents and the insecurities both feel. Following the trip, LuLu no longer exhibited frantic behavior. She seemed to have a better sense of herself and her heritage, which gave her more confidence, as well as a firmer comprehension of her adopted mother's commitment. Enthusiastically recommended. Kay Brodie, Chesapeake Coll., Wye Mills, MD
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (August 28, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375503498
• ISBN-13: 978-0375503498
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,020,726 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars big disappointment, July 2, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Wuhu Diary: On Taking My Adopted Daughter Back to Her Hometown in China (Hardcover)

As a Chinese-American who has lived in China for years, and who is thinking about adopting a girl from China, this book sounded very interesting to me but I could not even finish reading it. It's not worth the time.

I agree with the negative reviews below on two issues: 1) It is questionable whether a five-year-old should be exposed to the harsh reality about her past; 2) The book is thin on facts and has too much mother's musings and her interpretations of the daughter's feelings and thoughts. I have no idea how accurate these interpretations were, and as a result I have no idea how the daughter actually felt about this experience.

But there is more. The book is not even a good travel monologue. First, the book is full of factual errors. To give a few examples, the powerful Shanghai gangster's name is Du Yuesheng, not Yu Dusheng; Chinese kids start school at the age of six, not seven; to "translate" English into pinyin, as the teacher at LuLu's preschool did for the author (so we are told), is totally meaningless. Chinese people don't read pinyin. pinyin is a method to help school kids learn the pronunciations of the Chinese characters. Second, two months' time is too short to understand China, and it shows in the book. The author claims she loves China. But she loves China because China is exotic to her. China in her book is simply a stereotypical Communist country with nice but simple people, One hardly sees a country shaped by its rich cultural and historical heritage and the complexity of its people. Numerous places in the book showed that the author judges things by what she knows about America, such judgments don't help one to understand a different culture. If one really wants to read a book about China that's perceptive and insightful, without prejudice and without being judgmental, if one wants to forget about his race, background and political preferences and wants to understand the Chinese as fellow human beings, please read Peter Hessler's Two Years on the Yangtze and Mark Salzman's Iron and Silk.

I give the book 2 stars insteadof one because it has a story in it that's worth knowing. But the author should have written a 10-page article instead of the book.

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Journey of Courage, October 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Wuhu Diary: On Taking My Adopted Daughter Back to Her Hometown in China (Hardcover)

Emily Prager's account of her trip to Wuhu with her daughter Lulu is a tribute to her awareness of her daughter's need to make real some vague images and feelings about her birthparents, birthplace and Chinese identity. Lulu was not too young (as one reviewer mentioned) to be taken on this journey. What a five-year-old learns from such a trip is different from what a ten-year-old learns, but that does not invalidate the younger child's experiences. It seems to me it took great courage for Ms. Prager to take her daughter on a journey that was surely quite difficult, both physically and emotionally. The book is a moving and honest account of their stay and the relationships they developed while living in a relatively isolated city with few other foreigners. The descriptions of everyday life--what they ate, their experiences at the hospital, at the nursery school, etc--are precisely what makes this book compelling reading. It is not a romantic depiction of China but an honest attempt to live among the people that share with her daughter their biological roots and to give her some concrete notion of where she is from. This is a personal journey, and I doubt it is meant to be read in any other way. I think it is a terrific book. What we take away from it is the basic humanity we share with people around the world, regardless of their ethnic or racial background. Certainly a timely message.

28 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Musings And Rantings -- AND CONJECTURE, April 27, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Wuhu Diary: On Taking My Adopted Daughter Back to Her Hometown in China (Hardcover)

As the parent of a child adopted from China, I found this book highly contrived and genunely offensive on a variety of levels. First, and foremost, it is an intimate account of the psyche of a FIVE YEAR OLD CHILD adopted from China and her feelings about her adoption. But not by the child, by her mother. This is ridiculous and impossible and an invasion of the child's very soul. And her privacy What will this girl think of her mother's convoluted conjecture about the way in which she felt -- and behaved -- when she was in kindergarten as this kid grows up?

This is a powerful subject: taking an internationally adopted child back to the country and culture in which she was born and now the author has RUINED any chances of ANYONE ever writing another book on the subject again -- and writing it with or on behalf of a child who is mature enough to consent to the work.

Thumbs down. Don't honor this book by purchasing it asks this adoptive parent!