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Susan Blumberg-Kason
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Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong Kindle Edition

by Susan Blumberg-Kason (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 out of 5 stars 258 ratings

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.

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  1. Print length
    352 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Sourcebooks
  4. Publication date
    29 July 2014
  5. File size
    21.2 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Product description

Review

An American freelance journalist s painful account of how a hasty marriage to a Chinese man turned her life upside down... it is the author s courage to face her mistakes that makes the book worthwhile. --Kirkus June 15

About the Author

SUSAN BLUMBERG-KASON is a freelance journalist in Chicago. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Sun Times, TimeOut Chicago, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, and Chicago Parent magazine. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and three children.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00J8QDJIM
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sourcebooks (29 July 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 21.2 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • Customer reviews:
    4.0 out of 5 stars 258 ratings

About the author

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Susan Blumberg-Kason

Susan Blumberg-Kason

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4 out of 5 stars
258 global ratings

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Jonathan Clements
    5.0 out of 5 stars just give me a sign... any sign... all right, another sign...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 October 2018
    Verified Purchase
    The Kindle version of this book is 88% done before a therapist asks the author: if she really was trapped in a loveless marriage with a pouting man-child, surrounded by interfering relatives who only seem to believe "voodoo"-like traditional medicine, and fearing for her child's safety, why on Earth did she marry him in the first place? Susan Blumberg-Kason doesn't really have an answer, and leaves the therapist soon afterwards when it is suggested that maybe there are two sides to the story.

    The fact that she includes this confrontation is indicative of her admirable attempt to evaluate her own life as objectively as possible, in a punchy, well-observed book, which is compelling and convincing in everything except its lead character's motivation. Blumberg-Kason's account of a million petty annoyances is wonderfully accurate; her doomed intercultural marriage a slow build of petty confrontations, slights and misunderstandings. She skirts around her husband's addiction to porn and possible, closeted bisexuality, but includes ample detail on the many clueless blunders that might have compromised her own chances of making her marriage work. Just as her husband seems wide-eyed and baffled by the world beyond the Chinese countryside, she seems ill-suited for the whirl of obligations and deprivations that beset an outsider in Asia. One is left with the feeling that both were starry-eyed students, deluded by the equal footing of a university romance, uncomprehending of the vast and unseen depths that would separate them over the longer term of a life together.
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  • Amanda Jenkinson
    4.0 out of 5 stars An eye-opener
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 July 2014
    When the author met a handsome Chinese man whilst studying in Hong Kong and he asked her to marry him, she thought all her dreams had come true. For the next 5 years, in China and in the US, she did all she could to be a Good Chinese Wife. But ultimately the dream turned sour and the cultural differences between the couple, plus her husband’s extremely selfish behaviour, meant she was forced to make the difficult decision to leave the marriage.
    This is a frank and painfully honest account of a cross-cultural marriage and should be on the reading list of anyone hoping that love conquers all in such relationships. The author’s account of her efforts to accept the Chinese cultural norms insisted on by Cai and his family is both perceptive and a real eye-opener. The final part of the book felt as nerve-racking as any thriller as Susan makes her escape. She also raises the complex questions about parental rights and international law, which affect so many mixed marriages. There’s an object lesson to be learnt in this wonderfully compelling book, as well as a very human story to be found.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • eliotjw
    3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting read but one can't help but think wake ...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 October 2014
    Verified Purchase
    An interesting read but one can't help but think wake up and smell the coffee. The man gets away with murder and she should have left him after a few months not a few years.
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  • CHRIS THRALL
    5.0 out of 5 stars When a girl leaves her father's house ...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 March 2015
    Verified Purchase
    As a fan of outdoor adventure books, I’m glad I stepped out of my comfort zone and read this one. ‘Good Chinese Wife’ is an adventure story in itself, one I slipped off to bed to read increasingly earlier each night, enjoying Susan’s honest narrative and gritty descriptions, such as staying in a freezing cold and barren backwater in China, the strange food and interesting customs and conversations, and dying to find out how she and Cai resolved their differences. ‘Good Chinese Wife’ is not a misery memoir, and Susan doesn’t cast unfair aspersions on another’s culture or ask you to feel sorry for her. Nor does she play the apologist by employing after-the-fact analogy. Susan simply tells a story in real time of how a shy Midwestern girl got in over her head far from home but won through for her child – and she does it extremely well.

    Chris Thrall is the author of ‘Eating Smoke: One Man’s Descent into Crystal Meth Psychosis in Hong Kong’s Triad Heartland’.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Julia Flyte
    4.0 out of 5 stars I really enjoyed this
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 July 2014
    Moral: Don't marry men from other countries and cultures whom you have only know a short time.

    Susan Blumberg-Kason grew up in suburban Chicago and from an early age was fascinated by China. After graduating from college in the US, she seizes the opportunity to do a Masters degree in Hong Kong. There the somewhat shy and sheltered student meets a handsome Chinese boy called Cai. After only a few months he proposes, warning her almost immediately afterwards that sometimes he can lose his temper but it will only be temporary. Naive and in love, Susan determines to be the warm, soft, good Chinese wife that her husband wants her to be.

    However almost immediately there are strains in the marriage as Cai puts his needs ahead of hers at every turn. For the most part Susan makes excuses for his behaviour and tries her best to keep him happy. When she does resist even mildly, he loses his temper and then refuses to speak to her, sometimes for days at a time. Once they have a child together, the stakes get higher and Susan realizes that she needs to stand up for herself once and for all.

    I really enjoyed this book which gives a fascinating perspective of China in the mid 1990s. It's extremely readable and even when I wasn't reading it I found myself thinking about it. Susan takes us through her story in such a way that you feel you really understand what she was thinking and feeling and why she behaved as she did. She doesn't shy away from events that don't show her in a positive light and it's clear that they both had a part to play in the marriage's problems - although she puts up with a great deal more than I ever could. After I finished the book I discovered the author's website where you can see some some photographs taken at the time.

    I received an advance copy of this book for review through Net Galley.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Amazon Customer
    2.0 out of 5 stars Two Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 March 2016
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    Banal and self centred, mildly interesting
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  • Simon Dyer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 November 2016
    A great book and thoroughly recommended
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Top reviews from other countries

  • E
    5.0 out of 5 stars A candid, poignant true story of a cross-cultural marriage gone wrong
    Reviewed in the United States on 30 April 2015
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    A candid, poignant autobiography of a young, disarming American girl’s first love, for a tall and handsome Chinese graduate student from Hidden River, near Wuhan, China, her subsequent marriage to him, her struggle and determination to make her marriage work and eventual heartbreaking failure to do so comprise the substance of Good Chinese Wife. Her story is all the more interesting in that it takes place largely in Hong Kong and China in the imminent years leading up to "hui gui", the British return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. What makes this book a gripping, moving read is the emotional turmoil the author at once subtly and expressly conveys as she experiences the trials and tribulations of her far-from-fairytale marriage, its gradual breakup no matter how hard she tries to bridge the unavoidable cultural chasm and stoically bears the often unpredictable and cruel mood swings of her Chinese husband. Not only has Susan Blumberg-Kason told her extraordinary story with compelling, heart-rending sincerity, she has also painted a vivid and authentic picture of Hong Kong as she lives it in the pre and post hui gui years. To those who have called Hong Kong home in the eighties and nineties, and as far back as a few decades before, her book incites nostalgia for a beloved place. For the rest of readers, it is an eye-opening and remarkable journey into an exotic and unique land and culture. In spite of the subtitle “A Love Affair With China Gone Wrong”, I read a lot of affection in the author for China, and particularly for Hong Kong. A highly recommended read.
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  • kimberlee esselstrom
    4.0 out of 5 stars Brave woman
    Reviewed in the United States on 16 April 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Susan was very brave to write this account of her life. She doesn't play the blame game, taking full responsibility for her part in a difficult marriage. She gives a peek into the problems that can occur in a multicultural relationship. Her words will hopefully give many young women the courage to make changes, speak out, or eventually leave if they find themselves in a similar situation. I finished the last half of the book in one sitting practically holding my breath wondering how her life would turn out. A great read.
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  • Cathy Klein
    3.0 out of 5 stars Chinese vs American Culture
    Reviewed in the United States on 1 June 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Good Chinese Wife came highly recommended by a local book reviewer. I enjoy reading about other cultures so I thought I'd give it a try. The author starts by explaining how she is particularly interested in the Chinese culture and is living and going to school in China to fully immerse herself. She eventually meets Cai, who she would come to marry. The book describes very well their relationship and the different expectations in a marriage between the Chinese and American cultures.

    Although the book starts out very interesting, it did tend to drag for me a bit in the middle. We, the readers, can pretty quickly gain an excellent grasp on the type of person Cai was and how it was affecting their relationship. I did feel very much for Susan having to live with the way she was treated, but unfortunately, it seemed like the same story over and over for awhile.

    That being said, I was glad about the outcome and that she was a strong woman after all. I was glad I finished the book and learned a lot about the Chinese culture that I definitely did not know. I felt she relayed the story well and if she were to write another book, I'd most likely give it a whirl.
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  • Jane Lo
    5.0 out of 5 stars Simply breathtaking - a superb memoir
    Reviewed in the United States on 28 January 2023
    Verified Purchase
    I loved Good Chinese Wife so much. The writing is beautiful, the people and places so vividly described that I could see them all in my mind's eye with no difficulty at all. I felt so much empathy for Susan, and so angry at Cai! Susan's experiences are inspiring and unforgettable, and her memoir is simply unputdownable. I highly, highly recommend this to everyone, but especially anyone who is interested in intercultural relationships, in Hong Kong or in China. Superb.
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  • Eric
    4.0 out of 5 stars Slow start, but a page-turner at the end!
    Reviewed in the United States on 29 June 2015
    Verified Purchase
    I found this book a little difficult to get into at first. If you're a woman who has ever dated an emotionally abusive man, watching Susan fall for Cai is like watching a train wreck. You're just waiting for the first impact. And yet the author does an excellent job of capturing the beautiful, blissful moments that occurred just enough to keep her with Cai. Even while you're mentally urging Susan to run, you understand her insistence that if she can just be the good, sweet, understanding wife, all the beauty will return.

    I enjoyed all the local history, especially the tensions between the Hong Kong populace and the "Mainland" Chinese. The author also describes her travels in rural China and Shanghai, which are fascinating in their own right.

    But the last third of the book is the real page-turner. Once Susan begins to realize she has to escape Cai with their child, the tension ratchets up considerably. I stayed up way past my bedtime to see how the story ended.
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