About this item
When single mother Patti Waldmeir decides to raise her two adopted Chinese daughters close to their culture, the whole family embarks on the adventure of a lifetime. They move to Shanghai when Lucy and Grace are seven and eight and stay until they are in high school. Waldmeir, an award-winning author and foreign correspondent, interrogates everyone from orphanage officials to masseurs, from trash pickers to child brides, to uncover the human story of why so many Chinese girls were sent overseas for adoption. She makes an astounding discovery in a Chinese alleyway, and takes her girls deep into the streets of Shanghai and the vast countryside of China, to explore what it means to be Chinese - and American at the same time. Funny, heartwarming, gut-wrenching, and raw, this book examines important questions about identity, race and culture - through the prism of one extraordinary family's entertaining adventures in China.
About the Author
Patti Waldmeir is an award-winning author and journalist. She has spent nearly forty years working as a reporter and columnist for the Financial Times, reporting from Ghana; Zambia; Nigeria; London; South Africa; Washington, DC; Shanghai; and now Chicago. Raised in Detroit, Waldmeir graduated with honors from the University of Michigan and went on to win a Marshall Scholarship to earn her master's degree at Cambridge University. Waldmeir's previous award-winning book, Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of a New South Africa, chronicled the peace deal between white and black in South Africa and the rise of Nelson Mandela. Her latest focuses on a more personal issue. When Waldmeir adopted two Chinese daughters, she decided to move the family to Shanghai to help them keep close to their Chinese heritage. Chinese Lessons is a story of identity, race and culture, told through the prism of family.
