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The Lost Daughters of China: Abandoned Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past
The memoir of an American mother of an adopted Chinese baby girl is a cultural history of the events that led to the controversial 1980 one-child policy in China and the subsequent generation-long abandonment of Chinese daughters to American families.
380 pages, Paperback
First published May 8, 2000
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February 10, 2008
The author, Karin Evans, blends the story of adopting her daughter with an exploration of the conditions in China (e.g., poverty, the so-called "one child" policy) that have led to orphanages being filled with baby girls. I found parts of the book fascinating and eye-opening, but overall, I was left feeling as though Evans kept repeating herself just to fill pages. Tighter editing would have helped a lot, but it's still a worthwhile read.
An excerpt:
"At the time we began thinking about a baby in China, Chinese women's reproductive lives were largely controlled by the state. Permission from the government was required in order to have a child; women who became pregnant without consent were often forced to have abortions, even late in their pregnancies. A woman who lacked official permission to bear the child she was carrying could quickly end up in the street -- or worse. She could be hounded and heavily fined and her relatives harrassed. If that baby was a girl, her husband and his family could disown her for giving birth to a child of the wrong gender. She could lose her job and her home.
While women in the United States could make an adoption plan for a child they weren't able to care for, Chinese mother were caught in a cruel bind. 'It's a crime to give up a child,' a Chinese-American adoption agency worker told me, 'even if the family is so poor they cannot help the child. People will say the mother is very cruel and will not forgive her. Most of the women who abandon children do it in secret, hide somewhere, maybe move to another city. It's not a good thing to talk in China.'"
An excerpt:
"At the time we began thinking about a baby in China, Chinese women's reproductive lives were largely controlled by the state. Permission from the government was required in order to have a child; women who became pregnant without consent were often forced to have abortions, even late in their pregnancies. A woman who lacked official permission to bear the child she was carrying could quickly end up in the street -- or worse. She could be hounded and heavily fined and her relatives harrassed. If that baby was a girl, her husband and his family could disown her for giving birth to a child of the wrong gender. She could lose her job and her home.
While women in the United States could make an adoption plan for a child they weren't able to care for, Chinese mother were caught in a cruel bind. 'It's a crime to give up a child,' a Chinese-American adoption agency worker told me, 'even if the family is so poor they cannot help the child. People will say the mother is very cruel and will not forgive her. Most of the women who abandon children do it in secret, hide somewhere, maybe move to another city. It's not a good thing to talk in China.'"
December 19, 2016
While I appreciate hearing an individual adoption story, I was hoping to read more factually supported information. Rather, the author's perspective is that of a 'savior', who talks about the poor impoverished people of China and the many families in the US who want to save the unwanted children. It weakens the book greatly, and to be honest I would only recommend the book for those interested in learning about adopting. I was more interested in learning a nuanced account of the social reasons for the lost daughters, so I was very disappointed.
July 12, 2010
I got this from the library right before I left for China - wish I had brought it with me instead of waiting until I returned from my trip to read it - was very interesting to learn some of the history behind China's one-child policy / mindset of people there. The author has adopted 2 girls from China and shared those experiences as well as gave background of the country.
I'm glad I read this because in my mind, I thought these girls were just 'abandoned' and left because everyone selfishly wants boys...while it is true that girls are considered 'less desirable' this book made me realize that it is not easy for the mothers to give up their daughters -they are not callous or quick to make these decisions. They are suffering / grieving with what they feel they must do. Because of China's one-child policy, parents are either faced with paying stiff fines (in Beijing and Shanghai the fine can be as much as 3 years wages for an additional child) or no assistance from the state. Many people in rural parts of China just cannot afford to raise the additional child.
A quote from the book "No longer does it seem to say they (babies) were 'abandoned' or 'left there'. Rather, I think, they were 'delivered' to safety in places so clearly was it their birth family's intention to save them." Many of these children (girls and children with medical issues) are left in prominent places / public places so the parents know they will be found and hopefully cared for when they are unable to provide for them. Abortions are relatively 'easy' to have so the fact that many of these women choose to have their children and then give them away shows a concern / love for that child as well.
Another quote from the book - the author imagines any birth parent giving up their child for adoption is thinking "In this life, in this world, I am not able to provide for you. I am giving you up so you can have a life."
And finally, in response to one adult who expressed anger at his birth parents for 'abandoning' him, a gentleman replied, "All humans are born to love and cherish their children. When they are unable to do that, some sort of overwhelming cause or condition must have interfered with that ability."
Unfortunately China is now facing a major 'shortage' of girls / women which is likely to lead to other issues - but for now, I am so thankful to have been able to experience firsthand the joy of seeing one of these baby girls adopted and knowing she will have numerous opportunities available to her in her new family.
I'm glad I read this because in my mind, I thought these girls were just 'abandoned' and left because everyone selfishly wants boys...while it is true that girls are considered 'less desirable' this book made me realize that it is not easy for the mothers to give up their daughters -they are not callous or quick to make these decisions. They are suffering / grieving with what they feel they must do. Because of China's one-child policy, parents are either faced with paying stiff fines (in Beijing and Shanghai the fine can be as much as 3 years wages for an additional child) or no assistance from the state. Many people in rural parts of China just cannot afford to raise the additional child.
A quote from the book "No longer does it seem to say they (babies) were 'abandoned' or 'left there'. Rather, I think, they were 'delivered' to safety in places so clearly was it their birth family's intention to save them." Many of these children (girls and children with medical issues) are left in prominent places / public places so the parents know they will be found and hopefully cared for when they are unable to provide for them. Abortions are relatively 'easy' to have so the fact that many of these women choose to have their children and then give them away shows a concern / love for that child as well.
Another quote from the book - the author imagines any birth parent giving up their child for adoption is thinking "In this life, in this world, I am not able to provide for you. I am giving you up so you can have a life."
And finally, in response to one adult who expressed anger at his birth parents for 'abandoning' him, a gentleman replied, "All humans are born to love and cherish their children. When they are unable to do that, some sort of overwhelming cause or condition must have interfered with that ability."
Unfortunately China is now facing a major 'shortage' of girls / women which is likely to lead to other issues - but for now, I am so thankful to have been able to experience firsthand the joy of seeing one of these baby girls adopted and knowing she will have numerous opportunities available to her in her new family.
March 12, 2013
Abandoned Girls, Their Journey to America and the Search for a Missing Past by Karin Evans:
When I told my friend Bill that I was going to China with my kids to pick up their new daughter, he told me about this book which he was reading. Karin Evans is an American who, with her husband, adopted a daughter from China in 1997. While some things have changed since that time and some were different because we are Canadian, it was still a good overview of the process of adopting a child from China.
Evans writes quite a bit about the whys of all the -mainly- girls available for adoption from China, often making up fantasies about the birth mother and her sorrow. While I am sure that almost every mother who gives away her child feels some sense of loss, I am also sure that this is a choice they made. Evans quotes statistics from China which
show that while fathers make the decision the majority of the time, just slightly fewer times both parents decide to leave the child, and after that the mother alone.
Her points about the system in China and how "abandonment" is really the only option if they want to keep trying for a boy, are well taken. This does little to excuse, to my mind, the system and social values which put so little value on girl children and so much value on only few children.
I was left with a feeling of ambivalence. Evans tells us that most of these "orphaned" girls have at least one older sister, also that there are many rural and minority families who have up to 7 children. While I can understand why the Chinese government wishes to reduce their birthrate, it seems this is totally in conflict with the Confucian values which still prevail.
I do agree with the final conclusion which Evans makes, which is that the only way to change China's attitude about girl children is to empower women in general.
When I told my friend Bill that I was going to China with my kids to pick up their new daughter, he told me about this book which he was reading. Karin Evans is an American who, with her husband, adopted a daughter from China in 1997. While some things have changed since that time and some were different because we are Canadian, it was still a good overview of the process of adopting a child from China.
Evans writes quite a bit about the whys of all the -mainly- girls available for adoption from China, often making up fantasies about the birth mother and her sorrow. While I am sure that almost every mother who gives away her child feels some sense of loss, I am also sure that this is a choice they made. Evans quotes statistics from China which
show that while fathers make the decision the majority of the time, just slightly fewer times both parents decide to leave the child, and after that the mother alone.
Her points about the system in China and how "abandonment" is really the only option if they want to keep trying for a boy, are well taken. This does little to excuse, to my mind, the system and social values which put so little value on girl children and so much value on only few children.
I was left with a feeling of ambivalence. Evans tells us that most of these "orphaned" girls have at least one older sister, also that there are many rural and minority families who have up to 7 children. While I can understand why the Chinese government wishes to reduce their birthrate, it seems this is totally in conflict with the Confucian values which still prevail.
I do agree with the final conclusion which Evans makes, which is that the only way to change China's attitude about girl children is to empower women in general.
June 24, 2009
Thoughts just pour into my mind after reading this book. Many are questions, such as, Why adopt children from China, when there are so many children here in the U.S. who need homes? Why spend so much time teaching an adopted child of their birth family? Isn't there a need for all of us to teach our children about our eternal family? The one we are sealed to for eternity?
I sit pondering of my own experience in seeking by "Roots." I have done a great deal of genealogy, and have felt wonderful connections to my ancestors, my past, those things that make up my present. I have built relationships with distant cousins in distant lands. This week I have hosted my 20 year old counsin from Sweden and her friend. It was wonderful to see my daughters connect with their family from Sweden. We see that the world is small and that family more than names on a piece of paper or an aging grandparent that we must help care for. There is something that links us when we know we are family. IT helps us understand who we are, to share moments of love and moments of self.
I think with these girls from China, it is terrific to know of their Chinese background, it is a bonus to them to understand themselves. But as importantly, they need to understand their adoptive family, their American Heritage, their adoptive parents linage that will tie them to their family forever.
I sit pondering of my own experience in seeking by "Roots." I have done a great deal of genealogy, and have felt wonderful connections to my ancestors, my past, those things that make up my present. I have built relationships with distant cousins in distant lands. This week I have hosted my 20 year old counsin from Sweden and her friend. It was wonderful to see my daughters connect with their family from Sweden. We see that the world is small and that family more than names on a piece of paper or an aging grandparent that we must help care for. There is something that links us when we know we are family. IT helps us understand who we are, to share moments of love and moments of self.
I think with these girls from China, it is terrific to know of their Chinese background, it is a bonus to them to understand themselves. But as importantly, they need to understand their adoptive family, their American Heritage, their adoptive parents linage that will tie them to their family forever.
January 25, 2008
This was one of the best books I have ever read. Really opened my eyes before I adopted on the culture of China. Once you understand, you can go to China with a peace that their questions about us wanting broken children isn't an insult, but they need to understand our culture.
One of the best paragraphs in the book is only a few pages in:
"Why is it the girls who are lost? Don’t take it personally. Please understand that Chinese women are cultivated to suffer. Giving away a daughter to someone, a childless sibling or a great aunt who is in need of caring, was considered a virtue. Girls were presents, companions, kitchen-hands, bed-mates, baby-making machines. Also, the tradition makes the mother feel ashamed for not being able to produce a son. China is an agricultural country where hard labor is a means of survival—a man can carry three hundred pounds of soil while a woman a hundred fifty. See my point?" (Evans, 2000, p. XIV)
One of the best paragraphs in the book is only a few pages in:
"Why is it the girls who are lost? Don’t take it personally. Please understand that Chinese women are cultivated to suffer. Giving away a daughter to someone, a childless sibling or a great aunt who is in need of caring, was considered a virtue. Girls were presents, companions, kitchen-hands, bed-mates, baby-making machines. Also, the tradition makes the mother feel ashamed for not being able to produce a son. China is an agricultural country where hard labor is a means of survival—a man can carry three hundred pounds of soil while a woman a hundred fifty. See my point?" (Evans, 2000, p. XIV)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 17, 2017
Part memoir of adopting her daughter from China, and part accounting of how China's age old son preference coupled with its horrific one child policy led to the "disappearance" and loss of its daughters. At times difficult to read about the colossal human tragedies, but informative and well researched she tells the many stories with honesty and empathy. I resonated with the beautiful telling.
May 2, 2012
The Lost Daughters of China is by far the most saddest book I have ever read. Many things on the orphanages in China were facts I did not know. This was an eye opener on the social issues going on in China. The book touches many aspects on this phenomena and the impact that it has. There have been documentaries on the living conditions of the orphanages which I found out there are over 1000 state ran orphanages in China alone. The girls that are adopted then have to deal with them discovering who they are and to search if they choose to, for their biological family. That alone is a very hard task because many of these girls are left on market doorsteps with not a single trace of their biological parents.
I found several things to be disturbing about the facts stated:
1. There are thousands of babygirls abandoned throughout China for various reasons, on ebeing the country's government policy on 1 child per family "son preferred".
2. There were some quotes stated that were very sad such as: "It is more profitable to raise geese than to raise a daughter" and "Girls are like maggots on rice".
3. Some women who live in rural areas of China and can't afford medical care when they are pregnant, give birth to their child at home with the assistance of a midwife. The midwife gathers ashes, and if the baby born is a girl her face is smoothered in the ashes.
The things I read in this book will stay with me for a very long time if not forever. What a blessing for the thousand of Americans who adopt little girls from this country. They give these girls a 2nd chance at life. The book was a very touching memoir. If this book doesnt pull your heartstrings, well then I don't know what will!
I found several things to be disturbing about the facts stated:
1. There are thousands of babygirls abandoned throughout China for various reasons, on ebeing the country's government policy on 1 child per family "son preferred".
2. There were some quotes stated that were very sad such as: "It is more profitable to raise geese than to raise a daughter" and "Girls are like maggots on rice".
3. Some women who live in rural areas of China and can't afford medical care when they are pregnant, give birth to their child at home with the assistance of a midwife. The midwife gathers ashes, and if the baby born is a girl her face is smoothered in the ashes.
The things I read in this book will stay with me for a very long time if not forever. What a blessing for the thousand of Americans who adopt little girls from this country. They give these girls a 2nd chance at life. The book was a very touching memoir. If this book doesnt pull your heartstrings, well then I don't know what will!
May 7, 2010
The first 3/4 of this book are gorgeous. Beautifully structured, great narrative thread, multi-layered, moving without being cloying, informative without being dry. Just truly lovely. Politically, the author and I have different visions but she uses such a light hand with the politics that it was easy to overlook the difference.
In the epilogue things break down. The structure falls apart and it teeters on the brink of preachy in spots.
In regards to the topic of women's rights in China I don't know that I author and I reach a similar conclusion. I am squarely in the camp that believes that no progress will be made until the women themselves demand something better. That is how the advancement of women's rights have occurred historically. Until the women of China (and many other Asian countries) stop perpetuating the very traditions that keep them oppressed there can't be advancement. Unfortunately, Asian mothers who have been victims of a culture that devalues daughters typically inflict the same fate on their own daughters. In China, this has had particularly tragic consequences for girls under the restrictive One Child Policy.
In the epilogue things break down. The structure falls apart and it teeters on the brink of preachy in spots.
In regards to the topic of women's rights in China I don't know that I author and I reach a similar conclusion. I am squarely in the camp that believes that no progress will be made until the women themselves demand something better. That is how the advancement of women's rights have occurred historically. Until the women of China (and many other Asian countries) stop perpetuating the very traditions that keep them oppressed there can't be advancement. Unfortunately, Asian mothers who have been victims of a culture that devalues daughters typically inflict the same fate on their own daughters. In China, this has had particularly tragic consequences for girls under the restrictive One Child Policy.
March 22, 2012
Read this book two times. The first time was when I first submitted my adoption paperwork and the second time a couple of years after my daughter came home. I'm glad I read it again, got a whole different perspective after the adoption. Funny that both my daugher and Karen's daughter come from southern China! I highly recommend this one to adoptive families.
March 1, 2009
I'm done and not finished. Couldn't take it any more. Goodreads needs a place for books you tried and couldn't finish.
August 28, 2011
Very sensitive and comprehensive overview of China's adoption process and the forces at work in Chinese society and government that create this culture of abandonment. Excellent read.
August 2, 2023
This was not enjoyable. I appreciate the author’s account of her journey adopting her daughter. However, I did not appreciate the white savior complex and condescending feel weaved throughout the entirety of the book. Overall, reading this just made me mad and sad.
October 9, 2012
While this book is now a decade old, it can still serve as good guide to the patience testing ordeal of adopting a child in China. Author Karin Evans runs you through the system expectant parents experience and the emotional roller coaster they ride. She explains why the child will most likely be a girl and speculates on the girl's short life before adoption.
This book fully succeeds on the personal level. You empathize with the expectant parents, the abandoned babies and the parents who give them up. Evans starts you thinking about the cultural issues and what she calls the long red thread that enables people to find each other.
My one criticism is her indictment of China's one child policy. It is worthy of note, because it has a chapter of its own and the topic recurs throughout the book. She speaks of only the negative social effects and places most of the blame for the lost girls on it. The positives are mentioned (higher standard of living, more opportunities) but not in any way connected to the policy. China was headed for a Malthusian nightmare. Critics like Evans need to consider the alternative world. Evans talks bemoans China's subsistence wages and poverty, but has she considered wages and poverty if the population of China had doubled in the last 20 years?
Where Evans sees women's glasses half empty due to the one child policy, there are ways to see them as half full. While women surrendered their reproductive freedom, did they really have it before? What was their quality of life with 6 children (the average) and no money? I taught English at an engineering college in one of the first years of the one child policy to effect academia. Undergraduate students were an equal mix of men and women, graduate students were almost exclusively male. Evans speaks of the men who will not marry. The reverse side of this is the women who can chose a better mate, and the men who have to be better men if they want a mate.
One thing was clear to me: Max (the stork) had the best job in all of China, if not the world!
As a guide to Chinese adoption, if the details of visas waits, shots and travel might not be valid today, the emotional guide is timeless. I hope Evans writes an update on how Kelly and her peers are faring and how they make their way in the world.
This book fully succeeds on the personal level. You empathize with the expectant parents, the abandoned babies and the parents who give them up. Evans starts you thinking about the cultural issues and what she calls the long red thread that enables people to find each other.
My one criticism is her indictment of China's one child policy. It is worthy of note, because it has a chapter of its own and the topic recurs throughout the book. She speaks of only the negative social effects and places most of the blame for the lost girls on it. The positives are mentioned (higher standard of living, more opportunities) but not in any way connected to the policy. China was headed for a Malthusian nightmare. Critics like Evans need to consider the alternative world. Evans talks bemoans China's subsistence wages and poverty, but has she considered wages and poverty if the population of China had doubled in the last 20 years?
Where Evans sees women's glasses half empty due to the one child policy, there are ways to see them as half full. While women surrendered their reproductive freedom, did they really have it before? What was their quality of life with 6 children (the average) and no money? I taught English at an engineering college in one of the first years of the one child policy to effect academia. Undergraduate students were an equal mix of men and women, graduate students were almost exclusively male. Evans speaks of the men who will not marry. The reverse side of this is the women who can chose a better mate, and the men who have to be better men if they want a mate.
One thing was clear to me: Max (the stork) had the best job in all of China, if not the world!
As a guide to Chinese adoption, if the details of visas waits, shots and travel might not be valid today, the emotional guide is timeless. I hope Evans writes an update on how Kelly and her peers are faring and how they make their way in the world.
June 15, 2009
In this book, Karin Evans tells her personal story of adopting, along with her husband, two little baby girls from Chinese orphanages. The memoir component of the book is moving, but Evans also provides a journalistic examination of the issues surrounding Chinese adoption--which I found even more interesting. (The author refers to her writing genre as narrative nonfiction). She argues that the cultural preference for sons in China, alongside harsh enforcement of the one-child policy by the Chinese government, has led to the widespread abandonment of girl babies. There is now a gender gap of approx. 40 million women, who have been “lost” to infanticide and sex-selective abortion. Evans harshly critiques this phenomenon, but she is rightly sympathetic, I feel, to the Chinese women/mothers who are faced with unthinkably difficult choices. She concludes that many Chinese mothers see abandonment as their only option, and the best way to deliver a little girl to safety. Orphanages are filled with these baby girls, and families from around the world, but particularly the US, have adopted them into their homes. I really liked the sprinklings of Chinese poetry and literature in the book, and I enjoyed the way the Chinese story of the red thread was woven throughout. (It is said that a red thread is tied around the ankles of people who are destined to be together). Evans states that there are now over 100,000 Chinese-born girls living with families in the United States, so clearly, this is an issue that we will all continue to hear about in the US, even while discussion surrounding this gender gap remains remarkably quiet in China. This book provoked lots of uncomfortable feelings for me concerning transnational adoption in general, but the author is clear that this is all messy territory. In the end, I find it hard to find fault with any person offering a loving, caring, home to a child in need.
January 6, 2017
As an adoptee (from China--I was born in 1992, spent time in my orphanage in and out of foster care, and was adopted by my mom at around age two), I found it such a pleasure to read the story of one who had done the adopting. I learned so much, and it confirmed my suspicion that it is most likely I have an older sister (given the application of the one-child policy.) This book has been sitting on my mom's bookshelf for awhile, but I only just got around to it by purchasing it through a recent BookBub ad. I really enjoyed the balance of memoir, culture, literary references, and politics.
Karin Evans began the book "as a series of letters" to her daughter. She is always sensitive to the Chinese parents and the stories of the children themselves. She also acknowledges the less pleasant aspects of adoption behind-the-scenes, without dwelling overmuch and detracting from the core narrative. (CHINA'S HIDDEN CHILDREN is a good supplementary read). Here are just a few of the more lyrical quotes I highlighted whilst reading:
"Once the human heart is involved, the mystery grows ever deeper."
"Maybe we'll all share some potato salad and dumplings and marvel at how we have been drawn together...Maybe by dessert, we'd all be baring our hearts."
[quoting a filmmaker and "the professor of adoption films," Chang]: "To a certain extent, all of the Chinese feel as though they are 'birth parents' of these children..."
[Quoting a Korean adoptee, Hollee McGinnis]: "Imagine if we all walked around looking at strangers and thinking, You could have been my son or daughter."
"We owe each other the truth of our journeys."
Karin Evans began the book "as a series of letters" to her daughter. She is always sensitive to the Chinese parents and the stories of the children themselves. She also acknowledges the less pleasant aspects of adoption behind-the-scenes, without dwelling overmuch and detracting from the core narrative. (CHINA'S HIDDEN CHILDREN is a good supplementary read). Here are just a few of the more lyrical quotes I highlighted whilst reading:
"Once the human heart is involved, the mystery grows ever deeper."
"Maybe we'll all share some potato salad and dumplings and marvel at how we have been drawn together...Maybe by dessert, we'd all be baring our hearts."
[quoting a filmmaker and "the professor of adoption films," Chang]: "To a certain extent, all of the Chinese feel as though they are 'birth parents' of these children..."
[Quoting a Korean adoptee, Hollee McGinnis]: "Imagine if we all walked around looking at strangers and thinking, You could have been my son or daughter."
"We owe each other the truth of our journeys."
August 25, 2015
Beautifully written, honest, and, at times, heart-wrenching journalistic memoir of one American's family journey through Chinese adoption. I was mesmerized by the cultural clash, the descriptions of Chinese countryside, and the research that was poured into THE LOST DAUGHTERS OF CHINA.
Not only did the author beautifully weave in her experiences of adopting Kelly (Xiao Yu), but also allowed many research articles, books, and experts to weigh in as well, providing a sensitive and comprehensive read for those considering adoption from China. I read with the intention of learning more about the adoption landscape for a novel I want to write, but if I were a parent considering adoption, this would be a must-read. The prose is just gorgeous, but the information is functional.
My only complaint is, I felt the last few chapters were a bit redundant, there were times I felt the book should have been over, when in fact, there was another chapter (or two!). Tighter editing would have helped. Overall, a fabulous book. I'm in awe.
To see all of my reviews, including author interviews, please see: www.leslielindsay.com
Not only did the author beautifully weave in her experiences of adopting Kelly (Xiao Yu), but also allowed many research articles, books, and experts to weigh in as well, providing a sensitive and comprehensive read for those considering adoption from China. I read with the intention of learning more about the adoption landscape for a novel I want to write, but if I were a parent considering adoption, this would be a must-read. The prose is just gorgeous, but the information is functional.
My only complaint is, I felt the last few chapters were a bit redundant, there were times I felt the book should have been over, when in fact, there was another chapter (or two!). Tighter editing would have helped. Overall, a fabulous book. I'm in awe.
To see all of my reviews, including author interviews, please see: www.leslielindsay.com
May 18, 2015
Karin Evans finds balance and harmony between well-researched journalistic bits and pieces and thoughtful and quiet moments of personal narrative and poetic prose. The Lost Daughters of China: Abandoned Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past is a beautiful and bittersweet book with a sad story, a sagacious storyteller, and a stirring and starting up of sunflower societies in response to the author's tragicomic time-traveling trip through a complex and constantly changing China.
Let us say a special prayer and take a moment of silence for the lost daughters and mothers of China.
"May things improve for children [and women] everywhere." (249)
Post-it note: I met the author once upon a time in America. I was on my way in to start my SPU MFA in poetry; she was graduating with her SPU MFA in poetry and on her way out as an articulate voice and advocate for building bridges between peoples. Where East meets West?
Let us say a special prayer and take a moment of silence for the lost daughters and mothers of China.
"May things improve for children [and women] everywhere." (249)
Post-it note: I met the author once upon a time in America. I was on my way in to start my SPU MFA in poetry; she was graduating with her SPU MFA in poetry and on her way out as an articulate voice and advocate for building bridges between peoples. Where East meets West?
May 23, 2008
The Lost Daughters of China was a book I wanted to read since I'd traveled to China years before. I wanted to understand further about the surplus of unwanted female children that no one spoke of while I was there. The book will definitely educate you on the historical/political reasons baby girls are abandoned or murdered as well as give a small emotional perspective. I felt that the mothers were humanized through this book and for the first time really saw the emotions one must have giving up a child that everyone tells you you can not keep. My take is that it's a "must read" for those considering Chinese adoption, although I am not well-versed with this topic! I did feel coversant with friends adopting from China after reading this book and understood a lot more about the Chinese political and social mores that both allow and prevent the adoption of these babies.
November 5, 2009
I appreciated the reason for writing the book. After a while it felt like she was stating the same premis and adding more stats to support it. It got dull. I found myself skipping/skimming pages just to get to the end.
March 19, 2008
wasn't what I expected it to be..
December 30, 2008
This book was the authors journal of her adoption and time spent in China. There was too much personal detail for me. It wasn't really what I was looking for.
January 7, 2012
A powerful and moving story not very powerfully or very movingly told.
June 28, 2016
Beautiful, heartbreaking, yet hopeful. This is a wonderfully researched, well-written gem.
July 11, 2017
Story of a woman who adopted a daughter from China. She also told of sights the she saw, stories from other adoptive mother and some birth mothers.
October 22, 2018
Rambling, repetitive, over-long, slightly confused in relation to stats, projections, personal take on things... and that's just the epilogue (a 70-page addition to the second edition). This was a very personal book, and it was full of the thoughts and musings and daydreams of the author as she and her husband travelled the inter-country adoption road, learned about China, and have worked hard on maintaining and making connections with some aspects of Chinese culture and with some Chinese people and with lots of other families who have adopted from China. (I suspect that if I were an American adopting from China I would be one of those parents, who get a couple of mentions in the book, who don't spend most of their spare time on paper cuts, dragon dances, Chinese Comunity Association events, dumplings, and finding friends for my kid among ethnically-Chinese adopted. Actually, I more than suspect this. But one respects the choices of others, and I have to concede the possibility that my imagined colour-blind self and colour-blind community would be naive and unhelpful.) To be fair, it is almost impossible not to like the Evans who appears in these pages -- well-meaning, compassionate, eager to learn, sensitive to race but anti-prejudice, serious about what she undertook, loving towards her kids, etc.
[Minor rant: I was rather impatient at times with a person who, without being a Buddhist or a Daoist or (apparently) anything other than vaguely "spiritual" (half-heartedly invoking "the gods" and whatnot) puts Buddha statues in her garden and gets her young kids to bow and offer incense in a tourist temple in China... Let's just say I have a different take on spirituality and religion, and a contempt for empty ritual and the charade of buying in to something you don't actually believe or really know anything about... Rant over.]
The reader learns with Evans, as it were, about various aspects of the adoption business in China pre-2005-ish. (The fact that it is seriously dated is hardly the fault of the writer, who worked on it in the late 90s.) But I have to confess that I wanted more content and analysis and less personal musing. On the one hand I kind of appreciated Evans' attempt in the book to avoid a critical or superior tone, and in life to encourage her daughters with positive things about China lest they grow up to hate it (or something, she never quite spells that out... and I take serious philosophical issue with this, since balancing the "bad" of "China" with its "good" in order to avoid psychologically unhealthy judgements/feelings is, to me, a rather simplistic way to go about things, when "China" is an imaginary construct that doesn't really need any defending since "it" didn't really do anything to her daughters or their birth mothers, and there are more sensible ways of making judgements about the right actors, forces, agencies, etc... anyway that's a big, fuzzy question that I can't address in this review, or perhaps, owing to my limited intellect, at all!) She writes sensitively, if speculatively, about the anguish and pain of mothers who have to give up their children. On the other hand, there is a lot more horror in the overall situation than she tells, and even she tells quite a bit.
In the end, maybe I was expecting a different book, one a bit more penetrating. What I got was a positive, but not rose-tinted, story of two adoptions from China to America (and that is to be celebrated and enjoyed, don't get me wrong), in a swirl of fairly superficial comparison stories, snippets of other voices, contextual information, and attending Chinese New Year celebrations in San Fransisco. There was plenty to enjoy and admire, but there was waaaaay too much padding. And this was not the story of lost daughters, so much as of an adoptive mother who immersed herself in aspects of other lives and another culture-- a valid story, sure but not what it said on the tin.
This book put me on to further reading, interesting articles and whatnot, and reviews of other books on the topic will appear at some point. Haven't yet got hold of Xinran's book, a collection of stories of the birth mothers, and I'm not sure if I can bring myself to read it beyond the summaries and excerpts I have already seen. The horror of the treatment of babies in its pages, the warping and oppressing of the adults who do what they do (not as "criminals" or "exceptions" but in the ordinary course of things), is not something that I quite know how to respond to in this format.
From the LA Times...
A grim tale of child abuse in China
A woman is to undergo surgery to remove some of the 26 needles stuck in her body when she was an infant.
September 11, 2007|Ching-Ching Ni | Times Staff Writer
[Minor rant: I was rather impatient at times with a person who, without being a Buddhist or a Daoist or (apparently) anything other than vaguely "spiritual" (half-heartedly invoking "the gods" and whatnot) puts Buddha statues in her garden and gets her young kids to bow and offer incense in a tourist temple in China... Let's just say I have a different take on spirituality and religion, and a contempt for empty ritual and the charade of buying in to something you don't actually believe or really know anything about... Rant over.]
The reader learns with Evans, as it were, about various aspects of the adoption business in China pre-2005-ish. (The fact that it is seriously dated is hardly the fault of the writer, who worked on it in the late 90s.) But I have to confess that I wanted more content and analysis and less personal musing. On the one hand I kind of appreciated Evans' attempt in the book to avoid a critical or superior tone, and in life to encourage her daughters with positive things about China lest they grow up to hate it (or something, she never quite spells that out... and I take serious philosophical issue with this, since balancing the "bad" of "China" with its "good" in order to avoid psychologically unhealthy judgements/feelings is, to me, a rather simplistic way to go about things, when "China" is an imaginary construct that doesn't really need any defending since "it" didn't really do anything to her daughters or their birth mothers, and there are more sensible ways of making judgements about the right actors, forces, agencies, etc... anyway that's a big, fuzzy question that I can't address in this review, or perhaps, owing to my limited intellect, at all!) She writes sensitively, if speculatively, about the anguish and pain of mothers who have to give up their children. On the other hand, there is a lot more horror in the overall situation than she tells, and even she tells quite a bit.
In the end, maybe I was expecting a different book, one a bit more penetrating. What I got was a positive, but not rose-tinted, story of two adoptions from China to America (and that is to be celebrated and enjoyed, don't get me wrong), in a swirl of fairly superficial comparison stories, snippets of other voices, contextual information, and attending Chinese New Year celebrations in San Fransisco. There was plenty to enjoy and admire, but there was waaaaay too much padding. And this was not the story of lost daughters, so much as of an adoptive mother who immersed herself in aspects of other lives and another culture-- a valid story, sure but not what it said on the tin.
This book put me on to further reading, interesting articles and whatnot, and reviews of other books on the topic will appear at some point. Haven't yet got hold of Xinran's book, a collection of stories of the birth mothers, and I'm not sure if I can bring myself to read it beyond the summaries and excerpts I have already seen. The horror of the treatment of babies in its pages, the warping and oppressing of the adults who do what they do (not as "criminals" or "exceptions" but in the ordinary course of things), is not something that I quite know how to respond to in this format.
From the LA Times...
A grim tale of child abuse in China
A woman is to undergo surgery to remove some of the 26 needles stuck in her body when she was an infant.
September 11, 2007|Ching-Ching Ni | Times Staff Writer
February 22, 2011
Karin Evans is the author of The Lost Daughters of China: Abandoned Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past, published in 2000. Her book was born out of a series of letters she wrote to her daughter while she and her husband were waiting for her adoption to go through. “I was just writing, writing while I was waiting for her.” This is Ms. Evans first book; she has a background as a journalist. She says, “In a way, writing a book was very similar to writing a journalistic feature story – the same kind of research and interviewing, choosing a structure and a way to tell the story, balancing points of view, interpreting facts, and working it all into a graceful whole.”
Must we put the best face forward to accept our role in taking the child of another? Do we put the fates and the angels on our side? What do we do about the many endings that are not so happy? The babies who are left behind?
This might be nice positive writing but is it representative of the big picture? I think this book is too neatly wrapped to allow us to feel good about what we are doing. There is too much Red Thread in The Lost Daughters of China for me. The Red Thread is the concept that people are meant for each other, attached to each other by a Red Thread that stretches from one to the other even across the ocean. This baby was meant for me. We were destined to be together.
In spite of my own sweet recollections of our coming together with our Chinese daughter Mei Mei, there was a little too much saccharine here in The Lost Daughters, page after page, especially halfway through. The violins were a little too loud. There is plenty of drama in the international adoption of an abandoned girl child. None need be manufactured.
In Chapter Six, Matters of Life and Death, the other side of the coin is displayed: the horror of children dying in orphanages from abuse and neglect.
The Lost Daughters, while including a good deal of detail of the Evans’ adoption of Kelly, pays considerable attention to the broader issues of adoption in China. The conditions in orphanages are described although there are suggestions that the Chinese government may not be totally forthcoming with accurate information and many orphanages are off limits. The politics of international adoption are also examined.
The resources available to families who have adopted Chinese daughters are a quantum leap more significant in San Francisco where Karin Evans lives than in Lynchburg, Virginia, where I live. But we want to believe that life in Lynchburg is better than the life left behind in Aksu, China. Is it?
Near the conclusion of her book, Karin Evans sums up her wish:
This is, in fact, the major tone of the book. Is it too optimistic? Too cloyingly sweet? Are the Lost Daughters of China precious gifts from the developing world to thankful Americans? Or are they goods stolen from desperate circumstances and limited options?
One thing to remember: this book was published in 2000. That might seem pretty recent but in the decade since then, tremendous changes have occurred in China. Annual economic growth rates between 8% and 10%. Expansion of super highways that have transformed inaccessible rural areas into booming metropolises. Many migrating from rural to urban. In China, the numbers are always gigantic. The book is talking about a population of China of 1.2 billion people in the late 1990s. By 2010, the population is 1.34 billion, an increase of 9%. Change in China has been phenomenal from any point of view in the ten years since the book was published.
http://www.goodreads.com/photo/user/3...
This is a link to a picture of Mei Mei shortly after she came from Aksu, China, to Lynchburg, Virginia, in December 2006. She was 3 1/2 years old; she weighed 18 pounds. I took her all over downtown to introduce her to people who had heard she was coming. She came with short hair. This made some people think that maybe she was a boy. But her hair grew and so did she. However, she is still the smallest in her second grade class.
Must we put the best face forward to accept our role in taking the child of another? Do we put the fates and the angels on our side? What do we do about the many endings that are not so happy? The babies who are left behind?
This baby was found; she was meant to be found – that is the important point here. The story that Kelly's mother had to offer, I realized, was closer than we thought. The best evidence was Kelly herself. Her sweetness and courage, her humor and grace. Her mother left the biggest clue of all in this baby's ready smile. Her mother loved her. If I know nothing else about this woman who gave me the gift of this beautiful child, I know this: When she cared for this baby, she cared wholeheartedly. When she set her down, she set her down gently.
This might be nice positive writing but is it representative of the big picture? I think this book is too neatly wrapped to allow us to feel good about what we are doing. There is too much Red Thread in The Lost Daughters of China for me. The Red Thread is the concept that people are meant for each other, attached to each other by a Red Thread that stretches from one to the other even across the ocean. This baby was meant for me. We were destined to be together.
Sometimes, I’d heard, when he walked through the orphanages, he touched the babies on the heads and whispered to them, “Hey, you will have a home very soon.”
. . .
Yet I knew that somewhere in the landscape that was fast disappearing from sight I had a Chinese soul mate, a mother who had by her unfathomably sad loss allowed me to realize and almost impossible dream. Where was she and what was she thinking in that moment that her tiny daughter was being lifted high into the air and out of the land of her birth?
. . .
“We have a saying in China,” he said. “We say that maybe these babies grew in the wrong stomachs, but now they have found the right parents.”
In spite of my own sweet recollections of our coming together with our Chinese daughter Mei Mei, there was a little too much saccharine here in The Lost Daughters, page after page, especially halfway through. The violins were a little too loud. There is plenty of drama in the international adoption of an abandoned girl child. None need be manufactured.
This baby’s mother and possibly her mother had held her, fed her, carried her, for at least three months before she was found [in the market] and taken to the orphanage. Babies have persuasive powers to make us love them and three months is a long time. How unspeakably hard it must have been to walk away. And yet someone had. While I was at home in San Francisco, fretting about bureaucratic logjams, someone in south China was bundling up that beautiful three-month-old for a last trip to the marketplace.
In Chapter Six, Matters of Life and Death, the other side of the coin is displayed: the horror of children dying in orphanages from abuse and neglect.
According to the World Health Organization, around the world 10 million children under five die each year from disease, malnutrition, and violence. If children everywhere have a common enemy, its name is poverty.
The Lost Daughters, while including a good deal of detail of the Evans’ adoption of Kelly, pays considerable attention to the broader issues of adoption in China. The conditions in orphanages are described although there are suggestions that the Chinese government may not be totally forthcoming with accurate information and many orphanages are off limits. The politics of international adoption are also examined.
The resources available to families who have adopted Chinese daughters are a quantum leap more significant in San Francisco where Karin Evans lives than in Lynchburg, Virginia, where I live. But we want to believe that life in Lynchburg is better than the life left behind in Aksu, China. Is it?
Near the conclusion of her book, Karin Evans sums up her wish:
For now, I hope every mother back in China will realize someday what a gift she has given to a family like mine; that she can know that her daughter is greatly loved and well cared for. I hope that changes within China help all its lost girls and all their lost mothers. I hope the orphanages – if they must exist at all – prosper. I hope the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs gets the support it needs to move those dossiers along quickly and that the magical and mysterious matchmaking continues. I hope, in fact, that the floodgates open. I hope the aunties and foster parents in China are numerous and good-hearted. I hope every lost daughter, discovered on a bench, left in a field, found wandering alone, can be nourished, touched, smiled at, and given a home – if not in the land of her birth, then in another place where she’ll be happy.
This is, in fact, the major tone of the book. Is it too optimistic? Too cloyingly sweet? Are the Lost Daughters of China precious gifts from the developing world to thankful Americans? Or are they goods stolen from desperate circumstances and limited options?
One thing to remember: this book was published in 2000. That might seem pretty recent but in the decade since then, tremendous changes have occurred in China. Annual economic growth rates between 8% and 10%. Expansion of super highways that have transformed inaccessible rural areas into booming metropolises. Many migrating from rural to urban. In China, the numbers are always gigantic. The book is talking about a population of China of 1.2 billion people in the late 1990s. By 2010, the population is 1.34 billion, an increase of 9%. Change in China has been phenomenal from any point of view in the ten years since the book was published.
http://www.goodreads.com/photo/user/3...
This is a link to a picture of Mei Mei shortly after she came from Aksu, China, to Lynchburg, Virginia, in December 2006. She was 3 1/2 years old; she weighed 18 pounds. I took her all over downtown to introduce her to people who had heard she was coming. She came with short hair. This made some people think that maybe she was a boy. But her hair grew and so did she. However, she is still the smallest in her second grade class.
March 18, 2023
Very interesting -
April 28, 2025
The narrative was all over the place but seeing as the author was a journalist, she did a great job conveying a wide range of topics with thorough research. Of course it’s outdated now but I still appreciated the work and emotions put into such a personal subject. This really solidifies my desire to travel back to China.
November 28, 2024
I decided to come back to this review a couple months later in November to document my thoughts on a book that describes the beginning of my life story and the life stories of thousands of other young girls (and some boys) adopted from China. With international adoptions officially ended per the Chinese government, I have found myself looking both inward and outward, reflecting on how one official decree changed the lives of so many young people.
I didn’t agree wholly with all the sentiments and pieces of advice the author included, and I found her actions/words almost performative at times and leaning towards white saviorism. I couldn’t help but notice the slightest Western bias from her as well. Moreover, much of the book is about the musings of the author, not her daughter. Perhaps I am just over sensitive to matters concerning interracial adoption, but the impact it leaves on children is often something parents are either ill-equipped to handle or choose not to handle at all. Not all of us grew up with San Francisco’s Chinatown in our backyard and Mandarin lessons every Monday and Wednesday after school. Writing this, I wonder if I would ever be satisfied with any retelling no matter the authoring party save for myself. Now that is a thought I’ll likely continue to ruminate on.
I didn’t agree wholly with all the sentiments and pieces of advice the author included, and I found her actions/words almost performative at times and leaning towards white saviorism. I couldn’t help but notice the slightest Western bias from her as well. Moreover, much of the book is about the musings of the author, not her daughter. Perhaps I am just over sensitive to matters concerning interracial adoption, but the impact it leaves on children is often something parents are either ill-equipped to handle or choose not to handle at all. Not all of us grew up with San Francisco’s Chinatown in our backyard and Mandarin lessons every Monday and Wednesday after school. Writing this, I wonder if I would ever be satisfied with any retelling no matter the authoring party save for myself. Now that is a thought I’ll likely continue to ruminate on.
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