Book review: Good Chinese Wife, by Susan Blumberg-Kason
When Susan Blumberg-Kason sought legal help in the US to leave her Chinese husband of five years, she was told to explain the reasons for the marriage breakdown and events leading to her flight from their San Francisco home with their toddler. Her narrative covered 67 handwritten sheets of lined paper.
by Susan Blumberg-Kason
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When Susan Blumberg-Kason sought legal help in the US to leave her Chinese husband of five years, she was told to explain the reasons for the marriage breakdown and events leading to her flight from their San Francisco home with their toddler. Her narrative covered 67 handwritten sheets of lined paper.
Those memories are fleshed out in a bittersweet memoir set mostly in the US and Hong Kong that raises questions about whether "culture" can ever be an excuse for bad behaviour.
Differences between American and Chinese ways of living fill many pages, but in the author's summation of the "shameful events" that caused the split, most cannot be blamed on a clash of cultures. They include infidelity on the part of her mainland-born husband, Cai. His threats of physical violence and silent treatment do not help. Neither does his handling of their baby: he once dangles him over a second-floor staircase to stop him crying.
"When I read about [the events] on paper, I wept not because they'd happened," Blumberg-Kason writes, "but because I'd allowed them to happen."
That she condones Cai's behaviour for so long is perhaps understandable after Jake is born because, she thinks, he needs a father. But even before they become parents, her husband exhibits Jekyll-and-Hyde personalities: open and loving one minute; cold and callous the next.