Emily Prager: Wuhu Diary

By SUE YOUNGER

Inter-cultural adoption is fraught with sensitivities. Emily Prager's account of travelling back to China with her 4-year-old adopted daughter, Lulu, sets them out nicely. Lulu was abandoned on a bridge in Wuhu in the southern province of Anhui at three days old.

"The police took her in, brought her to the orphanage where, somehow, she was assigned to me, a single woman writer living in Greenwich Village at the other end of the earth."

Prager, a sinophile, is determined her daughter will get as much access to Chinese culture and tradition as possible. But one can't help feeling the journey is as much for Prager - she clearly feels some discomfort and sensitivity about taking a child from China, despite knowing that Lulu's life in an orphanage at the time would have been pretty grim.

Just days after their arrival in Wuhu, China is engulfed by a wave of anti-American feeling due to the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Kosovo.

This rather thwarts Prager's admirable intentions to cross cultural divides and to help Lulu understand her origins. Fear confines them largely to their hotel and local entertainment attractions.

An understanding of the living conditions and psychological state that made Lulu's mother abandon her is something that remains tantalisingly out of reach.

And officials ban them from visiting the orphanage where Lulu was placed, insisting they visit a bright, happy "show" orphanage.

Prager resigns herself to observing Lulu's relationships with hotel and pre-school staff. Eventually, she feels satisfied with this for her daughter's first trip to China but it all seems a little artificial to the reader.

The prose is rather breathless and Prager often overwhelms us with detail but in the end her sincerity wins us over and it becomes quite moving.

She is fighting to find the path that is best for Lulu and her honesty about her own internal struggle is the most satisfying part of the book. How do you explain to a 4-year-old that her original parents left her to fend for herself at three days old?

Prager leaves China convinced the journey has done much to quiet Lulu - she believes Lulu has "reclaimed some essential part of herself". Whether this is real or simply Prager's projection, only time will tell. I, for one, would welcome Lulu's account of her own psychological journey when she is old enough to write one.

Those involved in inter-cultural adoption will love this book but it is also a nice evocation of this part of China at a fascinating time and a sometimes moving discussion on the nature of identity for the rest of us.

* Sue Younger is an Auckland documentary-maker.

Random House

$39.95