This week, NüVoices editor and board member Jessie Lau speaks to returning guest, award-winning author and journalist Barbara Demick, about her new book “Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins.”
In this exclusive episode, Demick shares her journey reporting on the extraordinary tale of twin sisters who were born in China, forcibly separated by enforcers of China’s One Child Policy who sold one daughter into adoption in the United States, and finally reunited through her investigative journalism.
Demick and Jessie discuss how the book explores China’s One Child Policy through historical, political and personal perspectives, and challenges stereotypical narratives about China and the US. Demick also describes her experience chronicling the powerful reunion of the twins and their families, and shares tips on approaching creative non-fiction writing.
On the process of investigating and reporting on this story:
“For me, as a reporter, I saw a part of China that I think very few foreigners saw. People will often talk about interviewing the laobaixing, the common people … But these people were of a much lower social class. They were farmers, some of them working as migrants. But they weren’t stupid. …This was an age of emboldenment, and they started fighting for their rights. And one way they were doing it was talking to journalists.”
On the experience of reuniting the separated twins:
“As a journalist, watching a reunion between separated twins is magic … It’s gold … On the surface, they were quite different. But as I got to know them better, I could see at the core, how similar they were. They’re both very calm people…They had this wiseness to them.”
On dispelling the narrative about Chinese adoptees:
“There’s a lot of demonization of the Chinese families who ‘relinquished’ daughters …That’s a narrative that a lot of adoptees have grown up with. I think it’s a narrative that’s somehow convenient for the Western adoption agencies and maybe for the adoptive parents to think that they rescued these babies, but I think it’s a narrative that’s been very destructive for the adoptees. …
One of the investigators who was helping me thought about 10% [of adoptees] were taken …There were various measures of coercion. The book is dedicated to adoptees, and I thought it was really important to understand how they got to where they are today because of this situation in China.”
Shownotes:
“The Chinese Adoptees Who Were Stolen” by Barbara Demick, article in the New Yorker
Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town by Barbara Demick
Recommendations:
Translator Magazine, the magazine of translated journalism and reportage from around the world.
Flashlight by Susan Choi, a novel set in the US, Japan, and Korea.
Self-care tips:
“If you wake up dreading the day, ask yourself, “What is it you’re dreading?” and identify what you have been avoiding to do,” says Barbara.
Jessie recommends yoga incorporating tai chi elements.
About our guest:
Barbara Demick is an author and foreign correspondent. Her books have been translated into more than 25 languages. Her newest book, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption and Separated Twins was published by Random House May 20, 2025 and has been listed by the New York Times among the best 25 books of the year. Previous books include Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town and Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, which won the U.K.’s Samuel Johnson Award (now Baillie Gifford) and was a finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award.
About our host:
Jessie Lau is a writer and London-based freelance journalist, from Hong Kong. Her reporting focuses on identity, human rights, politics and culture – particularly in China and Asia – and has appeared in The Guardian, BBC, The Economist, CNN, Los Angeles Review of Books, WIRED magazine and many other publications. Now editor and board member at the global feminist non-profit NüVoices, she’s also contributing editor at Translator, a magazine of translated journalism, and founder of New Tide Media Network, a community for East and Southeast Asian journalists in the United Kingdom. She holds a MSc in International History from the London School of Economics, an LLM in International Studies from Peking University, and a BA in English from the University of California, Berkeley.
Episode credits:
Producer: Wing Kuang
Editor, sound engineer: Rebecca Liu
NüVoices fellow: Suchita Thepkanjana
Managing Editor: Megan Cattel