Wish You Happy Forever Read Online Free PDF Page A

Norman” was the only Chinese person I knew at the time who had genuine dealings with the Chinese government. He was a natural for Half the Sky. Plus, while we were waiting to adopt, I’d given him and his cousin a bit part in my movie, so I liked to think we had a special place in his heart.
    Dick and I invited Norman to lunch with our radiant little daughter and shared our plan. I told him about Dr. Johnson and Dr. Edwards and about Wen Zhao.
    â€œNorman, we’d be thrilled if you’d consider joining our board and help to make Half the Sky a reality. It’s really because of you and your work that all this is happening. So what do you think?”
    Norman smiled. “It’s a good plan. But difficult. China is not an easy place. Your daughter is very lovely. She must bring you much happiness.”
    He didn’t seem dying to jump in. I went on to explain that all I really needed him to do was present the plan to the CCAA—the China Center for Adoption Affairs—in Beijing. Once the government agreed to talk to me, I would take care of the rest.
    â€œYou should go to the provincial authorities first. CCAA very difficult.”
    â€œI see. Well, would you do that for us, Norman? After facilitating all those adoptions, I’ll bet you must have great relations in Guangdong Province.”
    â€œIt is difficult. Did you try the shrimp?”
    Okay. Well, he didn’t say no.
    And here was my first real China lesson: China is like Hollywood. Nobody likes to say no. In fact, it’s almost impossible to make someone actually say the word no . In Hollywood, it’s because nobody wants to be the one to pass on a future mega-hit. In China, it’s because nobody wants to be the nail that sticks out and gets hammered. This I could live with. I just had to figure out the Chinese equivalent of not taking your phone calls. That’s how they say no in Hollywood.
    So lunch ended and Norman went to China and I eagerly waited for news.
    BY NOW, I’D given up any thought of Half the Sky as a little project I’d do on the side while continuing to toil in the Hollywood trenches. I failed to turn in the screenplay for my next film; in fact, I barely wrote a word after seeing Maya through that kitchen window. Half the Sky was the story I wanted to write.
    My dear husband, my soul mate, said he was with me all the way. We sold our house and moved back to the Bay Area, to an old farmhouse in the Berkeley hills. The new dining room became our Half the Sky production office.
    The timing was great. Dick was helping out on a film project with Public Media Center, a nonprofit advertising agency in San Francisco. The company was run by Herb Chao Gunther, loquacious, sometimes brilliant, and definitely the cockiest, most opinionated Chinese German radical lefty ad guy around. We met.
    â€œWhat makes you think you can make a difference?” Herb said.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said.
    â€œBut that doesn’t stop you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œGood.”
    Then the helpful hints came faster than I could write them down. Best of all, Herb was actually working in China. He had wangled some hefty grant funds from the Ford Foundation to train family planning officials in midlevel Chinese cities how to present sex education. He worked with a Chinese organization that might be willing to partner with Half the Sky. He had my China connection!
    Herb promised to introduce me to Madame Miao Xia, secretary general of the China Population Welfare Foundation (CPWF), a Chinese NGO, or nongovernmental organization. “Well, actually, it’s a GONGO,” he said, “a government-organized nongovernmental organization.”
    â€œChina’s nonprofits are really run by the government?”
    â€œExactly,” he said. “All truly functioning NGOs in China are, in fact, organized by the government and run by retired government officials. So you have to find a nainai