August 19, 2025 • 39 mins
Bradley Jay Fills in on NightSide
Have you ever wondered what it’s really like living under the world’s most repressive regime? For citizens of North Korea, life is restrictive to say the least, where they have limited freedoms and are subject to government surveillance and propaganda. Author Barbara Demick wrote a book titled: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, which follows and tells the real-life stories of 6 North Korean residents and all they endured over a 15-year span. Demick joined us to discuss life in North Korea as well as her latest book, an equally powerful and engaging real life story: Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins?
Have you ever wondered what it’s really like living under the world’s most repressive regime? For citizens of North Korea, life is restrictive to say the least, where they have limited freedoms and are subject to government surveillance and propaganda. Author Barbara Demick wrote a book titled: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, which follows and tells the real-life stories of 6 North Korean residents and all they endured over a 15-year span. Demick joined us to discuss life in North Korea as well as her latest book, an equally powerful and engaging real life story: Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins?
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on DEBS Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Good evening, my friends, it is Nightside with Dan Ray,
Bradley Jay and for Dan. And now we're gonna find
out what it's like in China. Nobody knows. You don't know. Actually, strangely,
I know a guy who's a guitar shredder. He's a
tremendous guitar player, and for some reason, he lives in China.
So I am. I'm baffled by the whole thing. But
(00:28):
hopefully we're all gonna learn about life in China, but
not in an academic way. We're gonna learn by way
of our guests. As she talks about her book, Daughters
of the Bamboo Grove, this is her near her newest book,
Daughters of the Bamboo Grove From China to America, a
true story of abduction, adoption, and separated twins. The quick
(00:54):
elevated version is back in two thousand, of Chinese women
gave birth to twins in a bamboo grove, trying to
avoid detection by the government because she already had two daughters.
Right there. That's interesting, that's a problem. Two years later,
an American couple traveled to eight Town in China to
(01:16):
adopt a Chinese title they thought had been abandoned. Well,
this is a mystery and we're going to find out
all about it. Once again. Please welcome Barbara Demic to
Night Side.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Thanks Barbra, thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Okay, this is your baby, this is your new one,
this is your love. So let's go to town. I'll
be quiet, and you know, let's pretend you're at some
sort of ted dark or something, and you're going to
make us understand what this is about as an overview.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Okay, okay, I'll try. Well, I'm as stick on your
theme of freedom and black of free. So in China
during the eighties, nineties, actually until ten years ago, something
called we called the one child policy, and it was
designed to restrict the number of births and families. Most
(02:12):
families were not allowed more than one child. And this
was this one child policy was brutally, brutally enforced by
this these people called family planning and family planning, would
(02:32):
you know keep track of women's periods? Are we allowed
to talk about menstrual cycles on this.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Show in a medical manner?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
In a medical matter? Okay, I'm not going to make
it to grant but you know, women working women had
to report report their periods to show they were pregnant.
Sometimes they had to show their bloodstained rags.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Hold up there just a second. How did they do it?
They had they had to go like downtown or to
some some building in a strip mall.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
And given you're working in a factory, you know, you'd
have to show, you know, a rag if they didn't
generally have sanitary napkins at that time, to show that
you had your period, you do. Women were often forced
to have I. U. G's. This was very, very strictly enforced,
(03:28):
this one child policy. And this was this was the
eighties in China, and this was otherwise a relatively free
period when peoples after the death of Matt say To,
people could travel around, you know, they had much more
freedom to listen to music and read what they wanted.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
What was the point, by the way of the one
child policy.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
The they were convinced that in order to get rich,
China had to restrict its pop and this was an
idea that was very popular in the sixties, seventies and eighties.
Do you do you remember the book The Population Bomb.
This was like a big you.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Know, I remember it was a huge deal. And we
even had people come to our high school auditorium and
talk about sterilizing, about flying over the world and dropping
chemicals to sterilize people, and you had to get an
antidote to have a child. That a person actually came
to our high school and proposed that. So that's where
(04:34):
the mind of what was in that time period was.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
This was this crazy period. And you know, this was
after Mao died. China was very poor and they wanted
to get rich. This was under Dick term. They wanted
to get rich fast. They wanted to increase per capita income,
and to increase per capita income, you know, you had
(04:59):
to have were capital. This is like basic math. So
they wanted to China thought it's a whole problem with
too many people. And when they pursue something, they pursue it,
you know, with a vengeance. So this family Planning operation
had like eighty three million people working, more than the
(05:20):
People's Liberation Army. And they would, you know, it's find
sniff aut families who'd had too many children, and there
were a huge fine several years income in the villages.
They would confiscate cars and people had did have cars.
(05:43):
Farm equipment, they would confiscate farm animals, and in some
places they started confiscating babies.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Wow, And.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
That's what this is about. And the other side of
this was that at this time adoption from China had
become very very popular in the United States and elsewhere. Eventually,
one hundred and sixty thousand Chinese babies, mostly girls, would
be adopted. And you know, there was a there was
(06:15):
kind of a shortage of healthy, adoptable babies in the
United States, so people were going to China to get
their daughters. And this was very, very lucrative because out
brought in a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Any idea how much it would cost to get a
child deal? You probably don't, but maybe you do.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Oh, I do, Yeah, Okay, you're an American. I know
a lot of people who adopted. If you were an
American family, it would cost you know, upwards of twenty
twenty five thousand dollars and it was mostly pretty legitimate.
It was channeled through adoption agencies and through the Central
Agency in Beijing, but the American parents were also required
(07:02):
to make a donation to the orphanage that fostered their
child of three thousand dollars cash. One hundred dollar bills,
new hundred dollar bills, and they were required to bring
that with them to China. And it was that money
that was a fortune in rural China, that was the
money that caused the corruption. And so for my part
(07:25):
of the story, I was, you know, tracing around rural
China to these really remote villages and collecting stories from
people who said their babies were confiscated. And I met
this one family who had twins, identical twin girls, and
(07:45):
I interviewed the mom and one girl who was nine,
and she said, you know, I had a twin sister
and she was taken away. We don't know what happened
to her. We don't know if she's alive, didn't know
anything about adoption, and you know, they were very upset
about this. And the mom said to me, she was
(08:06):
really sweet, She said, yeah, you know, can you help
us come back and visit sometime, bring my daughter?
Speaker 4 (08:12):
And I was like yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
This was two thousand and nine, and after I wrote
a story about these babies being confiscated and about these twins,
and after my story got a lot of attention. It
was in the Los Angeles Times, and after it ran
I started like kind of looking around wondering if I
could find this baby. And again, this was two thousand
(08:38):
and nine. It was sort of an earlier period in
social media when things were more open and there were
a lot of adoption groups on Yahoo, and I had
a good sense of like, which orphanage this kid might
have been taken to, and you know, otherwise it would
(08:59):
have been impossible. But I knew also what she looked
like because I had met her nine year old identical
twin sister. And families were posting, you know, photos of
their kids because they were all like very proud of
these adorable girls, you know, dancing the nutcracker and doing
gymnastics and riding ponies. These were really cute kids. And
(09:23):
this one family had put up pictures of their daughter.
They were Evangelical Christians living in Texas, and they had
really adopted because they wanted to, you know, save these
abandoned babies. There was a lot of you know, a
lot of publicity about girls who were discarded and abandoned
(09:46):
because their parents wanted boys. And that was true, that
was happening in a lot of places. So I identified this girl.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That seems terrible. Not all college as are equal, right,
and in some cases you can say, well, you know,
it's just their culture. But in this case, that's just
not right. And you know that to me, that would
make that culture maybe worse than some other cultures. Right,
(10:17):
if you do that and that's part of your culture,
maybe your culture is not as not as good. Is that? Well,
I mean that's like abandoning babies.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
That's what a lot of parents thought. And it's true
that there had been there were abandoned babies, but during
this period, this was like the eighties and the nineties,
the early aughts, people were really harshly punished for having
too many kids. Yeah, you know, this is we're talking
(10:53):
about repressive regimes here.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
So you have one and then one and done, so
you don't have to abandon one. Yeah, the system is
a bummer, but you're there and you can either abide
by the system or you can abandon a baby, and
which is worse.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Well, you know, stuff, stuff happens, And you know a
lot of these regimes start by trying to control women's reproduction.
This is always like a very big starting point. And
in this case, you know, women who were pregnant were
often forced to have abortions very late. There were forced sterilizations,
(11:35):
forced of aasectomies. You know, also if your kid wasn't
you know, didn't have the right paperwork, they wouldn't be
able to go to school, they wouldn't be able to
get medical care, they wouldn't have like, you know, a
national identification. I'm talking about life and repressive regimes. That's
(11:55):
what we're talking about, is a lack of freedom.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
How did the regime treat children born with issues physical
mental issues?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
These kids, I wouldn't say it was the regime, but
the parents would often put them into abandon them or
try to put them into an orphanage to get care.
And in fact, in the last few years, the kids
who are adopted from China were mostly what we call
special needs. They have gotten better in the last few years,
(12:33):
but it was not great. And you know, you've got
to understand this system in China is that there was
no social security, no social safety network at all. So
these families I'm talking about, rural families needed a son
to care for them.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
I have to hold you there because I need to
do a quick break. I will be with you and
we'll can continue with your brand new book in a moment.
On the WBZ.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Thanks, It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Quickly, listeners, I want listeners, my friends. I shouldn't call
you a listeners friends. I'm reminding you. There's a cool
new way to be part of the night Side broadcast.
It's the talkback feature on iHeartRadio app. You download the
free iHeartRadio app, and while you're listening to this show
Nightside Live on WBZ News Radio, it's tapped at the
red microphone in the corner and you speak a message
(13:35):
and then it gets sent here and master Control there,
Rob in this case, sees it and checks it out
and maybe you hear it on the radio. Trust me,
even for those of you who are technology shy, this
can be done. And if you don't, if you feel intimidated,
ask your grandchildren to tell you how to do it.
(13:57):
We're with Barbara Demick, who whom I am well, not jealous,
very wow. I'm impressed of all the traveling you've done.
And now we're talking about her most recent book, which
deals with China and is called Daughters of the Bamboo
(14:22):
Grove From China to America, A true story of abduction, adoption,
and separated twins, and we're learning about life in China
through this, and so far we've talked about how this
key to the premise of this story is that China
had a one child policy, very enforcedly, very strictly enforced.
(14:44):
So pick it up from there, Barbara.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
So, yeah, so that's where that's where we were. There
were these girls, girl babies who were confiscated by Chinese
government officials starting around two thousand. These were not you know,
you know, all of the babies who were put up
(15:09):
for adoption, but there were some and you know, this
was kind of like supply chain problems in a way.
By the year two thousand, a lot of Americans wanted
to adopt from China. These were healthy baby girls, and
the Chinese were getting much wealthier. Attitudes towards women were improving,
(15:36):
and they didn't want to give up their girls, and
they were fighting against the government. And that's the point
where officials started confiscating babies for adoption because it was
very lucrative. And I discovered this one stolen baby who
was a twin and who had been adopted by a
(16:01):
Christian family in Texas, and these people were really do gooders.
They wanted to be. The mom had thought about being
a missionary, and she really did it because she wanted
to rescue children. She was older at the time. I
think she was already in her fifties, and you know,
(16:22):
it was a humanitarian act in her part. She had
no idea that her daughter had actually been stolen until
my story was published in two thousand and nine, and
I just wrote about the phenomenon. I did not you know,
I didn't want to reveal where this stolen child was
because she was nine years old and I couldn't do
(16:43):
that to a kid. And so, you know, I sent
the family the information I had and I said, don't worry,
I'm not publishing anything, but this is what.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
I found out.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
And some years later, actually twenty seventeen, when this girl
was a teenager. She was sixteen at the time, the
family contacted me and said, you know, our girl, she
wants to meet her twin sister. Can you help, And
you know you have to read the book because it
was a slow process, but I brought I ended up
(17:17):
bringing this girl her name is esther now back to
China to the village where she was born in a
bamboo grove to meet her identical twin sister, and it
was just an incredible experience and you had, you know,
these two two girls, you know, genetically identical, but one
(17:39):
is Chinese and one is American. And you know, I
think you learn a lot about our two countries, and
you know what we have in common, what we don't,
our rivalries and tensions. You know, through these families and
these two two young women.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
It's an experiment you could never do on purpose. It
would have to happen by accident, because it wouldn't be
right to do that, just to study cultural differences by
taking twins and separating and see how they turned out differently.
But that's in fact what happened. So how were they different?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Well, you know, interestingly, the Chinese girl is several inches
taller and a bit healthier. She doesn't have as many
allergies as her American sister. The American sister, though, who's
from Texas, has I think a lot more confidence. I
(18:38):
think she has this you know, Texas can do attitude,
and she's actually become quite successful as a photographer. You know,
she just really has a lot of confidence. But they're
both very they're both very artistic, very creative, very self contained.
(19:01):
They're not. They were not giggly teenagers. And you know,
I think a lot of their differences are really really
just you know, cultural the Chinese. The Chinese girl likes
to do calligraphy, the American girl likes to draw their
(19:23):
you know, they're just very different and very strangely because
again we're on the theme of you know, freedom and
lack thereof. China lifted the one child policy in twenty fifteen.
It was a disaster. It was actually a disaster because
you had too many boys who are now men. Can't
(19:46):
find why, and this population collapse. Their population has been
dropping the last few years. And not only have they
lifted Lunchell policy, but they're going around encouraging people to
have more children. And these very same people from family
(20:07):
Planning who were you know, forcing abortions and taking away babies,
they're now going around, you know, offering money and rice
cookers and different appliances to encourage people to have three
or more children. Cooker rice cooker is very popular applians
(20:27):
in China.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Just you know, that's like only.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Something well there's some money too, you know. It varies
from village to village, town to town. But the point
is that there they have a problem because their population
has dropped too quickly. And actually China is no longer
the most populous country in the world India, and by
(20:57):
the population is expected to drop in half by the
end of the of this century.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
A couple of questions before the break which girl, which
of the twins was better educated?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
The Chinese twins interesting?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Which one was better behaved?
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Uh? Actually I think the American twins interesting.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I wonder if the uh Chinese twin was cutting loose
and going wild because you know, just you've been in
a repressive lifestyle for a long time and now you're
free like a kid going to college. Maybe the she,
maybe she just went wild.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yeah. Well, I think they're both pretty well behaved, but
you know, they are individuals. And the girl who has adopted,
you know, she spent some time in an orphanage and
I think was pretty traumatized by and she was also
raised in a very kind of restricted home. She was homeschooled,
(22:06):
she didn't go to school, proper school, and so I
think the environment did not lend itself to, you know,
being a wild child. But they're both well behaved.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Excellent, So the book is nothing to envy. Ordinary Lives
in North excuse me, one of the books Nothing to
Envy and Ordinary Lives in North Korea, but the one
we're speaking about now. We've spoken about both of them
to night, but currently it's ordinary Lives. No, it isn't.
What's the Daughters of the Bamboo Grove From China to America,
(22:39):
a true story of abduction adoption, separated twins. If you
can hang theme around just a little longer, I'd like
to ask about you in your travels and how you
do it and do you go alone? Because I'm very
interested in traveling. And also you did go to Sarajevo
and wrote a book about what must be the Seas
of Sarajevo based on the title, and I am fascinated
(23:03):
by Sarajevo for probably the same reasons you were. What
life is like when your city is under sage, when
you're not a very big city is underseige, when there's
when there's an alley in your town called sniper alley
and you have to dodge sniper bullets to get to work,
and life goes on and how it goes on, and
(23:24):
about the black market and the way United Nations played
into Actually I believe enabling the black market by protecting
the interchange of either on purpose or by accident, at
the interchange of black market goods at the Sarajevo airport
and all that. So if you just talk a little
bit about that after this break and about your travels
(23:45):
that I would love that. It would mean a lot
to me. Can you do that it?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Yay?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Thank you very much. Now this on wb Z.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Side with Dan Ray on wbz's news radio.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Thank you. Excuse me, there's a nightside. I'm Bradley Jay
for Dan, and we were Barbara and where you are talking.
We have been talking about China and North Korea, and
I need now to address your travels. I'd love to travel,
and I have a travel channel and all but the
places you've been make my travels seem weak. You've been
(24:25):
to North North Korea three times, and you must have
been to China a number of times, and you went
to Sarajevo. We'll talk about Sarajeva in a moment. But
do you go to can you talk about these these travels?
Do you go alone? What arrangement do you make? Are
you sponsored by your your publisher? You do it on
your own?
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Dime.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
What precautions do you take as a woman traveling, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Well, I was a foreign correspondent for many years, so
I was sponsored by my newspaper, and you know I
had most places I had to have visas Sarajevo, I
guess was the most dangerous because I was there during
the siege, and well it was, you know, I stayed
(25:14):
in the Sarajevo holiday in which was on sniper alley,
and it was it was dangerous, but you know, I
spent a lot of time with regular people. I mean,
you're talking about these books. They're they're not you know,
geopolitical books. They're all about how people live. And this
(25:37):
was the Aeriava book was like how people were living
on this one street during the siege, how they cooked,
how they got water, you know, how they dodged the
martars shells. You know, would they you know, dare go
out during a shelling to take out their garbage. It
(25:57):
was just the idea was to you know, create empathy
among American readers, who you know, we Americans sometimes, you know,
I think we have.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
You know, we have such a big country.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Some sac we don't pay attention to others. Or other
how other people live. And I wanted my readers to imagine,
you know, if you were in this situation, if you
were living in North Korea when the food supply runs out,
if you're living in Sarajevo, when you're you're once very
(26:38):
comfortable city was under siege, you know, how would you cope?
What would you do in this situation. I also did
a book about Tibet, and I think that's important here
because I do these I often did these books that
are like microcosms. There was a street in Sarajevo, a
city in Sarajevo. I did a village in Tibet, and
(27:01):
that that book actually was the one that was most
explicitly about like lack of freedom, about Tibetans who were
not able to practice their religion and their culture. But again,
they're not like polemic books. They're about real people. The Buddha.
(27:24):
The Tibet book is about the princess, boy monk and
some other people living in this little town. You know,
they're all the books are about about regular people.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
You know, all the books one common theme is that
any at least the three books, the China Book, the
North Korea Book, and the Sarajevra book is I'm sure
they leave you reminded of how protected and safe and
fabulous everything is in the United States. People complain because
it's not what it used to be, and it's not,
(27:59):
but take a look around and read a book like
yours about life under the seize of Sarajevo, and it's
life and death. An egg, a single egg is going
to causet you ten the equivalent, you know, some insane
amount of money, and people continued their lives. They continue
to go to work even though it was a life
(28:23):
and death thing to do that for folks to be
able to picture what it was like, Sarajevo's in a
valley and on either side, at least on side, but
I think either side are these mountains or hills and
the serbs or in those mountains and hills just hanging
out waiting for some Sarajevan to be on their way
(28:45):
to work and would shoot them. And that was your reality.
You would have to hide behind trucks, dash between parked
cars to get to work, and people still did go
to work, and it being a seige, it was hard
to get certain things like maybe I don't know but
maybe drinking water, but certainly stables like eggs, milk, sugar
(29:09):
very tough to get. It was. It was a really
brutal thing. I'm so interested that you went there, and yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
When we when we where is there? Bradley was there.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
I went there because I was fascinated to see what
to be among people who had lived in that season.
The first time I thought about going was when I
I believe it was in a train. It was on
a train somewhere not to there, and I saw soldiers
lining the tracks because of the war, and I determined
(29:44):
then to go. So I would say in the two
thousands probably, uh whatever, I would say, it had been
over like maybe five years. And I went once and
then had an opportunity to go again, only from I
went to the capital of Serbia, and I went to
(30:05):
nov Side and what's I forget the capital of Serbia,
what is it? Be Grade? I went to Belgrade and
then I took a car back to Sarajevo because it
was so pleasant and so interesting. Because it's a divided city, folks,
it's the strangest thing. Half of it looks like say Vienna, Austria,
(30:25):
and the other half is filled with minarets and looks
and is a Muslim community, and the division is so
stark it's almost like they spray painted a line in
the main street, and once you pass that line, it's
an entirely different world. And that kind of thing is interesting.
It's interesting to me, right, it is that way, and
(30:48):
it was interesting I ahead of time. I go online
when I go somewhere and say, does anybody know anybody
in so and so town? In this case Sarajevo, And
somebody did, and they found out on the radio and
they asked me to speak to a class, some some
broadcast class or some college class. So I ended up
getting to speak to a class that made me I
(31:10):
don't know. It was really something, and I do have
videos of it. I'll send you one if you like.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Oh, I'd love to see it.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
What else can you share about Sarajevo as a wonderful
travel destination? The other places you mentioned you can't really
go easily, like China, North Korea, you can't go to Tibetan. Boy,
it's fire. Sarajevo is easy to get to. Luftanza goes there.
All you have to do is get on a plane
and get off.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
It's actually a great, a great place to travel to
just you know, fantastic food. And you know, Sarajevo had this,
you know, you know, this medley of culture is the
Turkish Muslim culture, the Catholics from Croatia, the Orthodox Serbs.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Unfortunately, I mean, the war is a very and if
you go as a tourist, it's lovely and it's safe
and just fantastic beautiful. I mean the war, though, is
was so tragic, and I think about it a lot
because you had this very you know, kind of cohesive
(32:18):
society and there was like a fifty percent mixed marriage rate,
and you know, people broke apart, you know, Serbs and
Muslims and croap and there was some ugliness. And I
think about that a lot in the United States with
the polarization among people, but there's like this this you know,
(32:43):
this anger towards each other. I don't like that, but
it reminds me of It reminds me a lot of
the war. I lived on the street I wrote about
Legobne Street, and I had this woman who I considered
my verie of mother, and she was she wasn't educated,
(33:04):
but she was just so wise and she said, you know,
people have become so evil, it's like they drank blood.
And she was talking about, you know, the hatred between people,
and that was I think that's what I remember as
being so frightening them.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
I was fascinated by being amongst spending time amongst one
group of people whose neighbors tried to exterminate them, like
neighbors just a few miles away. It's almost like if
New Hampshire tried to exterminate Massachusetts. How would you feel
about New Hampshire then? Is like that? But somehow and
(33:44):
now they do interact. And I asked the cab driver, dude,
how do you do it? How do you get along
with these people who tried to kill you? Kill you all?
And he said, he said, you do what you gotta do.
It's business. And things changed. But I'm so happy that
you joined us for so long. I am going to
buy all your books out of my own money and
(34:07):
read them because you're so fascinating and the topics are
so fascinating. Is there anything else you'd like to leave
us with contact of you know how to get the
books or anything else.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Well, I think people know how to get books, but
it's great to talk to you. And you asked you know,
some really really smart questions, not you know, not the
same questions that I've been asked before. But I guess
the thing I would actually leave you with or leave listeners.
It's true some of these cultures, you know, are very
(34:40):
foreign to us. And you were talking about earlier about
these Chinese parents who I wouldn't say abandoned, but had
to relinquish children. And you know that this book I
think brings readers into these villages in China. You know,
I spent a lot of time there, actually lived in
(35:00):
China for seven years. I really got to know these
these Chinese birth parents well. And you know, I think
American readers can learn a lot and understand, you know,
the pressures that people were in the regime that was
(35:21):
trying to you know, control your ability to have children.
And I guess the other thing I would say is
what was you know, when we talk about democracy, we
talk about you know, the ability to read this and that,
to say what we want and to have you know,
(35:42):
free speech.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Well, thank you very very very much, and uh, maybe
we'll speak again. Maybe we'll go to Sarajevo sometime. Yeah,
take care of Bibra WBZ News Radio ten thirty.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray ONBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
That's right tonight. I'm brad to Jay in for Dan
Ray and for the next For the rest of the night,
I do urge college. I did not solicit college this
time because it was pretty information only driven. But coming up,
I'm going to ask you how you feel about the
(36:22):
current foreign policy when it comes to how things are
going in Ukraine and with Ukraine and Russia. It seems
kind of all over the place. Maybe maybe you're in
favor of it, maybe you like it. And I'll ask
you about how involved should the United States be in
this conflict and why et cetera. But I say I
(36:45):
have Tom in Ohio here who knows what Tom wants
to talk about? Tom? How are you here on wb Z?
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Hi, Brother Jay, I hadn't talked to you in years,
but I used to call you in him in n Well.
In the Ukraine in twenty and fourteen, there was a
big turnover and the CIA was responsible for it.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Let's set up what we're talking about. You talking about
the Ukraine.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
And in the Dombra, actually in the Dombrass region because
in two thousand and I mean in nineteen ninety five,
the Dombas region didn't want to go to the Ukraine.
They wanted to stay with the Russians. Okay, But then
fast forward to twenty and fourteen, we had a coup
(37:45):
the Victoria Newland and the CIA had a coup. But
that the whole Dombasper region wanted to go back to Russia,
and we instigated this coup. And uh, and then and
after that point, all we did was bring a bunch
(38:06):
of armament to fight to attack Russia.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
I gotta disagree with you on that. I mean, okay, well,
how do you know the armament wasn't to defend Ukraine? Well,
why would we want to attack Russia?
Speaker 4 (38:27):
When why why would we want to all? Huh?
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Why would we What would be the advantage of attacking
Russia and nuclear power?
Speaker 4 (38:39):
There wasn't.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
All Right, I get your point. I do have to
go tom. It seems like you say that the whole
thing was instigated by the West. So we'll we'll address
that with our guests. We do have a guest on
everything coming up. It's a you know, a fair opinion,
and we'll see how that pans out. Tom and Ohio,
thank you and I appreciate and others are welcome once
we get going. We do have a guess. I'm curious
(39:04):
how you feel about the foreign policy and I will
urge you to keep it to policy
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on DEBS Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Good evening, my friends, it is Nightside with Dan Ray,
Bradley Jay and for Dan. And now we're gonna find
out what it's like in China. Nobody knows. You don't know. Actually, strangely,
I know a guy who's a guitar shredder. He's a
tremendous guitar player, and for some reason, he lives in China.
So I am. I'm baffled by the whole thing. But
(00:28):
hopefully we're all gonna learn about life in China, but
not in an academic way. We're gonna learn by way
of our guests. As she talks about her book, Daughters
of the Bamboo Grove, this is her near her newest book,
Daughters of the Bamboo Grove From China to America, a
true story of abduction, adoption, and separated twins. The quick
(00:54):
elevated version is back in two thousand, of Chinese women
gave birth to twins in a bamboo grove, trying to
avoid detection by the government because she already had two daughters.
Right there. That's interesting, that's a problem. Two years later,
an American couple traveled to eight Town in China to
(01:16):
adopt a Chinese title they thought had been abandoned. Well,
this is a mystery and we're going to find out
all about it. Once again. Please welcome Barbara Demic to
Night Side.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Thanks Barbra, thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Okay, this is your baby, this is your new one,
this is your love. So let's go to town. I'll
be quiet, and you know, let's pretend you're at some
sort of ted dark or something, and you're going to
make us understand what this is about as an overview.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Okay, okay, I'll try. Well, I'm as stick on your
theme of freedom and black of free. So in China
during the eighties, nineties, actually until ten years ago, something
called we called the one child policy, and it was
designed to restrict the number of births and families. Most
(02:12):
families were not allowed more than one child. And this
was this one child policy was brutally, brutally enforced by
this these people called family planning and family planning, would
(02:32):
you know keep track of women's periods? Are we allowed
to talk about menstrual cycles on this.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Show in a medical manner?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
In a medical matter? Okay, I'm not going to make
it to grant but you know, women working women had
to report report their periods to show they were pregnant.
Sometimes they had to show their bloodstained rags.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Hold up there just a second. How did they do it?
They had they had to go like downtown or to
some some building in a strip mall.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
And given you're working in a factory, you know, you'd
have to show, you know, a rag if they didn't
generally have sanitary napkins at that time, to show that
you had your period, you do. Women were often forced
to have I. U. G's. This was very, very strictly enforced,
(03:28):
this one child policy. And this was this was the
eighties in China, and this was otherwise a relatively free
period when peoples after the death of Matt say To,
people could travel around, you know, they had much more
freedom to listen to music and read what they wanted.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
What was the point, by the way of the one
child policy.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
The they were convinced that in order to get rich,
China had to restrict its pop and this was an
idea that was very popular in the sixties, seventies and eighties.
Do you do you remember the book The Population Bomb.
This was like a big you.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Know, I remember it was a huge deal. And we
even had people come to our high school auditorium and
talk about sterilizing, about flying over the world and dropping
chemicals to sterilize people, and you had to get an
antidote to have a child. That a person actually came
to our high school and proposed that. So that's where
(04:34):
the mind of what was in that time period was.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
This was this crazy period. And you know, this was
after Mao died. China was very poor and they wanted
to get rich. This was under Dick term. They wanted
to get rich fast. They wanted to increase per capita income,
and to increase per capita income, you know, you had
(04:59):
to have were capital. This is like basic math. So
they wanted to China thought it's a whole problem with
too many people. And when they pursue something, they pursue it,
you know, with a vengeance. So this family Planning operation
had like eighty three million people working, more than the
(05:20):
People's Liberation Army. And they would, you know, it's find
sniff aut families who'd had too many children, and there
were a huge fine several years income in the villages.
They would confiscate cars and people had did have cars.
(05:43):
Farm equipment, they would confiscate farm animals, and in some
places they started confiscating babies.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Wow, And.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
That's what this is about. And the other side of
this was that at this time adoption from China had
become very very popular in the United States and elsewhere. Eventually,
one hundred and sixty thousand Chinese babies, mostly girls, would
be adopted. And you know, there was a there was
(06:15):
kind of a shortage of healthy, adoptable babies in the
United States, so people were going to China to get
their daughters. And this was very, very lucrative because out
brought in a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Any idea how much it would cost to get a
child deal? You probably don't, but maybe you do.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Oh, I do, Yeah, Okay, you're an American. I know
a lot of people who adopted. If you were an
American family, it would cost you know, upwards of twenty
twenty five thousand dollars and it was mostly pretty legitimate.
It was channeled through adoption agencies and through the Central
Agency in Beijing, but the American parents were also required
(07:02):
to make a donation to the orphanage that fostered their
child of three thousand dollars cash. One hundred dollar bills,
new hundred dollar bills, and they were required to bring
that with them to China. And it was that money
that was a fortune in rural China, that was the
money that caused the corruption. And so for my part
(07:25):
of the story, I was, you know, tracing around rural
China to these really remote villages and collecting stories from
people who said their babies were confiscated. And I met
this one family who had twins, identical twin girls, and
(07:45):
I interviewed the mom and one girl who was nine,
and she said, you know, I had a twin sister
and she was taken away. We don't know what happened
to her. We don't know if she's alive, didn't know
anything about adoption, and you know, they were very upset
about this. And the mom said to me, she was
(08:06):
really sweet, She said, yeah, you know, can you help
us come back and visit sometime, bring my daughter?
Speaker 4 (08:12):
And I was like yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
This was two thousand and nine, and after I wrote
a story about these babies being confiscated and about these twins,
and after my story got a lot of attention. It
was in the Los Angeles Times, and after it ran
I started like kind of looking around wondering if I
could find this baby. And again, this was two thousand
(08:38):
and nine. It was sort of an earlier period in
social media when things were more open and there were
a lot of adoption groups on Yahoo, and I had
a good sense of like, which orphanage this kid might
have been taken to, and you know, otherwise it would
(08:59):
have been impossible. But I knew also what she looked
like because I had met her nine year old identical
twin sister. And families were posting, you know, photos of
their kids because they were all like very proud of
these adorable girls, you know, dancing the nutcracker and doing
gymnastics and riding ponies. These were really cute kids. And
(09:23):
this one family had put up pictures of their daughter.
They were Evangelical Christians living in Texas, and they had
really adopted because they wanted to, you know, save these
abandoned babies. There was a lot of you know, a
lot of publicity about girls who were discarded and abandoned
(09:46):
because their parents wanted boys. And that was true, that
was happening in a lot of places. So I identified this girl.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That seems terrible. Not all college as are equal, right,
and in some cases you can say, well, you know,
it's just their culture. But in this case, that's just
not right. And you know that to me, that would
make that culture maybe worse than some other cultures. Right,
(10:17):
if you do that and that's part of your culture,
maybe your culture is not as not as good. Is that? Well,
I mean that's like abandoning babies.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
That's what a lot of parents thought. And it's true
that there had been there were abandoned babies, but during
this period, this was like the eighties and the nineties,
the early aughts, people were really harshly punished for having
too many kids. Yeah, you know, this is we're talking
(10:53):
about repressive regimes here.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
So you have one and then one and done, so
you don't have to abandon one. Yeah, the system is
a bummer, but you're there and you can either abide
by the system or you can abandon a baby, and
which is worse.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Well, you know, stuff, stuff happens, And you know a
lot of these regimes start by trying to control women's reproduction.
This is always like a very big starting point. And
in this case, you know, women who were pregnant were
often forced to have abortions very late. There were forced sterilizations,
(11:35):
forced of aasectomies. You know, also if your kid wasn't
you know, didn't have the right paperwork, they wouldn't be
able to go to school, they wouldn't be able to
get medical care, they wouldn't have like, you know, a
national identification. I'm talking about life and repressive regimes. That's
(11:55):
what we're talking about, is a lack of freedom.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
How did the regime treat children born with issues physical
mental issues?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
These kids, I wouldn't say it was the regime, but
the parents would often put them into abandon them or
try to put them into an orphanage to get care.
And in fact, in the last few years, the kids
who are adopted from China were mostly what we call
special needs. They have gotten better in the last few years,
(12:33):
but it was not great. And you know, you've got
to understand this system in China is that there was
no social security, no social safety network at all. So
these families I'm talking about, rural families needed a son
to care for them.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
I have to hold you there because I need to
do a quick break. I will be with you and
we'll can continue with your brand new book in a moment.
On the WBZ.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Thanks, It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Quickly, listeners, I want listeners, my friends. I shouldn't call
you a listeners friends. I'm reminding you. There's a cool
new way to be part of the night Side broadcast.
It's the talkback feature on iHeartRadio app. You download the
free iHeartRadio app, and while you're listening to this show
Nightside Live on WBZ News Radio, it's tapped at the
red microphone in the corner and you speak a message
(13:35):
and then it gets sent here and master Control there,
Rob in this case, sees it and checks it out
and maybe you hear it on the radio. Trust me,
even for those of you who are technology shy, this
can be done. And if you don't, if you feel intimidated,
ask your grandchildren to tell you how to do it.
(13:57):
We're with Barbara Demick, who whom I am well, not jealous,
very wow. I'm impressed of all the traveling you've done.
And now we're talking about her most recent book, which
deals with China and is called Daughters of the Bamboo
(14:22):
Grove From China to America, A true story of abduction, adoption,
and separated twins, and we're learning about life in China
through this, and so far we've talked about how this
key to the premise of this story is that China
had a one child policy, very enforcedly, very strictly enforced.
(14:44):
So pick it up from there, Barbara.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
So, yeah, so that's where that's where we were. There
were these girls, girl babies who were confiscated by Chinese
government officials starting around two thousand. These were not you know,
you know, all of the babies who were put up
(15:09):
for adoption, but there were some and you know, this
was kind of like supply chain problems in a way.
By the year two thousand, a lot of Americans wanted
to adopt from China. These were healthy baby girls, and
the Chinese were getting much wealthier. Attitudes towards women were improving,
(15:36):
and they didn't want to give up their girls, and
they were fighting against the government. And that's the point
where officials started confiscating babies for adoption because it was
very lucrative. And I discovered this one stolen baby who
was a twin and who had been adopted by a
(16:01):
Christian family in Texas, and these people were really do gooders.
They wanted to be. The mom had thought about being
a missionary, and she really did it because she wanted
to rescue children. She was older at the time. I
think she was already in her fifties, and you know,
(16:22):
it was a humanitarian act in her part. She had
no idea that her daughter had actually been stolen until
my story was published in two thousand and nine, and
I just wrote about the phenomenon. I did not you know,
I didn't want to reveal where this stolen child was
because she was nine years old and I couldn't do
(16:43):
that to a kid. And so, you know, I sent
the family the information I had and I said, don't worry,
I'm not publishing anything, but this is what.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
I found out.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
And some years later, actually twenty seventeen, when this girl
was a teenager. She was sixteen at the time, the
family contacted me and said, you know, our girl, she
wants to meet her twin sister. Can you help, And
you know you have to read the book because it
was a slow process, but I brought I ended up
(17:17):
bringing this girl her name is esther now back to
China to the village where she was born in a
bamboo grove to meet her identical twin sister, and it
was just an incredible experience and you had, you know,
these two two girls, you know, genetically identical, but one
(17:39):
is Chinese and one is American. And you know, I
think you learn a lot about our two countries, and
you know what we have in common, what we don't,
our rivalries and tensions. You know, through these families and
these two two young women.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
It's an experiment you could never do on purpose. It
would have to happen by accident, because it wouldn't be
right to do that, just to study cultural differences by
taking twins and separating and see how they turned out differently.
But that's in fact what happened. So how were they different?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Well, you know, interestingly, the Chinese girl is several inches
taller and a bit healthier. She doesn't have as many
allergies as her American sister. The American sister, though, who's
from Texas, has I think a lot more confidence. I
(18:38):
think she has this you know, Texas can do attitude,
and she's actually become quite successful as a photographer. You know,
she just really has a lot of confidence. But they're
both very they're both very artistic, very creative, very self contained.
(19:01):
They're not. They were not giggly teenagers. And you know,
I think a lot of their differences are really really
just you know, cultural the Chinese. The Chinese girl likes
to do calligraphy, the American girl likes to draw their
(19:23):
you know, they're just very different and very strangely because
again we're on the theme of you know, freedom and
lack thereof. China lifted the one child policy in twenty fifteen.
It was a disaster. It was actually a disaster because
you had too many boys who are now men. Can't
(19:46):
find why, and this population collapse. Their population has been
dropping the last few years. And not only have they
lifted Lunchell policy, but they're going around encouraging people to
have more children. And these very same people from family
(20:07):
Planning who were you know, forcing abortions and taking away babies,
they're now going around, you know, offering money and rice
cookers and different appliances to encourage people to have three
or more children. Cooker rice cooker is very popular applians
(20:27):
in China.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Just you know, that's like only.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Something well there's some money too, you know. It varies
from village to village, town to town. But the point
is that there they have a problem because their population
has dropped too quickly. And actually China is no longer
the most populous country in the world India, and by
(20:57):
the population is expected to drop in half by the
end of the of this century.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
A couple of questions before the break which girl, which
of the twins was better educated?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
The Chinese twins interesting?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Which one was better behaved?
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Uh? Actually I think the American twins interesting.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I wonder if the uh Chinese twin was cutting loose
and going wild because you know, just you've been in
a repressive lifestyle for a long time and now you're
free like a kid going to college. Maybe the she,
maybe she just went wild.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yeah. Well, I think they're both pretty well behaved, but
you know, they are individuals. And the girl who has adopted,
you know, she spent some time in an orphanage and
I think was pretty traumatized by and she was also
raised in a very kind of restricted home. She was homeschooled,
(22:06):
she didn't go to school, proper school, and so I
think the environment did not lend itself to, you know,
being a wild child. But they're both well behaved.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Excellent, So the book is nothing to envy. Ordinary Lives
in North excuse me, one of the books Nothing to
Envy and Ordinary Lives in North Korea, but the one
we're speaking about now. We've spoken about both of them
to night, but currently it's ordinary Lives. No, it isn't.
What's the Daughters of the Bamboo Grove From China to America,
(22:39):
a true story of abduction adoption, separated twins. If you
can hang theme around just a little longer, I'd like
to ask about you in your travels and how you
do it and do you go alone? Because I'm very
interested in traveling. And also you did go to Sarajevo
and wrote a book about what must be the Seas
of Sarajevo based on the title, and I am fascinated
(23:03):
by Sarajevo for probably the same reasons you were. What
life is like when your city is under sage, when
you're not a very big city is underseige, when there's
when there's an alley in your town called sniper alley
and you have to dodge sniper bullets to get to work,
and life goes on and how it goes on, and
(23:24):
about the black market and the way United Nations played
into Actually I believe enabling the black market by protecting
the interchange of either on purpose or by accident, at
the interchange of black market goods at the Sarajevo airport
and all that. So if you just talk a little
bit about that after this break and about your travels
(23:45):
that I would love that. It would mean a lot
to me. Can you do that it?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Yay?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Thank you very much. Now this on wb Z.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Side with Dan Ray on wbz's news radio.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Thank you. Excuse me, there's a nightside. I'm Bradley Jay
for Dan, and we were Barbara and where you are talking.
We have been talking about China and North Korea, and
I need now to address your travels. I'd love to travel,
and I have a travel channel and all but the
places you've been make my travels seem weak. You've been
(24:25):
to North North Korea three times, and you must have
been to China a number of times, and you went
to Sarajevo. We'll talk about Sarajeva in a moment. But
do you go to can you talk about these these travels?
Do you go alone? What arrangement do you make? Are
you sponsored by your your publisher? You do it on
your own?
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Dime.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
What precautions do you take as a woman traveling, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Well, I was a foreign correspondent for many years, so
I was sponsored by my newspaper, and you know I
had most places I had to have visas Sarajevo, I
guess was the most dangerous because I was there during
the siege, and well it was, you know, I stayed
(25:14):
in the Sarajevo holiday in which was on sniper alley,
and it was it was dangerous, but you know, I
spent a lot of time with regular people. I mean,
you're talking about these books. They're they're not you know,
geopolitical books. They're all about how people live. And this
(25:37):
was the Aeriava book was like how people were living
on this one street during the siege, how they cooked,
how they got water, you know, how they dodged the
martars shells. You know, would they you know, dare go
out during a shelling to take out their garbage. It
(25:57):
was just the idea was to you know, create empathy
among American readers, who you know, we Americans sometimes, you know,
I think we have.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
You know, we have such a big country.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Some sac we don't pay attention to others. Or other
how other people live. And I wanted my readers to imagine,
you know, if you were in this situation, if you
were living in North Korea when the food supply runs out,
if you're living in Sarajevo, when you're you're once very
(26:38):
comfortable city was under siege, you know, how would you cope?
What would you do in this situation. I also did
a book about Tibet, and I think that's important here
because I do these I often did these books that
are like microcosms. There was a street in Sarajevo, a
city in Sarajevo. I did a village in Tibet, and
(27:01):
that that book actually was the one that was most
explicitly about like lack of freedom, about Tibetans who were
not able to practice their religion and their culture. But again,
they're not like polemic books. They're about real people. The Buddha.
(27:24):
The Tibet book is about the princess, boy monk and
some other people living in this little town. You know,
they're all the books are about about regular people.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
You know, all the books one common theme is that
any at least the three books, the China Book, the
North Korea Book, and the Sarajevra book is I'm sure
they leave you reminded of how protected and safe and
fabulous everything is in the United States. People complain because
it's not what it used to be, and it's not,
(27:59):
but take a look around and read a book like
yours about life under the seize of Sarajevo, and it's
life and death. An egg, a single egg is going
to causet you ten the equivalent, you know, some insane
amount of money, and people continued their lives. They continue
to go to work even though it was a life
(28:23):
and death thing to do that for folks to be
able to picture what it was like, Sarajevo's in a
valley and on either side, at least on side, but
I think either side are these mountains or hills and
the serbs or in those mountains and hills just hanging
out waiting for some Sarajevan to be on their way
(28:45):
to work and would shoot them. And that was your reality.
You would have to hide behind trucks, dash between parked
cars to get to work, and people still did go
to work, and it being a seige, it was hard
to get certain things like maybe I don't know but
maybe drinking water, but certainly stables like eggs, milk, sugar
(29:09):
very tough to get. It was. It was a really
brutal thing. I'm so interested that you went there, and yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
When we when we where is there? Bradley was there.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
I went there because I was fascinated to see what
to be among people who had lived in that season.
The first time I thought about going was when I
I believe it was in a train. It was on
a train somewhere not to there, and I saw soldiers
lining the tracks because of the war, and I determined
(29:44):
then to go. So I would say in the two
thousands probably, uh whatever, I would say, it had been
over like maybe five years. And I went once and
then had an opportunity to go again, only from I
went to the capital of Serbia, and I went to
(30:05):
nov Side and what's I forget the capital of Serbia,
what is it? Be Grade? I went to Belgrade and
then I took a car back to Sarajevo because it
was so pleasant and so interesting. Because it's a divided city, folks,
it's the strangest thing. Half of it looks like say Vienna, Austria,
(30:25):
and the other half is filled with minarets and looks
and is a Muslim community, and the division is so
stark it's almost like they spray painted a line in
the main street, and once you pass that line, it's
an entirely different world. And that kind of thing is interesting.
It's interesting to me, right, it is that way, and
(30:48):
it was interesting I ahead of time. I go online
when I go somewhere and say, does anybody know anybody
in so and so town? In this case Sarajevo, And
somebody did, and they found out on the radio and
they asked me to speak to a class, some some
broadcast class or some college class. So I ended up
getting to speak to a class that made me I
(31:10):
don't know. It was really something, and I do have
videos of it. I'll send you one if you like.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Oh, I'd love to see it.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
What else can you share about Sarajevo as a wonderful
travel destination? The other places you mentioned you can't really
go easily, like China, North Korea, you can't go to Tibetan. Boy,
it's fire. Sarajevo is easy to get to. Luftanza goes there.
All you have to do is get on a plane
and get off.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
It's actually a great, a great place to travel to
just you know, fantastic food. And you know, Sarajevo had this,
you know, you know, this medley of culture is the
Turkish Muslim culture, the Catholics from Croatia, the Orthodox Serbs.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Unfortunately, I mean, the war is a very and if
you go as a tourist, it's lovely and it's safe
and just fantastic beautiful. I mean the war, though, is
was so tragic, and I think about it a lot
because you had this very you know, kind of cohesive
(32:18):
society and there was like a fifty percent mixed marriage rate,
and you know, people broke apart, you know, Serbs and
Muslims and croap and there was some ugliness. And I
think about that a lot in the United States with
the polarization among people, but there's like this this you know,
(32:43):
this anger towards each other. I don't like that, but
it reminds me of It reminds me a lot of
the war. I lived on the street I wrote about
Legobne Street, and I had this woman who I considered
my verie of mother, and she was she wasn't educated,
(33:04):
but she was just so wise and she said, you know,
people have become so evil, it's like they drank blood.
And she was talking about, you know, the hatred between people,
and that was I think that's what I remember as
being so frightening them.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
I was fascinated by being amongst spending time amongst one
group of people whose neighbors tried to exterminate them, like
neighbors just a few miles away. It's almost like if
New Hampshire tried to exterminate Massachusetts. How would you feel
about New Hampshire then? Is like that? But somehow and
(33:44):
now they do interact. And I asked the cab driver, dude,
how do you do it? How do you get along
with these people who tried to kill you? Kill you all?
And he said, he said, you do what you gotta do.
It's business. And things changed. But I'm so happy that
you joined us for so long. I am going to
buy all your books out of my own money and
(34:07):
read them because you're so fascinating and the topics are
so fascinating. Is there anything else you'd like to leave
us with contact of you know how to get the
books or anything else.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Well, I think people know how to get books, but
it's great to talk to you. And you asked you know,
some really really smart questions, not you know, not the
same questions that I've been asked before. But I guess
the thing I would actually leave you with or leave listeners.
It's true some of these cultures, you know, are very
(34:40):
foreign to us. And you were talking about earlier about
these Chinese parents who I wouldn't say abandoned, but had
to relinquish children. And you know that this book I
think brings readers into these villages in China. You know,
I spent a lot of time there, actually lived in
(35:00):
China for seven years. I really got to know these
these Chinese birth parents well. And you know, I think
American readers can learn a lot and understand, you know,
the pressures that people were in the regime that was
(35:21):
trying to you know, control your ability to have children.
And I guess the other thing I would say is
what was you know, when we talk about democracy, we
talk about you know, the ability to read this and that,
to say what we want and to have you know,
(35:42):
free speech.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Well, thank you very very very much, and uh, maybe
we'll speak again. Maybe we'll go to Sarajevo sometime. Yeah,
take care of Bibra WBZ News Radio ten thirty.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray ONBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
That's right tonight. I'm brad to Jay in for Dan
Ray and for the next For the rest of the night,
I do urge college. I did not solicit college this
time because it was pretty information only driven. But coming up,
I'm going to ask you how you feel about the
(36:22):
current foreign policy when it comes to how things are
going in Ukraine and with Ukraine and Russia. It seems
kind of all over the place. Maybe maybe you're in
favor of it, maybe you like it. And I'll ask
you about how involved should the United States be in
this conflict and why et cetera. But I say I
(36:45):
have Tom in Ohio here who knows what Tom wants
to talk about? Tom? How are you here on wb Z?
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Hi, Brother Jay, I hadn't talked to you in years,
but I used to call you in him in n Well.
In the Ukraine in twenty and fourteen, there was a
big turnover and the CIA was responsible for it.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Let's set up what we're talking about. You talking about
the Ukraine.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
And in the Dombra, actually in the Dombrass region because
in two thousand and I mean in nineteen ninety five,
the Dombas region didn't want to go to the Ukraine.
They wanted to stay with the Russians. Okay, But then
fast forward to twenty and fourteen, we had a coup
(37:45):
the Victoria Newland and the CIA had a coup. But
that the whole Dombasper region wanted to go back to Russia,
and we instigated this coup. And uh, and then and
after that point, all we did was bring a bunch
(38:06):
of armament to fight to attack Russia.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
I gotta disagree with you on that. I mean, okay, well,
how do you know the armament wasn't to defend Ukraine? Well,
why would we want to attack Russia?
Speaker 4 (38:27):
When why why would we want to all? Huh?
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Why would we What would be the advantage of attacking
Russia and nuclear power?
Speaker 4 (38:39):
There wasn't.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
All Right, I get your point. I do have to
go tom. It seems like you say that the whole
thing was instigated by the West. So we'll we'll address
that with our guests. We do have a guest on
everything coming up. It's a you know, a fair opinion,
and we'll see how that pans out. Tom and Ohio,
thank you and I appreciate and others are welcome once
we get going. We do have a guess. I'm curious
(39:04):
how you feel about the foreign policy and I will
urge you to keep it to policy
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