Wish You Happy Forever (41 page)

With Vice Minister Dou YuPei, the man formally responsible for child welfare. Ministry of Civil Affairs. 2008.

(
Half the Sky Foundation
)

Joint conference with Ministry of Civil Affairs Director General Wang Zhenyao.

(
Half the Sky Foundation
)

Professor Wang and Mrs. Gan discuss the future of child welfare and Half the Sky in China. Yangtze River, 2010.

(
© Richard Bowen
)

Maya and Anya in Tiananmen Square. Beijing, 2013.

(
© Richard Bowen
)

My thanks must begin with the children—China's orphaned girls—my inspiration and my teachers. Thanks to our Half the Sky Big Family—the many thousands of caring people across the globe who support our work.

I thank our Chinese partners—the government officials and orphanage directors who truly want to make life better for the children in their care—for giving us the gift of their friendship and their trust.

To the women and men of Half the Sky who dedicate their lives so that children who've lost everything can have a second chance. To the nannies, teachers, youth mentors, foster parents, nurses, doctors, and support staff—seventeen hundred strong as I write this—there aren't words enough to describe my gratitude.

With Half the Sky's best-ever board of directors at my back, it almost feels easy. My thanks go to our quiet heroes, Guy Russo, Peter Bennett, Stephen Chipman, Matt Dalio, Tim Huxley, Dana Johnson, Peter Lighte, Joe Longo, Melissa Ma, and Chapman Taylor.

We couldn't begin to achieve what we have without the unstoppable energy, passion, and steadfastness of Half the Sky's amazing leadership team: Emma Chen, Janice Cotton, Mei Jiang, Carol Kemble, Patricia King, Winnie Sun, Roger Tang, Sandy Wang, Ivy Yu, Wen Zhao, and Qian Zhou. My very special thanks and
happy forever wishes
go to Rachel Xing, the gentle powerhouse who leads us into the future.

And ZZ. The magnificent, incomparable ZZ. Well, quite simply, there would be no Half the Sky without her. My
jie jie,
my big sister, my guide, my Chinese voice—she is the heart and soul of Half the Sky.

This book and the opportunity to tell our story would not exist without the collaboration of two big dreamers, Mark Tauber, publisher at HarperOne, and Jeff Skoll, founder of the Skoll Foundation. How lucky I am that they not only live their dreams, but also believe in the dreams of others.

My gratitude goes to all those at HarperOne who helped bring this book to life: Jackie Berkman, Michele Wetherbee, Suzanne Wickham, Laina Adler, Suzanne Quist, Claudia Boutote, Laura Beers, and the entire too-good-to-be-true team; and to Sally Osberg, Sandy Herz, Suzana Grego, and all my longtime friends at Skoll.

To my dear friends and early readers, many thanks for being honest, insightful, and always kind—Karin Evans, Deanne Bevan, Patricia King, and Marion Roach—and to Hendrika Misciagna for her gorgeous map of my adventures.

I owe a very special thank-you to Jeanette Perez, my editor, for putting her own life's journey on hold to work with me, and for her huge heart, her sensitivity, her modesty, and for her stunning ability to get to the heart of the matter.

There is no thank-you great enough for Richard Bowen—my fellow dreamer, my soul mate, and my love. Because he is beside me, I have the good fortune to live in a world where all things are possible. I can't begin to imagine my life if he hadn't come into it.

© Richard Bowen

JENNY BOWEN
, a former screenwriter and filmmaker, is the founder and CEO of Half the Sky Foundation, an organization dedicated to reimagining care for orphaned Chinese children. Bowen received the American Chamber of Commerce's Women of Influence Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2007 and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2008.

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Cover photograph of child: © 2013 Patrice Tourniaire

W
ISH YOU HAPPY FOREVER
:
What China's Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains.
Copyright © 2014 by Jenny Bowen. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bowen, Jenny. Wish you happy forever : what China's orphans taught me about moving mountains / Jenny Bowen. — First edition.

pages cm

ISBN 978–0–06–219200–4

EPub Edition March 2014 ISBN 9780062192011

1. Intercountry adoption—China. 2. Orphans—China. I. Title.

HV1317.B677 2014

362.7340951—dc23   2013027751

14 15 16 17 18
RRD(H)
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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