Fu Ping's Original Story

Long before Fu Ping published Bend, Not Break, before she told Inc. the current version of her life story in 2005, she published a much simpler version in a book named Drifting Bottle (漂流瓶) in Chinese.

The book, published in China by the Hubei Youth Press (湖北少年儿童出版社) in 1996. In the "Author's Foreword" section, Fu Ping stated that she spent two years, finishing in October, 1994, at Hong Kong, writing it. Her parents had helped her in proof-reading and copying.

According to Fang Zhouzi, who has obtained a copy of this book, the book is not a fictional novel but a true memoir. It includes many pictures of the author and her family members as well as friends. Fu Ping herself has also stated that she wrote this book to tell Chinese readers her life in America.

But the book also contains many glimpses of her earlier life in China, which differs from that in Bend, not Break very significantly. In this book,

1. Fu Ping spent her entire childhood in Nanjing, not Shanghai. Her aunt and uncle were not mentioned at all. On Page 15 (below), she wrote, "I grew up on a university campus, right outside is a famous street of Nanjing..." And on Page 88: "This is WuChao Gate (午朝门). It's very close to my home. I played here a lot when I was little."
2. Fu Ping spent her childhood with her (biological) parents and attended school normally. On Page 15 (below), she wrote, "I remember when I was little, our teacher likes to make us write essays on "My Dream". Of course, writing an essay must be real serious and with great style. So, the dreams in these essays are always very noble. But it's different at home. One day, I suddenly announced to my parents that my dream is to become a truck driver. This shocked them..."
3. Fu Ping did not suffer hardship during her childhood. In this book, when describing that she had to work as a maid in an American family and was treated unfairly by her employer, she wrote on Page 11, "In my own country I was a professor's daughter and spoiled by my parents. I had never had to do such work."
4. There was no mention of being kidnapped by a Vietnamese-American upon arrival of US. In fact, she described that, on the third day of arriving at Albuquerque, she already met an acquaintance from her Nanjing neighborhood. She would still be locked up by her kidnapper at that time in Bend, not Break.
5. In this book, Fu Ping mentioned that she memorized English 900, a popular language book in China at the time. She was able to immediately strike nice conversations with teachers she met at University of New Mexico and was able to be placed into a mid-level language class. It's a far-cry from knowing only three English words.

Here are a few samples of her book: