The Lesson of the Lost Horse

The moment nineteen-year-old Joanna sets foot in America in 1969, she begins a ride of epic proportions. The Lesson of the Lost Horse sweeps readers into the heart and mind of the young Chinese immigrant to tell the story of her culture shock and her plunge into the maelstrom of America's gender revolution-when female workers begin to enter management ranks in the 1970s. From her first job as a waitress to her ascent into the high-tech world of cell-phones and wireless communications, Joanna embarks on an extraordinary journey filled with unexpected twists and turns, determined to prove to the world-and to herself-that she is worthy of the American dream.

Born in an era of poverty in the Chinese-Portuguese colony of Macau, Joanna leaves home at seventeen to take a job as a schoolteacher in Hong Kong. When she stumbles onto a chance to come to America, she packs up her sheltered, old-world upbringing and arrives in America knowing no one, speaking little English, and with only ninety dollars in her pocket. With each life-changing episode that threatens to break her, Joanna finds the power to change her destiny, and a transformation begins to take place within this timid, shy woman who only dreams of being loved and happy.

The Lesson of the Lost Horse is a triumphant memoir of a woman's will to survive and to succeed. At once an inspirational nothing-to-something tale and a heartwarming love story, it is also the story of one woman's search for her Chinese-American identity.