A romantic comedy about two disparate people who meet in Seattle--but without Nora Ephron, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and including social commentary ripped from the headlines. Tang Wei plays Jiajia, a young woman living in Beijing being supported by her rich boyfriend. Finding that she is pregnant she heads for Seattle so that her child will be born an American citizen something that is not uncommon among wealthy couples in the PRC. Known as "maternity tourism", it involves a pregnant woman coming to the US and staying in what is called a maternity hotel, generally a single family home in a quiet area near the hospital where the birth will take place. It isn't cheap: one couple paid $27,000 to an agency in China that arranges U.S. tourist visas, lodging, and medical care. The fourteenth amendment to the US Constitution guarantees citizenship to all those born in this country. An additional reason for giving birth in the US is that the Chinese "one child" policy doesn't apply to children born abroad.
So Jiajia has a very good reason to be in Seattle and, judging from one still continues to be supported in the manner she has become accustomed to--here carrying a big wad of one hundred dollar bills while talking with co-star Wu Xiubo.
Complications arise--which they must--and she loses contact with her wealthy sponsor and has to navigate American culture norms and bureaucratic indifference on her own. Until she meets up with Frank (Wu Xiubo) who offers helps with the complexities of the American system and makes her think twice about who her Mr. Right actually is.
Sina;
CRI English. This
CBS News story has some information on maternity tourism from China.
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