We caught up with authors Alan Paul and Susan Conley to chat about their lives in China. Alan is the author of Big in China, which follows his life in Beijing with his wife, three kids and award-winning blues band Woodie Alan from August 2005 to January 2008. Susan is the author of The Foremost Good Fortune, the story of her life in Beijing with her husband and two kids from August 2007 to January 2010, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

First thought when stepping off the plane?

SC: I’d never felt more like an outsider in my life as I did those first hours. My next thought was that we were now far from home and that this was a good thing.

AP: “Thank God we made it.” The first 13-hour flight with three kids under 7 was a bit daunting, and I learned you will make it to the other side, land and walk out of this tube intact–and when you do, time compresses and you forget just how difficult it actually was.

Did you ever think “I cannot go on?” or “I can never go home?”

SC: Near the end of our time in China, we reached a point where we did think, how can we ever go home? What will home mean to us now that we have made our way here, in this most amazing of countries? China was our home now. My two boys had friends from around the world, amazing teachers and we were hardy China travelers. Our family’s bump in the road was my breast cancer diagnosis. I’d undergone one surgery in Beijing and it became clear I needed to have additional surgery in the States, so it was much less “I cannot go on” and much more “and now we have to leave to seek treatment.”

AP: Not really. During my first year, my father was diagnosed with bladder cancer, and being so far away was excruciating at times, but I never felt I couldn’t deal with China. I loved it more than I thought possible and that only grew deeper and more complex as time went by. We left well before I felt ready, but I always knew that some day we would.

Any concerns regarding moving?

SC: I was like any mother–I wanted my kids to like the place they called home. I wanted them to have friends. I wanted them to be able to talk to their bus driver.

AP: Maybe I’m crazy, but I wasn’t that concerned about anything. I craved adventure and was excited.

How did you watch the city evolve?

SC: Our time in China was demarcated by pre- and post-Olympics. We lived right across the street from Chaoyang Park, and the year before the Games, we watched the Western world set up shop: April Gourmet, Jamaica Blue, shopping plazas and dozens of mid-rise hotels and office buildings all popped up. It was an explosion of building that still baffles me. Right behind all that industry though, the hutong remained bustling. When we left, the city was much more Westernized than when we’d arrived, but the hutong in our neighborhood hung on for its life and thrived.

AP: The pace of change was relentless and astounding. My immediate neighborhood was semi-rural when we arrived, and that all vanished as the area was developed. Hundreds of thousands of people in villages were relocated, little shops, restaurants and even giant markets were closed, a subway line was built, as well as several highways with huge flyways, and that’s all just in my little neighborhood. This was sometimes depressing and disorienting, but always remarkable to observe and I really tried to resist the temptation of talking about how it used to be. I was only there a short time and everyone’s view of “normal” begins the moment they arrive.

One highlight from BJ?

SC: The night we took the boys to KTV and all belted out the words to “American Pie.” The day we ran across the Forbidden City because it was scorching hot and we’d forgotten hats and then climbed Coal Hill on the other side to see where we’d just traveled. The school concert where my boys sang Chinese folk songs. The evening we spent in the Olympic Water Cube watching the Paralympic swimmers compete.

AP: Chaperoning field trips to the Great Wall; watching my 5-year-old Eli sing “Hao Peng-you” with a nice old man; visiting my teacher-turned-monk Yechen on the holy mountain of Huashan; performing all over China with my band. I also cherish a lot of the smaller moments walking around with my family, eating in little restaurants alone, drinking tea and beer and meeting people.

Why a book?

SC: I began writing as soon as my boys went school. What evolved over many months was the frame: was it a book about my children? Beijing? Cancer? I wasn’t sure if what I’d started about my boys moving could also make room for the cancer material I now needed to write. I realized that I had one narrative with many different parts, and that it was really a book about motherhood.

AP: I began writing for the WSJ just five months after arriving and was amazed to realize all the things I thought were very China-centric resonated with people who had lived outside of their home cultures anywhere. That encouraged me to think about a book. I was very self-conscious about the idea of a memoir, so I tried to explore some larger issues: how it’s never too late to chase your dreams, and how moving to China helped me realize this and changed my life for the better.

You can catch the authors at their readings around town. Alan Paul will be at Garden Books on June 18 from 6pm or at Glamour Bar on June 19 at 4pm. Susan will be hosting a lunch at M on the Bund on June 24 at noon.