Another Great Read

If you remember my review of SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN then it will be no surprise that I enjoyed this one too.

SHANGHAI GIRLS is written by Lisa See and again I marveled at her authoritative writing style. You look at her portrait on the back cover and she looks like your typical white woman, yet you wonder how she can so effortlessly chronicle the thoughts and feelings of her heroines with such cultural know-how. (I did discover in her Acknowledgments that her great grandfather and his brother were Chinese.) Obviously she's done her research also.

The novel starts off in 1937, in Shanghai, the Paris of Asia. Two sisters, Pearl and May, are just entering their twenties and are living it up among their wealthy peers. That is until the day their father breaks the news that he has gambled away his fortune and that the only way to pay his debts is to sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find brides.

In the following chapters we journey alongside these sisters, their bond strengthened even more by each challenge they face. Fleeing from the Japanese who have brutally invaded Shanghai, voyaging across the Pacific to California, languishing on Angel Island in a detainee prison, sharing their fears, sorrows, and victories.

Once they are able to start a new life in Los Angeles, they strive to embrace what it means to be an "American", but face discrimination, Communist witch hunts, and feelings of being trapped in Chinatown's old ways and rules all the while.

Through every heartwrenching sacrifice they make, they are first and foremost sisters. Best friends who share hopes and dreams, but like most sisters they also harbor petty jealousies and rivalries.

This novel taught me so much. I remember learning in school about Ellis Island and the migration of Europeans to this country, but I'm ashamed to admit that I never once considered (or learned much if anything about) those who sought refuge on our western shores...and how we treated them.

It is not a novel for the faint-hearted--it does not paint broad brushstrokes over the harsh realities of life nor attempt to "prettify" them. Lisa See simply tells a story, and does so with beautiful expertise.