Authors: Vivian Yang
Shanghai Girl
Praise for Vivian Yang’s
Shanghai Girl
“
Shanghai Girl
is
superb literature ... one of the best of contemporary novels written by Chinese authors …
(Yang is a) Shanghai success ...
We eagerly await Yang's next literary feat
.” --
EVE Magazine
“
Shanghai Girl
– a feat in itself …
Yang puts a new, often lighthearted spin on frequently covered topics like Chinese identity, the U.S. immigrant experience and reverberations of the Cultural Revolution.
”
--
HK Magazine
“
A novel that is hard to put down once you’ve picked it up ... Yang masterfully transports the living onto the page in a way that is sure to make any writer jealous and any reader sit up and take notice.” --
Blogcritics.org
“
Yang brings with her an expanded array of journeys and experiences, reflective of not only a changing America, but also of a world in transition.”
--
The Museum of Chinese in America
“
Compelling story … Fiercely feminine voice … Great description … Inherently fascinating locale … Very likable narrator ... Strong language … A pleasure to read.”
--
The New Jersey State Council on the Arts
“
Another ‘Tale of Two Cities’ …
Paris and London played roles in Dickens’ famous novel
A Tale of Two Cities. In Shanghai Girl
, it is Shanghai and New York.”
--
The Sampan (Boston)
“
A new voice from Shanghai.”
--
The Hong Kong Standard
ALSO BY VIVIAN YANG
Memoirs of a Eurasian
*
S. G. Shan Hai Gaaru
Status, Society, and Sino-Singaporeans
*A
WNYC
Leonard Lopate Essay Contest-winnning excerpt of Vivian Yang’s new novel
Memoirs of a Eurasian
appears after
Shanghai Girl
Vivian Yang
Vivian Yang
is the author of the novels
Memoirs of a Eurasian
(2011),
Shanghai Girl
(2011 and 2001),
S.G. Shan Hai Gaaru
(2011 and 2002), and the nonfiction
Status, Society, and Sino-Singaporeans
.
Born and raised in Shanghai’s former European quarters -- often the setting of her fiction, Vivian holds an M.A. in intercultural communication from Arizona State University and
taught English and journalism at Shanghai International Studies University. She was a Literature Fellow in Prose of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a Publishing Project grantee from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, a Tuition Scholar at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a Woolrich Writing Fund Scholar and a Writing Program Scholar at Columbia University, and a top
winner of The
WNYC
Leonard
Lopate Essay Contest
, the entry of which is a chapter of
Memoirs of a Eurasian
.
Vivian has
written for
Business Weekly, China Daily
,
Far Eastern Economic Review
,
South China Morning Post,
and
The Wall Street Journal Asia
,
and has published fiction in literary journals in the United States and in Asia. Her work has also appeared in the Opinion page of
HK Magazine, The National Law Journal
, and
The New York Times
.
Visit
www.VivianYang.net
, start a discussion on Amazon’s Vivian Yang Page (
http://www.amazon.com/Vivian-Yang/e/B001S03LZM/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
), join the
Shanghai Girl
Page on Facebook, and follow Vivian on Twitter
@ ShanghaiGirlUsa
.
Shanghai Girl
A Novel
Vivian Yang
Copyright © 2001-2011 by Vivian W. Yang
All rights reserved
ISBN-ISBN-13: 978-1461123569
ISBN-10: 1461123569
Also available as a Kindle e-book
Designed by Katherine Wong
Contents
I Out Of The Misty Eastern Cave
1 SHA-FEI HONG: Exile from Avenue Joffre 1
2 GORDON LOU: Gentleman Avenger 15
3 SHA-FEI HONG: Great Red Fortune 29
4 EDWARD COOK: Connections and Recollections 48
5 SHA-FEI HONG: Bound to Meet On a Narrow Alley 55
6 GORDON LOU: Ninja Strategist 67
7 SHA-FEI HONG: The Revolutionary Help Exchange 70
8 EDWARD COOK: The Long March White Powder 80
II Over The Western Wave
9 SHA-FEI HONG: Sweet and Sour Big Apple 86
10 SHA-FEI HONG: Maiden Voyage Running Aground 97
11 EDWARD COOK: The Interlocution of an Interculturalist 108
12 SHA-FEI HONG: A Chinatown Prescription 111
13 SHA-FEI HONG: No More Sewing Others’ Trousseau 120
14 SHA-FEI HONG: Big Curvaceous Field 127
15 EDWARD COOK: Dig and You Shall Find 134
16 GORDON LOU: The Lofty Move 142
17 SHA-FEI HONG: Holy Matrimony 149
18 EDWARD COOK: Season’s Greetings 156
19 GORDON LOU: He Laughs Best 161
20 SHA-FEI HONG: Two Is a Pair 167
Epilogue
The Shanghai in the Girl 180
Appendix: A conversation with
Vivian Yang
, author of
184
Memoirs of a Eurasian
and
Shanghai Girl
An Excerpt of
Memoirs of a Eurasian
by Vivian Yang
187
Swiftly walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear, --
Swift be thy flight!
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
OUT OF THE MISTY EASTERN CAVE
1 Sha-Fei Hong: Exile from Avenue Joffre
Upon first hearing, my name sounds commonplace enough for a Chinese girl: pretty and prosaic. Few have asked me why I am called Sha-Fei. People assume that I must have been born at dawn when the morning light,
Sha
, was glowing, and
Fei
, the rosy clouds, were floating. But I know I was named after the trendiest street in Shanghai’s former French Concession, Avenue Joffre. The Chinese translation for the onetime marshal of France was Sha-Fei.
Sha-Fei
.
My life as a Shanghai girl began in the same gardened Western-style house in the heart of the Concession where my father had grown up in the 1930’s. Father named me. In 1964, Shanghai had already been liberated by the Party for fifteen years. Any sentimental display towards her colonial past would have been severely punished. Father used a pun in naming me and kept his genuine intent deep in his heart.
My earliest recollection of was the ambiance surrounding our neighborhood, the part of town known to the locals as “The Upper Section.” Images of our house remain in my head like snapshots -- the red tiles on tapered roof, the gray steel window frames shipped in from Lyons when the house was built, 14-foot ceilings, French windows opening to the verandah, the fenced in garden with Chinese parasol trees and a rosebush. There was the sound of crying cicadas on humid summer nights, when the ceiling fans ran all night long and the smell of the mosquito-repellent incense permeated the house. For reasons unclear to me, I was not allowed to enter two places in the house: the Ancestor Worshipping Hall and the servant’s quarters. My favorite indoor play area was the pantry adjacent to the kitchen where a giant GE refrigerator stood, its motor buzzing. The pantry had a small door opening from below the kitchen counter through which freshly prepared food was brought to the dining room. Just above the house’s top floor solarium, between the stucco overhangs, were the words
1928 A.D.
, in relief.