Shanghai Story Walks


Book Description

A walking tour of China’s Shanghai, this unique guide acquaints travelers with the city’s architecture and traditions. Written from the perspective of a native, this handbook presents the scenic and history-laden paths of Shanghai while revealing its people’s character as well as the grand and gaudy landmarks.




The Book of Shanghai


Book Description

As the end of the world arrives in downtown Shanghai, one man’s only wish is to return a library book... When a publisher agrees to let a star author use his company’s attic to write in, little does he suspect this will become the author’s permanent residence... As Shanghai succumbs to a seemingly apocalyptic deluge, a man takes refuge in his bathtub, only to find himself, moments later, floating through the city's streets... The characters in this literary exploration of one of the world’s biggest cities are all on a mission. Whether it is responding to events around them, or following some impulse of their own, they are defined by their determination – a refusal to lose themselves in a city that might otherwise leave them anonymous, disconnected, alone. From the neglected mother whose side-hustle in collecting sellable waste becomes an obsession, to the schoolboy determined to end a long-standing feud between his family and another, these characters show a defiance that reminds us why Shanghai – despite its hurtling economic growth –remains an epicentre for individual creativity.




Shanghai Story


Book Description

A WWII saga in the heart of the world's most decadent city in 1936. Enter the Paris of the East, where one man and one woman strive to hold on to their dreams as the Communists rise and the shadow of Japan closes in. His country stood on the verge of a new beginning and the gate of hell. The Kuomintang promises the dawn of democracy, but the Communists threaten civil war while Japan's unbridled ambitions loom. All Clark Yuan wants is to see his fellow countrymen's lives improve. He joins the KMT, hoping to play his part to make China a better place. He vows to Eden, the beautiful Jewish girl he admires from afar, Shanghai would be her forever home. But power and money are at stake. The line of good and evil shifts. To achieve his ends, he must bargain with the devils. How much of his soul would he sacrifice to reach the greater good? * Fleeing the rise of the Nazis, Eden Levine came with her family to Shanghai, hoping to build a new life. The dazzling city made her swoon. From the pinnacle of luxury, big band jazz, to a safe haven for Jewish refugees, the country that turns no one away is the beacon of hope. But behind the glitz and glamour, the darkness of human nature lurks. A heinous crime shocks the international community. Would she defend an innocent Nazi soldier and risk the ire of her own people? With only her new friend Clark by her side, could she defy the clutch of racial strife to see justice prevail? "I dream of a day when all nations' flags would fly in unity of peace. I dream of a world where no law or human divide would stop two people from falling in love." - - - From the author of the Rose of Anzio series, don't miss this sweeping WWII tale of love, loss, and hope during one of the world's darkest hours.




Last Boat Out of Shanghai


Book Description

"The dramatic, real-life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China's 1949 Communist Revolution--a precursor to the struggles faced by emigrants today. Shanghai has historically been China's jewel, its richest, most modern and westernized city. The bustling metropolis was home to sophisticated intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and a thriving middle class when Mao's proletarian revolution emerged victorious from the long civil war. Terrified of the horrors the Communists would wreak upon their lives, citizens of Shanghai who could afford to fled in every direction. Seventy years later, the last generation to fully recall this massive exodus have opened the story to Chinese American journalist Helen Zia, who interviewed hundreds of exiles about their journey through one of the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century. From these moving accounts, Zia weaves the story of four young Shanghai residents who wrestled with the decision to abandon everything for an uncertain life as refugees in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the U.S. Young Benny, who as a teenager became the unwilling heir to his father's dark wartime legacy, must choose between escaping Hong Kong or navigating the intricacies of a newly Communist China. The resolute Annuo, forced to flee her home with her father, a defeated Nationalist official, becomes an unwelcome young exile in Taiwan. The financially strapped Ho fights deportation in order to continue his studies in the U.S. while his family struggles at home. And Bing, given away by her poor parents, faces the prospect of a new life among strangers in America"--




Shanghai Homes


Book Description

In the dazzling global metropolis of Shanghai, what has it meant to call this city home? In this account—part microhistory, part memoir—Jie Li salvages intimate recollections by successive generations of inhabitants of two vibrant, culturally mixed Shanghai alleyways from the Republican, Maoist, and post-Mao eras. Exploring three dimensions of private life—territories, artifacts, and gossip—Li re-creates the sounds, smells, look, and feel of home over a tumultuous century. First built by British and Japanese companies in 1915 and 1927, the two homes at the center of this narrative were located in an industrial part of the former "International Settlement." Before their recent demolition, they were nestled in Shanghai's labyrinthine alleyways, which housed more than half of the city's population from the Sino-Japanese War to the Cultural Revolution. Through interviews with her own family members as well as their neighbors, classmates, and co-workers, Li weaves a complex social tapestry reflecting the lived experiences of ordinary people struggling to absorb and adapt to major historical change. These voices include workers, intellectuals, Communists, Nationalists, foreigners, compradors, wives, concubines, and children who all fought for a foothold and haven in this city, witnessing spectacles so full of farce and pathos they could only be whispered as secret histories.




Shanghai Girls


Book Description

Shanghai, 1937. Pearl and May are two sisters from a bourgeois family. Though their personalities are very different - Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid - they are inseparable best friends. Both are beautiful, modern and living a carefree life ... until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away the family's wealth, and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to two 'Gold Mountain' men: Americans. As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, the two sisters set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the villages of southern China, in and out of the clutches of brutal soldiers, and even across the ocean, through the humiliation of an anti-Chinese detention centre to a new, married life in Los Angeles's Chinatown. Here they begin a fresh chapter, despite the racial discrimination and anti-Communist paranoia, because now they have something to strive for: a young, American-born daughter, Joy. Along the way there are terrible sacrifices, impossible choices and one devastating, life-changing secret, but through it all the two heroines of this astounding new novel by Lisa See hold fast to who they are - Shanghai girls.




Life and Death in Shanghai


Book Description

A woman who spent more than six years in solitary confinement during Communist China's Cultural Revolution discusses her time in prison. Reissue. A New York Times Best Book of the Year.




The Last Kings of Shanghai


Book Description

"In vivid detail... examines the little-known history of two extraordinary dynasties."--The Boston Globe "Not just a brilliant, well-researched, and highly readable book about China's past, it also reveals the contingencies and ironic twists of fate in China's modern history."--LA Review of Books An epic, multigenerational story of two rival dynasties who flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as twentieth-century China surged into the modern era, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist The Sassoons and the Kadoories stood astride Chinese business and politics for more than one hundred seventy-five years, profiting from the Opium Wars; surviving Japanese occupation; courting Chiang Kai-shek; and nearly losing everything as the Communists swept into power. Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable history of how these families ignited an economic boom and opened China to the world, but remained blind to the country's deep inequality and to the political turmoil on their doorsteps. In a story stretching from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, Kaufman enters the lives and minds of these ambitious men and women to forge a tale of opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue, and survival.




City of Devils


Book Description

"In the 1930s, Shanghai was a haven for outlaws from all over the world: a place where pasts could be forgotten, fascism and communism outrun, names invented, fortunes made--and lost. 'Lucky' Jack Riley was the most notorious of those outlaws. An ex-Navy boxing champion, he escaped from prison in the States, spotted a craze for gambling and rose to become the Slot King of Shanghai. 'Dapper' Joe Farren--a Jewish boy who fled Vienna's ghetto with a dream of dance halls--ruled the nightclubs. His chorus lines rivaled Ziegfeld's. In 1940 they bestrode the Shanghai Badlands like kings, while all around the Solitary Island was poverty, starvation and genocide. They thought they ruled Shanghai; but the city had other ideas. This is the story of their rise to power, their downfall, and the trail of destruction they left in their wake."--Jacket




Shanghai Shadows


Book Description

A young girl fleeing Hitler takes refuge in Shanghai, where she learns that she must fight to survive Throughout tomboy Ilse’s childhood, her mother has tried to force her to behave like a proper Austrian lady. But when Hitler annexes their country, the family flees, boarding a packed freighter and sailing around the world in search of a safe harbor. The United States refuses to take them, so they proceed to China and make a new home in steamy, mysterious Shanghai. Their lodgings are cramped, money is tight, and Ilse’s father cannot find work—but Ilse is enchanted by the city’s international flavor. In Shanghai’s shadows she finds the adventure of a lifetime. When the Japanese occupy the city, Ilse and her brother begin working in an underground resistance cell. Each day, the city grows more dangerous, and Ilse must lie, cheat, and steal in order for her family to eat. She is a long way from Austria, but she will do whatever it takes to survive.