Tag: Shanghai setting

Kim Fay’s—The Map of Lost Memories *****

Irene, an unscrupulous treasure hunter teams up with Simone, a drug addict with an abusive husband at the request of Mr Simms to plunder Cambodia’s lost scrolls. From Shanghai, they take a boat immediately after the murder of Simone’s husband, but by the time they reach Saigon and Irene has revealed all the information about the scrolls’ location, she discovers Simone is teaming up with Louis and has her own plans once she gets her hands of the copper scrolls.

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Lisa See’s — Shanghai Girls *****

Two sisters, Pearl and May, lead exciting lives in Shanghai until their father’s once rich lifestyle is gambled away. Their father is forced to sell his daughters as wives to men in California seeking wives. Escaping from invading soldiers, they journey across to U.S.A. to begin new lives with the strangers they’ve married. This is Lisa See at her best.

Another five out of five is her Lady Tan’s Circle of Women. Set in Wuxi in the 1400s, Yunxian is sent to her grandparents after her mother dies and her father leaves to study for an exam. When Grandmother Ru sees the potential in her granddaughter, she begins to share her medical knowledge with Yunxian until it is time for her marriage. Under her mother-in-law, she is forbidden to practise medicine, but Yunxian cannot bear to see other women suffer because male doctors can only question women behind a curtain, thus leading to many unsuccessful diagnoses.
Set within a rich Chinese family’s compound, with customs such as seclusion of women and foot binding, this is a tale of Tan Yunxian’s life against all the richness of the times.

Hyeonseo Lee’s — The girl with seven names*****

Hyeonnseo’s page turning memoir begins when she was a child growing up in a loving family in Hyesan, North Korea near the border with China. Her life was simple until she was school-age and her political indoctrination began, where speaking even a word against Kim il-sung and his son, Kim John-il had diabolical consequences. As she grew older, more political involvement was expected of her until the great famine occurred partly from the Soviet Union’s collapse. Teaches praised the Great Leaders for eating less during this time, but Hyeonnseo noticed no change in their robust bodies.

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Lisa See’s — Dreams of Joy *****

When Joy’s father commits suicide and she learns a secret Aunt May and her mother, Pearl have hidden from her all her life, she leaves Los Angeles and enters China. She hopes to forget her life back in America and find her birth father. Joy is elated by her father’s status and by village life under Mao. After Pearl reaches China in search of her daughter, she finds Joy dazzled by a poor country peasant and nothing she says can convince Joy of her ill fated match.

May and Pearl are characters from Shanghai Girls. Now the tale continues a generation later and is just as riveting.