Daughters of Shandong

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to death by suicide and violent death.

Qingdao feels like a foreign world to Hai. The first few nights, they sleep on the streets, fighting for scraps of food with hundreds of other people displaced by the Civil War. They go to the Villa District, where the Europeans live, only to find that Shandong University has closed. In Dabaodao, they find Mom’s younger brother, Chiang-Sen. He has been ill with tuberculosis. Mom’s parents are still alive but in Rizhao.

Since they have nowhere else to go, Uncle Sen takes them in, but he has few resources; Hai finds his home “an odd mix of wealth and destitution” (129). The girls are delighted to bathe with running water. Uncle Sen has a letter from Xiao-Long, their father. The letter explains that Uncle Jian, with his position in the military, urged the Angs to travel to Taiwan, which Chiang Kai-Shek had been preparing as a place of retreat if he lost the war. Uncle Sen says the women can stay with him, though he does not have much to share. Mom says she will look for work.