Shanghai Girls

Shanghai Girls (May 2009) is a New York Times bestselling historical novel by Lisa See. It is the first of a two-book series that concludes with Dreams of Joy (2011). The author’s paternal great-grandfather emigrated from China, and many of See’s books examine the Chinese immigrant experience in America. Other titles that cover similar subject matter are Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005), Peony in Love (2007), China Dolls (2014), The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane (2017), and The Island of Sea Women (2019).

See’s books have been published in 39 languages, and she has received the Golden Spike Award from the Chinese Historical Association. She also received honorable mentions from the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature. Aside from her novels, See wrote the libretto for On Gold Mountain (1995), an opera based on her family biography of the same name. Like her characters in Shanghai Girls, See is a resident of Los Angeles.

Shanghai Girls is classified under the categories of Historical Chinese Fiction and Mothers & Children Fiction. This study guide and all its page citations are based on the book’s Kindle edition. The novel begins in Shanghai, China, in 1937, but most of its 20-year story arc takes place in the Chinese district of Los Angeles. The story is told using a first-person point of view from the perspective of protagonist Pearl Chin and examines the themes of being Trapped by Circumstance, the Cultural Identity Crisis of Chinese Americans, and the enduring Bond of Sisterhood.

Content Warning: The book depicts or describes suicide and suicidal ideation, torture, rape, and wartime atrocities.

Plot Summary

Pearl Chin is a 21-year-old college graduate in 1937 Shanghai. She lives with her wealthy parents and 18-year-old sibling, May. Both girls are beautiful and pose for a commercial artist named Z.G., who features them in calendar ads. Pearl develops a crush on Z.G., but he doesn’t return her feelings. The girls find their pleasant life destroyed when their father arranges marriages for them. His gambling debts have eaten away the family fortune, so the sisters will be expected to marry the sons of a wealthy Chinese American businessman named Old Man Louie. Two days later, Pearl marries the handsome eldest son, Sam. May marries the 14-year-old Vern, who seems to have some kind of intellectual disability.

The males in the family travel ahead to America, where the girls are supposed to follow their husbands later in the month. Even though Pearl and May hope to escape, circumstances make this impossible. Green Gang thugs threaten to kill their father if they don’t honor their marriage contracts. Almost simultaneously, the Japanese attack Shanghai, and the girls must flee with their mother. While trying to get to Hong Kong, they are attacked by a contingent of Japanese soldiers, who torture and gang rape them. Mrs. Chin dies, and Pearl is left with internal injuries that prevent her from having children.

Pearl and May eventually get to America, where they are detained for months at an immigration facility on Angel Island. While there, May tells her sister that she is pregnant. The baby is delivered on the island, and Pearl passes the child off as her own because May never consummated her marriage with Vern. Once reunited with their husbands, the sisters realize that Old Man Louie is hardly as wealthy as he pretended. The sisters toil in the family businesses in Chinatown while Louie controls their money and their lives.

Over time, May finds work as a Hollywood extra and even runs a thriving casting business for Chinese film actors. Pearl continues to work long hours in the family’s various shops. The sisters routinely quarrel about who got the better deal in life. Eventually, they discover that Old Man Louie is an unauthorized immigrant and that Pearl’s husband Sam is also unauthorized. This compromises Pearl’s citizenship status as well. The family covers up these secrets until the 1950s when the FBI starts scrutinizing Chinese Americans much more closely. When Sam’s secret is about to be exposed, he hangs himself to protect Pearl from deportation.

During this same time, Pearl learns that May had an affair with artist Z.G. and that he is Joy’s father. Overhearing this secret, Joy impulsively runs off to Communist China to find Z.G. The novel ends with Pearl about to embark on a journey to retrieve Joy. Meanwhile, May promises to manage the family business, claiming that her sisterly bond with Pearl will last for the rest of their lives. Their story is concluded in the sequel, Dreams of Joy.