A surprising number of old family photos survived and are included, as are charming drawings illustrating elements of the world in which Isabel lived. In the process, the book paints a compelling picture of what life for one stratum of Shanghai society was like in those turbulent years.īesides the fascinating narrative, visually, Remembering Shanghai is also a delight. Remembering Shanghai weaves between Isabel’s reminiscences and family stories of her ancestors’ (mis)deeds and adventures, as well as the difficulties presented by the divorce of Isabel’s parents-quite rare in that time. Her father was able to secure the family’s financial security for decades based on the rents earned from key sites behind the Bund in downtown Shanghai.
Her grandfather benefited from investments of the family’s wealth in Shanghai’s emerging real estate boom. Isabel Sun’s great-grandfather, a valued military aide in the Qing effort to suppress the Taiping Rebellion of the 1860s, made the family’s fortune.
Remembering Shanghai does an excellent job of depicting daily life during the Sino-Japanese War, followed by the Civil War that ended in 1949 with the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, and the severing of ties that followed.Ĭlaire Chao has melded the personal incidents from her mother’s growing up with the wider narrative of her ancestors, whose lives took place at key inflection points in China’s mid-19th to mid-20th century history. That era is known for glamour, but it was also a period of chaos and suffering. Remembering Shanghai gives the reader Isabel Sun Chao’s first-hand insights into what that life was like for a young girl and later, a young woman. That milieu offered sophistication, modern architecture, rich social life, international influences, as well as a happening music and dance scene. The settings and culture of 1930s and 1940s Shanghai covered so evocatively by various historians like Andrew Field, Paul French, and Historic Shanghai founders Tess Johnston, Tina Kanagaratnam and Patrick Cranley formed the world in which Isabel Sun was raised. Chao co-authored this memoir with her mom, Isabel Sun Chao, who grew up in an elite family in pre-Communist Shanghai. A Mandarin-speaking American attorney, she lived in Shanghai for over a decade, and often walked or cycled past Isabel’s childhood home on Zhenning Road-although she didn’t know it as such at the time!ĪMY: I recently embarked upon Claire Chao’s Remembering Shanghai, a book that has long been on my TBR pile.
CLAIRE: Guest blogger Amy Sommers is the author of Rumors from Shanghai, her debut novel, which delves into World War II history in China.
0 kommentar(er)
