Shanghai Girls: A Novel Part 24

"My money from the family pot," Vern says. "More boats! Give me more!"

Soon the three of us are smas.h.i.+ng Vern's collection of s.h.i.+ps, planes, and race cars on the floor. The old man had been stingy and cheap but always fair. Of course he gave Vern a portion of the family pot, even after he became an invalid. But Vern, unlike the rest of us, never spent his money. I can remember only one time I saw him use money: when he took May, Sam, Joy, and me to the beach on the streetcar our first Christmas in Los Angeles.

May and I gather up the wads of cash and count the money on Vern's bed. There's more than enough for a plane ticket and even bribes, if I need them.

"I'll come with you," May says. "We've always done better when we're together."

"You need to stay here. You need to take care of Vern, the coffee shop, the house, and the ancestors-"

"What if you find Joy and then the authorities won't let you leave?" May asks.

She's worried about this. Vern's worried about this. And I'm terrified. We'd be stupid if we weren't. I allow myself a wan smile.

"You're my sister, and you're very smart. You're going to start working from this end."

As my sister absorbs this, I can practically see her forming a list in her mind.

"I'm going to call Betsy and her father again," she says. "And I'll write Vice President Nixon. He helped other people get out of China when he was a senator. I'll make him help us."

I think but don't say: This isn't going to be easy. Again, I'm not a U.S. citizen, and I don't have a pa.s.sport for any country. And we're dealing with Red China. But I have to believe she'll do everything she can to get Joy and me out of China, because she got us out once before.

"I spent my first twenty-one years in China and my last twenty in Los Angeles," I say, my voice as steady as my resolve. "I don't feel like I'm going home. I feel like I'm losing my home. I'm counting on you to make sure Joy and I have something to come back to."

The next day I pack the Certificate of Ident.i.ty I was given on Angel Island and the peasant clothes May bought me to wear out of China. I take photos of Sam to give me courage and of Joy to show to people I meet. I go to the family altar and say good-bye to Sam and the others. I remember something May said a few years ago: Everything always returns to the beginning. I finally understand what she meant now as I begin this new journey-not only will mistakes be repeated but we will also be given chances to fix them. Twenty years ago I lost my mother as we fled China; now I'm returning to China, as a mother, to make things-so many things-right. I open the little box where Sam placed the pouch Mama gave me. I put it around my neck. It protected me in my travels once before, just as I hope that the one May gave Joy before she went away to college is protecting her now.

I say good-bye and thank you to the boy-husband, and then May drives me to the airport. As palm trees and stucco houses drift past my window, I go back over my plan: I'll go to Hong Kong, put on my peasant clothes, and walk across the border. I'll go to the Louie and Chin home villages-both places Joy has heard about-to make sure she isn't there, but my mother's heart tells me she won't be there. She's gone to Shanghai to find her real father and learn about her mother and her aunt, and I'm going to be right behind her. Of course I'm afraid I'll be killed. But more than that, I'm afraid for all the things we still could lose.

I glance at my sister, who sits behind the wheel of the car with such determination. I remember that look from when she was a toddler. I remember it from when she hid our money and Mama's jewelry on the fisherman's boat. We still have so much to say to each other to make things right between us. There are things I'll never forgive her for and things I need to apologize for. I know for sure that she was dead wrong about how I feel about being in America. I may not have my papers, but after all these years, I am an American. I don't want to give that up-not after everything I've gone through to have it. I've earned my citizens.h.i.+p the hard way; I've earned it for Joy.

At the airport, May walks me to my gate. When we get there, she says, "I can never apologize enough about Sam, but please know I was trying to help the two of you." We hug, but there are no tears. For every awful thing that's been said and done, she is my sister. Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life. She is the only person left in the world who shares my memories of our childhood, our parents, our Shanghai, our struggles, our sorrows, and, yes, even our moments of happiness and triumph. My sister is the one person who truly knows me, as I know her. The last thing May says to me is "When our hair is white, we'll still have our sister love."

As I turn away and board the plane, I wonder if there was anything I could have done differently. I hope I would have done everything differently, except I know everything would have turned out the same. That's the meaning of fate. But if some things are fated and some people are luckier than others, then I also have to believe that I still haven't found my destiny. Because somehow, some way, I'm going to find Joy, and I'm going to bring my daughter, our daughter, home to my sister and me.

Acknowledgments.

Shanghai Girls is a historical novel. Pockmarked Huang, Christine Sterling, and Tom Gubbins were real people. But Pearl, May, and the rest of the characters are fictional, as is the plot. (The Louie family didn't own the Golden PaG.o.da, the rickshaw stand, plus a cafe and various other shops, although many families did own multiple businesses in China City. May didn't buy the Asiatic Costume Company from Tom Gubbins; the Lee family did.) However, some people may read these pages and recognize particular details, experiences, and anecdotes. Off and on during the last nineteen years-and maybe my entire life-I've been fortunate to get to talk to people who lived in some of the places and through some of the events that I wrote about in Shanghai Girls. There were countless happy memories, but for some, sharing their stories took incredible bravery, because they were still unsettled by what had happened to them in China during the war years, embarra.s.sed by the humiliations of Angel Island or the Confession Program, or ashamed of the poverty and hards.h.i.+p they had experienced in Los Angeles Chinatown. Some of them have asked to remain nameless. To them and to everyone else who helped me, I say, this book wouldn't exist without your stories and your devotion to the truth.

Many thanks to Michael Woo for giving me a copy of the handwritten remembrances of his mother, Beth Woo, of teaching English to j.a.panese military men, the written marriage terms they showed her, and what it was like to escape from China on a fis.h.i.+ng boat and live in Hong Kong during the war. Beth's husband, Wilbur Woo, who was separated from his wife here in Los Angeles, shared with me many stories of those days and introduced me to Jack Lee, who told me about the FBI agent who used to hang out in Chinatown during the Confession Program era. Phil Young introduced me to his mother, Monica Young, whose memories of being an orphan sent back to China during the Sino-j.a.panese War were invaluable. She also lent me a copy of Alice Lan and Betty Hu's reminiscence, We Flee from Hong Kong, in which the two missionaries described the cold cream and cocoa powder concoction that served as part of their disguise while they and their charges tried to stay ahead of the j.a.panese.

Ruby Ling Louie and Marian Leng, whose families each had businesses in China City, shared with me maps, photographs, brochures, and other memorabilia, including Paul Louie's excellent slide show on China City. An extra thank-you to Marian for her discussion of the difference between fu yen and yen fu. Others who graciously shared their time and stories include Dr. Wing and Joyce Mar, Gloria Yuen, Mason Fong, and Akuen Fong. Ruth Shannon allowed me to use her dear husband's name. (On the surface, my Edfred couldn't be more different from Ruth's, but they were both kind in heart.) Eleanor Wong Telemaque and Mary Yee told me stories of what happened to their families during the Confession Program.

I also went back to interviews I did years ago when I was researching On Gold Mountain. Two sisters, Mary and Dill Louie, both gone now, reminisced about the Chinese in Hollywood. Jennie Lee talked to me about the years her husband worked for Tom Gubbins and what it was like to own the Asiatic Costume Company after the war. I wish, once again, to acknowledge the National Archives in San Bruno. The interrogation scenes in Shanghai Girls are taken almost verbatim from the entrance examinations of Mrs. Fong Lai (Jung-shee), the wife of one of my great-grandfather's paper partners, and from hearing transcripts belonging to my great-grandfather Fong See and his brother Fong Yun.

I owe a deep debt of grat.i.tude to Yvonne Chang at the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California for giving me access to the transcripts from an oral history project about Los Angeles Chinatown conducted between 1978 and 1980. Some of the partic.i.p.ants have now pa.s.sed on, but their stories have been captured and saved. The CHSSC is currently collaborating with the Los Angeles Chinatown Youth Council to create the Chinatown Remembered Community History Project, a filmed oral history project focusing on the 1930s and 1940s. I would like to thank the CHSSC and Will Gow, the project director, for giving me a first peek at those transcripts. The CHSSC's publications-Linking Our Lives, Bridging the Centuries, and Duty and Honor-greatly contributed to my creation of time and place for this story. Suellen Cheng, of the Chinese American Museum and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, has once again given me encouragement, advice, and insights.

Since I am neither a historian nor an academician, I have relied on the works of Jack Chen, Iris Chang, Ronald Takaki, Peter Kwong, Duanka Micevic, and Icy Smith. Amy Chen's doc.u.mentary, The Chinatown Files, helped to ill.u.s.trate the lingering bitterness, guilt, and sadness that resulted from the Confession Program. Special shout-outs to Kathy Ouyang Turner of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, for taking me to the island; Casey Lee, for guiding us on the island; Emma Woo Louie, for her research on Chinese-American names; Sue Fawn Chung and Priscilla Wegars, for their work on Chinese-American death rituals; Theodora Lau, for her brilliant examination of the Chinese horoscope; Liz Rawlings, who now lives in Shanghai, for a bit of fact checking; and Judy Yung for Unbound Feet, for her family's personal stories, for collecting the stories about Angel Island and the war years from so many others, and for answering my questions. I'm grateful as well for Ruthanne Lum McCunn's friends.h.i.+p, recommendations, and advice. Him Mark Lai, the G.o.dfather of Chinese-American studies, answered numerous e-mails and proved to be thoughtful and thought-provoking, as always. Island, written and compiled by Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung, and Chinese American Portraits by Ruthanne Lum McCunn inspired me in the past and continue to inspire me.

I've been to Shanghai several times, but the works of Hallet Abend, Stella Dong, Hanchao Lu, Pan Ling, Lynn Pan, and Harriet Sergeant also contributed greatly to this novel. In a series of e-mails Hanchao Lu also clarified some lingering questions I had about Shanghai's geographic boundaries in the 1930s. The character of Sam, although he has a much different destiny and outlook on life, was influenced by Lao She's proletarian novel Rickshaw. For the history of Shanghai advertising, poster girls, and dress, I'm indebted to the works of Ellen Johnston Laing, Anna Hestler, and Beverley Jackson. I also immersed myself in the works of Chinese writers active between 1920 and 1940, particularly those of Eileen Chang, Xiao Hong, Luo Shu, and Lu Xun.

I wish to acknowledge Cindy Bork, Vivian Craig, Laura Davis, Mary Healey Linda Huff, Pam Vaccaro, and Debbie Wright-who partic.i.p.ated in a monthlong Barnes & n.o.ble on line discussion with me-for their insights and thoughts; the 12th Street Book Group for reminding me that sisters are for life; and Jean Ann Bala.s.si, Jill Hopkins, Scottie Senalik, and Denise Whitteaker-who won me in a silent auction and then flew to Los Angeles, where I gave them a tour of Los Angeles Chinatown and introduced them to various family members-for helping me find the emotional heart of the novel.

I am extraordinarily lucky to have Sandy Dijkstra as my agent. She and all the women in her office fight for me, encourage me, and push me into new worlds. Michael Cendejas has helped me navigate the movie world. Across the pond, Katie Bond, my editor at Bloomsbury, has been filled with bright good cheer. Bob Loomis, my editor at Random House, has been kindness itself. I love our conversations and his crazy dots. But I'd also like to thank everyone at Random House who has made these past few years so extraordinary, with special appreciation to Gina Centrello, Jane von Mehren, Tom Perry, Barbara Fillon, Amanda Ice, Sanyu Dillon, Avideh Bas.h.i.+rrad, Benjamin Dreyer, and Vincent La Scala.

A few final words of grat.i.tude and thanks to Larry Sells, for help with all things Wikipedia, website content, and for running my Google Group; Sasha Stone, for managing my website so professionally; Susan M. S. Brown, for her astute copyediting; Suzy Moser at the Huntington Library, for arranging for me to have my photograph taken in the Chinese Scholar's Garden; Patricia Williams, for taking that beautiful photograph; Tyrus Wong, now ninety-eight years old, for still making and flying Chinese kites; my cousin Leslee Leong, for living in the past with me; my mother, Carolyn See, for her keen eye and judgment; my sisters-Clara, Katharine, and Ariana-for all the reasons you can think of and so much more; my sons, Christopher and Alexander, for making me proud and supporting me in so many ways; and finally my husband, Richard Kendall, for giving me strength when I'm struggling, humor when I'm down, and boundless love every single day.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

LISA SEE is the author of five previous novels, including the critically acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Peony in Love and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Flower Net (which was nominated for an Edgar Award), The Interior, and Dragon Bones. She is also the author of the widely acclaimed memoir On Gold Mountain. The Organization of Chinese American Women named her the 2001 National Woman of the Year. She lives in Los Angeles.

www.LisaSee.com.

ALSO BY LISA SEE.

Peony in Love.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.

Dragon Bones.

The Interior.

Flower Net.

On Gold Mountain.