Date: November 7, 2024
Author: Lisa See
Title: Shanghai Girls
This I found on the top shelf of recommended books by the library. I can appreciate the story, but it just wasn’t up my alley. I have an affinity for the Asian culture. I even worked in a hibachi and sushi restaurant. It was quite Americanized, but the spirit was there. So, in my never-ending endeavor to free my mind and broaden my horizons I like to step outside the norm. I didn’t get very far into the book, but what I gleaned from what I read is that this is about 2 sisters growing up in 1930’s China, they are hip, young adults running around the streets of Shanghai, (which the cover informed me is like the Paris of Asia) until one night they come home to their father waiting up for them with devastating news. He was bankrupt and had swindled up a scheme to make some money by (basically) selling off the two daughters into marriage in exchange from the boy’s father for money.
It seemed like the protagonists were strong, independent women, finding themselves, in essence, being sold into marriage to the highest bidder. I’m not sure why they were worth so much money because the family was in financial ruin and other then that they were Chinese which was, apparently, cause for discrimination by the inhabitants of this city. I just didn’t get into it.
I did learn a fun fact though, Chinese women traditionally bound their feet, causing them to become incredibly distorted and created crippling pain to walk with. The bandages used to bind would become saturated with blood and puss. But they were able to fit their feet into tiny, pointy shoes, so hey. This tradition has been left behind and in the past, but only by less then a hundred years.