SHANGHAI GIRL: A Novel

About the Book

Shanghai Girl is a contemporary tale set in Shanghai and New York in the 1980’s. The novel depicts the young protagonist Sha-fei Hong’s journey from China to the U.S., her emotional maturity in the process, and her indebtedness to the place she hails from – Shanghai. The other two main characters are Gordon Lou, a middle-aged China-born, Asian-American businessman with political ambitions and ties to the Chinatown underworld; and Edward Cook, a young, white American lawyer who has a strong preference for things Asian. The story unfolds from the threesome’s respective points of view, in alternating chapters. They first meet in the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai, where Gordon takes Sha-fei to seek information on graduate studies in the U.S., and where Ed is a legal intern. The dramatic stage of ambition, sex, intrigue, and murder soon moves to Manhattan. After failing to receive a scholarship, Sha-fei resorts to working for Gordon for little pay (Gordon is her nominal legal immigration sponsor) as an Asian community researcher. She briefly dates Ed who is now an attorney at a law firm that happens to be Gordon’s corporate consul. The pre-existing bad blood between Gordon and Ed (due to Ed’s prior relationship with Gordon’s U.S.-born and bred daughter, now an unemployed dropout) intensifies once Sha-fei is in the picture. Ed wrongly attributes Sha-fei’s breakup with him to Gordon’s meddling and threatens to bring Gordon down by exposing his alleged tax fraud. With the help of the underworld, Gordon succeeds in having Ed “eliminated”. Unaware of the true nature of the men’s struggle against each other, Sha-fei breaks free from both of them, obtains a scholarship to Columbia University Law School. In 1992, upon graduation, Sha-fei becomes the first Coordinator of Asian-American Affairs, a newly created position in the Empire State.

The Table of Contents is as follows:

I Out Of The Misty Eastern Cave

1. SHA-FEI HONG: Exile From Avenue Joffre … 1

2. GORDON LOU: Gentleman Avenger … 19

3. SHA-FEI HONG: Great Red Fortune … 37

4. EDWARD COOK: Connections And Recollections … 61

5. SHA-FEI HONG: Bound To Meet On A Narrow Alley … 69

6. GORDON LOU: Ninja Strategist … 83

7. SHA-FEI HONG: The Revolutionary Help Exchange … 86

8. EDWARD COOK: The Long March White Powder … 98

II Over The Western Wave

9. SHA-FEI HONG: Sweet and Sour Big Apple … 103

10. SHA-FEI HONG: Maiden Voyage Running Aground … 115

11. EDWARD COOK: The Interlocution of An Interculturalist 128

12. SHA-FEI HONG: A Chinatown Prescription … 131

13. SHA-FEI HONG: No More Sewing Others’ Trousseau … 141

14. SHA-FEI HONG: “Big Curvaceous Field” … 149

15. EDWARD COOK: Dig and You Shall Find … 157

16. GORDON LOU: The Lofty Move … 166

17. SHA-FEI HONG: Holy Matrimony … 173

18. EDWARD COOK: Season’s Greetings … 181

19. GORDON LOU: He Laughs Best … 187

20. SHA-FEI HONG: Two Is A Pair … 193

Epilogue

The Shanghai In The Girl … 208

About the Author

Vivian Wei (which means roses in Chinese) YANG considers herself a Shanghai girl despite over a decade’s sojourn in America. She studied creative writing at Columbia University and New York University. She is a 1995-1996 New Jersey State Arts Council Literature Fellow for her fiction The Mandarin Phoenix. Her novel excerpts Over The Western Wave and Chicken Coop Tales appeared in the NYC literary magazine The APA Journal in 1991 and 1997 respectively. Vivian is the author of Status, Society, and Sino-Singaporeans, a socio-psychological study of the Chinese of the city-state. She taught English and journalism at Shanghai International Studies University, her undergraduate Alma Mater. Vivian began contributing by-line articles to the English-language CHINA DAILY when she was 23, and was a freelance TV and radio journalist in Beijing and Shanghai, reporting in English. Vivian holds an MA from the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University, USA.