Shanghai Girls by Lisa Sedis is an emotionally charged novel. Margarita, 20, and May, 17, are the daughters of a wealthy Chinese father and mother. They live in a large house with servants and cooks, never worrying about anything that will carry the day. However, unbeknownst to his daughters and mother, the father has moved to the deep Green the gang that runs the streets of Shanghai. The fastest way to sell the debt without killing the captain’s daughters, Louie, gang green Margarita and Maius are married to the two sons of Louio Veteri, one of whom is 14 years old. a> boy Not only did the girls’ father sell them, but they were sent to live with their new “husbands” in America.
A short wedding arranged and Old Louie brings his children so they can finally “meet their wedding” soon. Once done the new couple are sent to separate rooms, with Old Man Louie making sure new sheets are put on the bed. wife the thing” (as he says). When he accepts it and they retire to the dining room, Vern come down, Old Louie he sends for the sheets again, although he examines them, he finds no stains and is angry. Sam and Vern return to America and the girls stay with them for a month.
The girls fear leaving for America when war breaks out between China and Japan, leaving the girls stranded in the middle of a Shanghai market. They rush to their parents, but their father is nowhere to be found. The girls’ mother believes they were abandoned by their father to fend for himself. Mother, Margarita and May make a plan to return to the mother city, not far from Shanghai. They hire a rickshaw boy to take them there, knowing that many days will come mother’s day and the girls bound his feet. On the second night, they sleep in a deserted house, constantly worried that the Japanese will stumble upon them.
While they are sleeping in the bedroom, they are awakened by the frightened cries of the chickens who were sleeping outside. They arrived in Japan. Mother tells Bacca and Maius to hide between the wall and the table and enters the living room closing the door behind her . The mother understands the fate, knowing that the Japanese will kidnap and kill her. As the girls wait in the bedroom, they hear their mother’s distraught screams as the Japanese force themselves upon her. Margaret can’t take it anymore and enters the room, only for the Japanese men to attack her and kidnap her too. Margaret’s mother is hysterical here because she didn’t want her daughter to go through this. After taking turns to abduct the two women, the Japanese unroll the mother’s feet and try hard to pull the bound feet into a “normal” shape. After the men leave, the mother pulls Margarita into her arms and tells her that she loves her and cares for her sister, Maius. Then he dies, and Margarita is unconscious for several weeks. When he wakes up and finds himself on the ship, May has taken care of everyone this time and they are on their way to America.
When they arrive in America, they are sent to Angel Island (immigration). The doctors examine them both and say that it is very likely that Bacca will never be able to have children because of the rape. Margarita is filled with pain because she always wanted her children. They are questioned fiercely by the immigration authorities and the girls answer the same with plans to leave the island as soon as possible. But this does not seem to happen because he can give wrong answers to the authors, finding out that Bacca is pregnant. Utina confesses that she slept with a guy in Shanghai and asks Berry to have a baby, when she clearly didn’t sleep with Vern, her husband, when Margaret slept with her husband. Margaret agrees to take the baby and spend time on Angel Island until May has her own baby girl, Joy. When Joy is born, Margarita and Margarita go to live with their husbands and Old Louie and his wife, whom they call Ven Ven. live in a small rundown building cramped into three rooms.
Everyone is expected to work at at home. Old Louie opens some shops in China town, a court shop and a restaurant. Margarita and Maii go back to work between the shops. They experience a new life completely opposite to that in Shanghai, where they were expected to suffer from hand and foot disease. Fate takes her pearl, while May is empty-handed and leaves the city whenever she can. In the end, Margarita remains a strong, accepting woman while Maius always seeks perfection and movement.
I really enjoy this book because it allows you to see the whole world. The book is set in 1938 and Lisa Sedis does a great job at that time expressing her life. I tried to summarize what I thought were the most interesting parts of the story. Women at this time obviously had no rights or say in what happened. When old Ven Ven died, a small funeral was held and many people died because she was a woman, but when old Louie died, a great funeral was held and he was honored because he was a man. . This story shows the inequality between men and women at that time and to some extent even in modern times.
First of all, Margarita and Maius were sold by their father to others. Most of the girls came alone, as wives, slaves or prostitutes, but the boys did not take the same chance. Boys are respected by their families, but girls are despised. I find this particularly true in some Asian cultures, especially in earlier history. But even now, with the strictness of the ranks of the people, they hope that the wives will beget male children instead of girls. When girls are born, the mother can kill them for two reasons. There is only one reason why there should not be a child and a family, unless it is permitted to have one child. The second reason is that the mother does not want her daughter to suffer the same fate that she was about to suffer. Women in Chinese culture had to suffer the servitude of their husbands, abuse, neglect and the concubines that the husband acquires. This novel by Lisa Sedis illustrates all of these patterns. Although the book is not a true story, in that the characters are not real, the book is based on true events.
Jupiter is the main book in Bacca and Maio and that they are sisters. This bond between them lasted for life, when their mother died, she asked Margarita to always take care of her younger sister Maia. These sisters lived together to the end for the rest of their lives, married to two brothers. Through all the turmoil and experience, they were always on the other side. They also had to do it by accessing a new land, learning a new language and experiencing a different culture. The girls missed familiarity, they missed their country and the people in Shanghai, but they could miss this at the same time. One of them, however, is the secret of joy. I wish there was a rival that Bacca could act as Laetitia’s mother, while Bacca envies Maii going around in agony and doing as she pleases without a care. But when Joy grows up, the girls say, Joy is true, and the end of both acts is Joy the mother. Other issues that girls deal with throughout their lives are personal. Pearl clings to the past because it provides comfort while May tries to immerse herself in the new world. Finally, Pearl realized that she had to develop new skills to rather than repeat the same routines for fear of change. On the other hand, I hope she understands that she is moving forward, forgetting the past and all the things she held.
Through this book I learned that it is very important to have balance in your life. You need to accept the change and reflection of your life experience. Without reflection there is no progressive movement. Another major topic that I found interesting in the book was the discrimination and inequality of girls in coming to the United States. . At this time, Asians were not very welcome in America and the girls were constantly criticized by whites. The immigration process the girls experienced seemed horrible and racist, as the interrogator took things because of Margarita and May’s nationality. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it expanded my knowledge of the Chinese/American lifestyle, including native China, immigration, child trafficking, kidnapping, discrimination, and sister bonds.
