Remembering Shanghai
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Product Details
Publisher: Girl Friday Books
Release Date: October 19, 2021
Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, Ebook
ISBN: 978-1-954854-03-1 (hc); 978-1-954854-05-5 (pb); 978-1-954854-06-2 (eb)
Trim: 6 x 9
Page Count: 308
A Memoir of Socialites, Scholars and Scoundrels
Isabel Sun Chao, Claire Chao
Winner of over 20 literary and design awards including the Writer’s Digest Grand Prize and Rubery Book Award Book of the Year
True stories of glamour, drama, and tragedy told through five generations of a Shanghai family, from the last days of imperial rule to the Cultural Revolution.
A high position bestowed by China’s empress dowager grants power and wealth to the Sun family. For Isabel, growing up in glamorous 1930s and ’40s Shanghai, it is a life of utmost privilege. But while her scholar father and fashionable mother shelter her from civil war and Japanese occupation, they cannot shield the family forever.
When Mao comes to power, eighteen-year-old Isabel journeys to Hong Kong, not realizing that she will make it her home—and that she will never see her father again. She returns to Shanghai fifty years later with her daughter, Claire, to confront their family’s past—one they discover is filled with love and betrayal, kidnappers and concubines, glittering palaces and underworld crime bosses.
Lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched, Remembering Shanghai follows five generations from a hardscrabble village to the bright lights of Hong Kong. By turns harrowing and heartwarming, this vivid memoir explores identity, loss and redemption against an epic backdrop.
About the Authors
Isabel Sun Chao is one of the last of her generation to have experienced legendary “Old Shanghai” firsthand. She has lived in Hong Kong since 1950, where she worked for more than thirty years as a cultural affairs specialist in the US Consulate General. Now in her nineties, Isabel is retired, and most days can be found exercising her skills and diplomacy at the mahjong table.
Isabel’s daughter, Claire Chao, spent much of her youth seeking connections to her parents’ homeland. After thirty years in management with companies such as Tiffany & Co., Harry Winston and Hill & Knowlton, she spent a decade creating Remembering Shanghai. She has been designated one of Avenue magazine’s “500 Most Influential Asian Americans” and Tatler Hong Kong’s “Who’s Who in Hong Kong.” She graduated with highest honors from Princeton University and lives in Honolulu with her husband and two dogs.
Visit the author’s website at rememberingshanghai.com
Reviews
“Beautiful and rich, with fascinating details—transports the reader to Shanghai and Hong Kong ...This volume is a treasure.”
—Lisa See, author of Shanghai Girls and The Island of Sea Women
“An unexpected gem.”
—Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of China
“I recommend purchasing a physical copy: the vibrant illustrations and high-quality paper make this a volume that demands to be held and leafed through, and it will find a natural home on your coffee table.”
—Maura Cunningham, Los Angeles Review of Books
“A beguiling memoir of Shanghai.”
—Chloe Leung, Hong Kong Review of Books
“In this elegantly written, intimate and compelling account spanning turbulent centuries, Remembering Shanghai’s authors, mother and daughter, have brought warmly and vibrantly to life their family’s extraordinary story of lowly origins, high office, austere scholarship, filial loyalty, scandalous betrayal and fabulous wealth. Absolutely gorgeous—the book is a visual delight with the turn of every page.”
—Martin Alexander, Asia Literary Review
“A story that is the stuff of novels …Isabel and Claire’s journey in divining their family history—which is also Shanghai’s history—is a well-told tale that is by turns jaw-dropping, exciting, touching, tragic, and insightful.”
—Tina Kanagaratnam, Historic Shanghai; named one of the Best Books of 2018
“I was transported … from the eyewitness accounts of the jazz era and long-gone bourgeois lifestyle to the wonderful photos of qipao. The historical background is also superbly documented. I highly recommend this book!”
—Didier Pujol, Hong Kong & Shanghai Tours blog
