Few more pieces for my personal jigsaw puzzle of understanding the world. Mine is a four dimensional puzzle that not only covers places and people, but time. I now have a small glimpse into pre WWII Shanghai, the Paris of the East, a personalized view of the communist revolution in China, the Japanese - Chinese dynamic, Los Angeles in the 40's, America's historically confused understanding of immigration, Chinese and Chinese immigrants to the US, the world of Hollywood extras, family businesses and more.
Two sisters, May and Pearl are forced to flee Shanghai in 1937, when the Japanese invade and land in Los Angeles as arranged brides to two Chinese men. Their lives change drastically from ones of privilege and parties and modeling for beautiful girl calendars, through life threatening occurrences during the war, months on Angel island being interrogated and waiting to be allowed into the U.S., and then the hard work of making a life in a new country. See does a wonderful job of sharing their life stories with us - as told to us by Pearl, who doesn't always understand her more beautiful and flighty sister May, but loves her dearly. The experiences they share just bring them closer, and help them survive the totally strange world they are thrown into.
Though I have never had a sister to live with and love, I get it - my mom had this love with her sister. They too were very different, like May and Pearl, and they too had lived through the horrors of war, losses of family and friends, of established lives, and had to build lives from scratch. My mother and aunt had the one advantage of being Caucasian, so slightly less prejudice against them. They too had their ethnic community as support. My aunt chose to use her husband's Italian community more than the Latvian one, but the same concept.
I had forgotten that there is another book after this one, as I did feel I was left a bit hanging at the end.
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