Helen Zia

The Goodreads summary of this book says it follows the lives of four young people fleeing the 1949 Communist takeover of China. It is that but their story actually begins with the Japanese invasion of China, which predates US involvement in WWII, continuing all the way to very recent times. You may think you know their story, I'll bet you don't.

Helen Zia describes the interesting often sad tales of each of the four individuals in her book, each worthy of a separate book themselves. But more than simply tell you about someone else's life she tells you what it means to you.

This isn't about Chinese and China, it is about you, me, and everyone in the world regardless of our nationality, politics, religious beliefs, or where we live.… (more)

narrative nonfiction following four individuals through the turbulent time of 1937-1948 Shanghai (and sometimes nearby towns along the Yangtze R.) as power changed hands over and again -- the student son of a landowner (Ho Chow); the wealthy son of a high-level puppet policeman under Japanese control (Benny Pan); the adopted daughter given up by her rural family and taken in by city socialites (Bing Woo); and a daughter of a Nationalist officer (Annua Liu). The focus is specific to Shanghai rather than mainland China overall, as the city generally had operated in a uniquely separate bubble, but also follows each person's travels into the 1950s (New York City, Taiwan, Ann Arbor, Hong Kong, Nanjing, etc.) and though my ancestors did not pass through most of those places I still found it very interesting to see all the things that could happen to a person during this time period, depending on (or regardless of) where your allegiances may appear to lie.

Very readable and extensively researched--any work done in researching this period is necessarily meticulous, and the author has done her job well.… (more)

This book is stunning, and is yet another I will likely send to my dad to read, as it combines his interest in military history but also our shared fascination with the history of the Chinese diaspora. To listen to an interview with the author, check out this live episode of They Call Us Bruce.

I was initially surprised to find that it was a narrative read, following four individuals from childhood through their diaspora adventures. Even more surprising, these are *true* narratives, collected over many interviews through the course of 12 years (in addition to over one hundred interviews with other Shanghainese immigrants). Nonfiction can get very dry, citing reports and contemporary news articles without personifying things, but this was a gripping tale. My family are Taishanese folks, but the stories here are adjacent to my family's, with an uncle remembering Japanese atrocities in the ancestral village during WWII, and his wife being a refugee yet also a "sophisticated city girl" to his self-described "country bumpkin".

Last Boat Out of Shanghai covers the mostly untold story of the exodus of millions out of Shanghai around the Communist takeover of the city in 1949. Zia mentions the perception that the people who fled Mao's revolution were the landowners, the bourgeosie, the rich and intellectual, but the Japanese occupation and the following civil war disrupted life for all classes. Annuo and Bing's stories consistently are about staving off poverty (both girls also leave and return to Shanghai various times during this period too), Benny goes from a spoiled son of a corrupt police official to struggling to find a way to finish his education, while Ho is trapped in limbo, a student overseas trying to figure out if he should go home to find his family or find a way to stay in a country that doesn't want him.

Though a historical, biographical narrative, it's not hard to draw comparisons to modern day discussions about refugees displaced on the globe. Zia digs in her acknowledgements that even at the height of Cold War and McCarthyism paranoia, the US government didn't want to separate parents from their children. The stress of having enough money to enter another country, having the right papers, making sure your family is all covered (or do you divide members in case the safe haven't isn't that safe?) are still questions people need to consider when thinking about fleeing home.… (more)

This was an interesting read about Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc during and after WW2. It focuses on a few different people's lives and how they were affected, but they are partly symbolic for a large number of people.

Shanghai was probably the most (only?) modern city in China before the Japanese took over. It was like the roaring 20s there. Actually, I guess it pretty much was the roaring 20s. Lots of rich people going out dancing and drinking, and a lot of Westerners living in their own sections.

The Japanese didn't mess around with them too much, especially not the Europeans, but it was still pretty bad for the common Chinese there. It actually seemed to get worse when the Japanese lost, and the Nationalists took over with the Communist invaders getting closer. The Nationalists were pretty worn out when they arrived after fighting the Japanese, and they took over whatever houses they wanted. They punished a lot of Chinese who had suffered under Japanese rule for cooperating with the Japanese when all they were doing was trying to keep out of trouble and stay alive.

Then, as the Communists got closer, the Nationalist leaders started abandoning the city for Taiwan while urging the army to fight to the end. They never had a chance, and the Communists took over, and of course, punished the poor Chinese for cooperating with the Nationalists. As the Communists invaded, a lot of citizens managed to escape to Taiwan or Hong Kong, often with very little to their name. They didn't want to live in Taiwan, which they considered too backward, or Hong Kong, which was remote with nothing to do. But they couldn't stay in Shanghai which was being continuously bombed by the Nationalists in Taiwan, and they were afraid of the Communists. Plus, they thought it would only be for a short time. Unfortunately, the US didn't want to continue to support them.

Once in Taiwan, a lot of them were suspected of being Communist supporters. And there weren't enough jobs or housing, so life was really bad. Some moved on to Hong Kong, which wasn't much better, and some managed to get to the US for college. But of course, the US had Joe McCarthy looking for communists everywhere, especially in the Chinese immigrants, and the US citizens didn't think very highly of any Asians after the war against Japan. They didn't really know the difference between Japanese, Chinese, or Korean.

It was a pretty sad story most of the time. It's interesting to learn about how hard it was to leave their country and come here with nothing, and makes me think about the current immigrants from countries that are run by dictators, etc, who come here and are discriminated against, can't get jobs, etc. A lot of these Chinese were very educated and smart, yet the Communists thought they and other educated people were evil rich people who stole from the common workers, so they were punished, often harshly. It was a really stupid thing from them to do, but hard-core ideologies often don't act in their own self-interests.… (more)