Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls 1)

China City isn’t like Shanghai. It isn’t like the Old Chinese City either. It isn’t even like a Chinese village. It looks a lot like the China May and I used to see in movies brought to Shanghai from Hollywood. Yes, it’s all exactly as May described during our walks together. Paramount Studios has donated a set from Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife, which has now been converted into the Chinese Junk Café. Workmen from MGM have meticulously reassembled Wang’s Farmhouse from The Good Earth, right down to the ducks and chickens in the yard. Behind Wang’s Farmhouse winds the Passage of One Hundred Surprises, where those same MGM carpenters have converted an old blacksmith shop into ten novelty boutiques, selling jewel trees, scented teas, and fringed and embroidered “Spanish” shawls made in China. The tapestries in the Temple of Kwan Yin are reputed to be thousands of years old, and the statue was supposedly saved from the bombing of Shanghai. In fact, like so many things at China City, the temple was constructed from more leftover sets from MGM. Even the Great Wall came from a movie, although it must have been a western in which a fort needed defending. Christine Sterling’s determination to repackage her Olvera Street concept into something Chinese has been matched by her total lack of understanding of our culture, history, and taste.

My brain tells me I’m safe. Too many people mill about for anyone to try to trap or hurt me, but I’m nervous and scared. I hurry down another blind alley. I hold Joy so tightly she starts to cry. People stare at me as though I’m a bad mother. I’m not a bad mother, I want to shout. This is my baby. In my panic I think, if I can find the front entrance, then I’ll be able to find my way back to the apartment. But Old Man Louie locked the door on our way out and I don’t have a key. Agitated and apprehensive, I put my head down and shove through the people.

“Are you lost?” A voice addresses me in the pure tones of the Wu dialect of Shanghai. “Do you need help?”

I look up to see a lo fan with white hair, glasses, and a full white beard.

“I think you must be May’s sister,” he says. “Are you Pearl?”

I nod.

“I’m Tom Gubbins. Most people call me Bak Wah Tom—Motion Pictures Tom. I have a shop here, and I know your sister. Tell me where you need to go.”

“They want me at the Golden Dragon Café.”

“Ah, yes, one of the many Golden enterprises. Anything that’s worth five cents around here is run by your father-in-law,” he says knowingly. “Come along. I’ll take you there.”

I don’t know this man and May has never mentioned him, but perhaps he’s just one of many things she hasn’t told me. Still, the sounds of Shanghai coming from his mouth give me all the assurance I need. On our way to the café, he points out the various shops my father-in-law owns. The Golden Lantern, Old Man Louie’s original store from Old Chinatown, sells cheap curios: ashtrays, toothpick holders, and back scratchers. Through the window, I see Yen-yen talking to customers. Farther along, Vern sits by himself in a tiny shop, the Golden Lotus, selling silk flowers. I’ve heard Old Man Louie boast to our neighbors about how little it cost him to open this business: “Silk flowers cost almost nothing in China. Here I can sell them for five times their original price.” He scoffed at another family that opened a live-flower stand. “They paid eighteen dollars for the icebox at the secondhand store. Every day they’ll spend fifty cents to buy a hundred pounds of ice. They have to buy cans and vases to put the flowers in. Altogether fifty dollars! Too much! Too wasteful! And it isn’t hard to sell silk flowers, because even my son can do it.”

I see the top of the Golden Pagoda before we reach it and know that from now on I can always look up to get my bearings. The Golden Pagoda is housed in a fake pagoda five tiers high. From here, Old Man Louie—dressed in a midnight blue mandarin gown—plans to sell his best merchandise: cloisonné, fine porcelains, mother-of-pearl inlay carved teakwood furniture, opium pipes, ivory mah-jongg sets, and antiques. Through the window, I see May standing a little to his left, chatting with a family of four, gesturing animatedly, and smiling so broadly I can see her teeth. She looks different and yet very much the sister I’ve always known. Her cheongsam clings to her like a second skin. Her hair swirls around her face, and I realize she’s gotten her hair cut and styled. How have I not noticed that before? But it’s the old radiance that shines out of her that really surprises me. I haven’t seen her like this in a long time.

“She’s very beautiful,” Tom observes, as if reading my thoughts. “I’ve told her I could get her work, but she’s afraid you won’t approve. What do you think, Pearl? You can see I’m not a bad man. Why don’t you think about it and talk it over with May?”

I understand his words, but I can’t take in their meaning.

Seeing my confusion, he shrugs. “All right then. On to the Golden Dragon.”

When we get there, he glances in the window and says, “It looks like they could use your help, so I won’t keep you. But if you ever need anything, come see me at the Asiatic Costume Company. May will show you where it is. She visits me every day.”

With that, he turns away and melts into the crowd. I pull open the door to the Golden Dragon Café and enter. There are eight tables and a counter with ten stools. Behind the counter Uncle Wilburt, wearing a white undershirt and a paper hat folded from plain newsprint, sweats over a sizzling wok. Next to him Uncle Charley chops ingredients with a cleaver. Uncle Edfred carries a load of dishes to the sink, where Sam rinses dirty glasses under a steaming tap.

“Hey, can we get some help over here?” a man calls out.

Sam wipes his hands, hurries over, hands me a notepad, takes Joy from my arms, and places her in a wooden crate behind the counter. For the next six hours, we work without stop. By the time the Grand Opening officially ends, Sam’s clothes are smeared with food and grease, and my feet, shoulders, and arms ache, but Joy’s sound asleep in her crate. Old Man Louie and the others come to fetch us. The uncles head to wherever it is Chinatown bachelors go at night. After my father-in-law locks the door, we set out for the apartment. Sam, Vern, and their father walk ahead, while Yen-yen, May, and I stay a proper ten paces behind them. I’m exhausted and Joy feels

as heavy as a sack of rice, but no one offers to take her from me.

Old Man Louie told us not to use a language he can’t understand, but I speak to May in the Wu dialect, hoping Yen-yen won’t tell on us and trusting we’re far enough from the men that they won’t hear.

“You’ve been keeping things from me, May.”

I’m not angry. I’m hurt. May has been building a new life in China City, while I’ve been locked in the apartment. She’s even gotten a haircut! Oh, how that burns now that I’ve noticed it.

“Things? What things?” She keeps her voice low—so we won’t be heard? So I won’t raise mine?

“I thought we decided we would wear only Western clothes once we got here. We said we would try to look like Americans, but all you bring me are these.”

“That’s one of your favorite cheongsams,” May says.

“I don’t want to wear these anymore. We agreed—”

She slows, and as I pass her she reaches for my shoulder to hold me back. Yen-yen keeps walking, obediently following her husband and sons.

“I haven’t wanted to tell you, because I knew you’d be upset,” May whispers. She taps her lips hesitantly with three knuckles.

“What is it?” I sigh. “Just tell me.”

“Our Western dresses are gone. He”—she nods toward the men, but I know she’s referring to our father-in-law—“doesn’t want us to wear anything but our Chinese clothes.”