Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls #1)(122)

As I turn away and board the plane, I wonder if there was anything I could have done differently. I hope I would have done everything differently, except I know everything would have turned out the same. That’s the meaning of fate. But if some things are fated and some people are luckier than others, then I also have to believe that I still haven’t found my destiny. Because somehow, some way, I’m going to find Joy, and I’m going to bring my daughter, our daughter, home to my sister and me.





Acknowledgments


Shanghai Girls is a historical novel. Pockmarked Huang, Christine Sterling, and Tom Gubbins were real people. But Pearl, May, and the rest of the characters are fictional, as is the plot. (The Louie family didn’t own the Golden Pagoda, the rickshaw stand, plus a café and various other shops, although many families did own multiple businesses in China City. May didn’t buy the Asiatic Costume Company from Tom Gubbins; the Lee family did.) However, some people may read these pages and recognize particular details, experiences, and anecdotes. Off and on during the last nineteen years—and maybe my entire life—I’ve been fortunate to get to talk to people who lived in some of the places and through some of the events that I wrote about in Shanghai Girls. There were countless happy memories, but for some, sharing their stories took incredible bravery, because they were still unsettled by what had happened to them in China during the war years, embarrassed by the humiliations of Angel Island or the Confession Program, or ashamed of the poverty and hardship they had experienced in Los Angeles Chinatown. Some of them have asked to remain nameless. To them and to everyone else who helped me, I say, this book wouldn’t exist without your stories and your devotion to the truth.

Many thanks to Michael Woo for giving me a copy of the handwritten remembrances of his mother, Beth Woo, of teaching English to Japanese military men, the written marriage terms they showed her, and what it was like to escape from China on a fishing boat and live in Hong Kong during the war. Beth’s husband, Wilbur Woo, who was separated from his wife here in Los Angeles, shared with me many stories of those days and introduced me to Jack Lee, who told me about the FBI agent who used to hang out in Chinatown during the Confession Program era. Phil Young introduced me to his mother, Monica Young, whose memories of being an orphan sent back to China during the Sino-Japanese War were invaluable. She also lent me a copy of Alice Lan and Betty Hu’s reminiscence, We Flee from Hong Kong, in which the two missionaries described the cold cream and cocoa powder concoction that served as part of their disguise while they and their charges tried to stay ahead of the Japanese.

Ruby Ling Louie and Marian Leng, whose families each had businesses in China City, shared with me maps, photographs, brochures, and other memorabilia, including Paul Louie’s excellent slide show on China City. An extra thank-you to Marian for her discussion of the difference between fu yen and yen fu. Others who graciously shared their time and stories include Dr. Wing and Joyce Mar, Gloria Yuen, Mason Fong, and Akuen Fong. Ruth Shannon allowed me to use her dear husband’s name. (On the surface, my Edfred couldn’t be more different from Ruth’s, but they were both kind in heart.) Eleanor Wong Telemaque and Mary Yee told me stories of what happened to their families during the Confession Program.

I also went back to interviews I did years ago when I was researching On Gold Mountain. Two sisters, Mary and Dill Louie, both gone now, reminisced about the Chinese in Hollywood. Jennie Lee talked to me about the years her husband worked for Tom Gubbins and what it was like to own the Asiatic Costume Company after the war. I wish, once again, to acknowledge the National Archives in San Bruno. The interrogation scenes in Shanghai Girls are taken almost verbatim from the entrance examinations of Mrs. Fong Lai (Jung-shee), the wife of one of my great-grandfather’s paper partners, and from hearing transcripts belonging to my great-grandfather Fong See and his brother Fong Yun.

I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Yvonne Chang at the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California for giving me access to the transcripts from an oral history project about Los Angeles Chinatown conducted between 1978 and 1980. Some of the participants have now passed on, but their stories have been captured and saved. The CHSSC is currently collaborating with the Los Angeles Chinatown Youth Council to create the Chinatown Remembered Community History Project, a filmed oral history project focusing on the 1930s and 1940s. I would like to thank the CHSSC and Will Gow, the project director, for giving me a first peek at those transcripts. The CHSSC’s publications—Linking Our Lives, Bridging the Centuries, and Duty and Honor—greatly contributed to my creation of time and place for this story. Suellen Cheng, of the Chinese American Museum and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, has once again given me encouragement, advice, and insights.

Since I am neither a historian nor an academician, I have relied on the works of Jack Chen, Iris Chang, Ronald Takaki, Peter Kwong, Du?anka Mi?cevic, and Icy Smith. Amy Chen’s documentary, The Chinatown Files, helped to illustrate the lingering bitterness, guilt, and sadness that resulted from the Confession Program. Special shout-outs to Kathy Ouyang Turner of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, for taking me to the island; Casey Lee, for guiding us on the island; Emma Woo Louie, for her research on Chinese-American names; Sue Fawn Chung and Priscilla Wegars, for their work on Chinese-American death rituals; Theodora Lau, for her brilliant examination of the Chinese horoscope; Liz Rawlings, who now lives in Shanghai, for a bit of fact checking; and Judy Yung for Unbound Feet, for her family’s personal stories, for collecting the stories about Angel Island and the war years from so many others, and for answering my questions. I’m grateful as well for Ruthanne Lum McCunn’s friendship, recommendations, and advice. Him Mark Lai, the godfather of Chinese-American studies, answered numerous e-mails and proved to be thoughtful and thought-provoking, as always. Island, written and compiled by Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung, and Chinese American Portraits by Ruthanne Lum McCunn inspired me in the past and continue to inspire me.