{"id":4550,"date":"2009-07-23T09:10:57","date_gmt":"2009-07-23T13:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=4550"},"modified":"2014-05-19T23:50:13","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T03:50:13","slug":"shanghai-girls-by-lisa-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/shanghai-girls-by-lisa-see\/","title":{"rendered":"Shanghai Girls by Lisa See"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2009\/07\/Shanghai-Girls.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-29617\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2009\/07\/Shanghai-Girls.jpg\" alt=\"Shanghai Girls\" width=\"394\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a>Since <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lisasee.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Lisa See<\/a>&#8216;s latest has been sitting high on all the best bestseller lists for many weeks, presumably many have already read the \u00a0story of two sisters and their odyssey from China to LA&#8217;s Chinatown. I probably should have done the same \u2013 <em>read <\/em>the book as opposed to having listened to most of it\u00a0on my various peripatetic jaunts. Somehow \u2013 intonation? misplaced emphasis? overdramatic wording? \u2013\u00a0the book&#8217;s reader, Janet Song, makes older sister Pearl, through whose perspective the novel unfolds, about as self-absorbed and self-pitying as a whiny adolescent yelling &#8216;but that&#8217;s not fair, that&#8217;s not fair!&#8217; every five seconds.<\/p>\n<p>That gripe aside, I didn&#8217;t ever give up and click to another track. As I wandered far too many airports, I eagerly followed Pearl and May&#8217;s glittering Shanghai life as much-painted models, their heart-wrenching family tragedies, their survival of and eventual escape from the tortuous Japanese occupation of their shattered country, their immigration ordeal through Angel Island to join stranger-Gold Mountain husbands, and their eventual acceptance of their seemingly diminished new lives on the outskirts of <em>Haolaiwu <\/em>[Hollywood].<\/p>\n<p>As bonded as they are, the two sisters are extremely different &#8230; and resentful of one another&#8217;s lives. Pearl, the practical, smarter one, feels trapped with the responsibility that she must take care of her younger sister at all costs. May, the exquisite, fun-loving one that everyone seems to prefer, sees her older sister receiving all the praise, the opportunities, life&#8217;s lucky breaks. Still, sisterhood remains an impossible bond to break, regardless of indescribable betrayals &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since Lisa See&#8216;s latest has been sitting high on all the best bestseller lists for many weeks, presumably many have already read the \u00a0story of two sisters and their odyssey from China to LA&#8217;s Chinatown. I probably should have done the same \u2013 read the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,67,21,6],"tags":[83,6608,58,128,10,24,51,25,1596,1597,129,39,2576,170],"class_list":["post-4550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-audio","category-chinese","category-chinese-american","category-fiction","tag-assimilation","tag-bookdragon","tag-coming-of-age","tag-cultural-revolution-in-china","tag-family","tag-historical","tag-identity","tag-immigration","tag-janet-song","tag-lisa-see","tag-mother-daughter-relationship","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-shanghai-girls","tag-sibling-rivalry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Shanghai Girls by Lisa See - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/shanghai-girls-by-lisa-see\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shanghai Girls by Lisa See - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Since Lisa See&#8216;s latest has been sitting high on all the best bestseller lists for many weeks, presumably many have already read the \u00a0story of two sisters and their odyssey from China to LA&#8217;s Chinatown. I probably should have done the same \u2013 read the...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/shanghai-girls-by-lisa-see\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-23T13:10:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-05-20T03:50:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2009\/07\/Shanghai-Girls.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"394\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Shanghai Girls by Lisa See - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/shanghai-girls-by-lisa-see\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Shanghai Girls by Lisa See - BookDragon","og_description":"Since Lisa See&#8216;s latest has been sitting high on all the best bestseller lists for many weeks, presumably many have already read the \u00a0story of two sisters and their odyssey from China to LA&#8217;s Chinatown. I probably should have done the same \u2013 read the...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/shanghai-girls-by-lisa-see\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2009-07-23T13:10:57+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-05-20T03:50:13+00:00","og_image":[{"width":394,"height":600,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2009\/07\/Shanghai-Girls.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/shanghai-girls-by-lisa-see\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/shanghai-girls-by-lisa-see\/","name":"Shanghai Girls by Lisa See - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-07-23T13:10:57+00:00","dateModified":"2014-05-20T03:50:13+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/shanghai-girls-by-lisa-see\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/shanghai-girls-by-lisa-see\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/shanghai-girls-by-lisa-see\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Shanghai Girls by Lisa See"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4550"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29625,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550\/revisions\/29625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}