Claire Chao - Remembering Shanghai: A Memoir of Socialites, Scholars and Scoundrels

Highly enjoyable... an engaging and entertaining saga.

Fionnuala McHugh, writer, South China Morning Post

Absolutely gorgeousso beautifully done.

Martin Alexander, editor in chief of the Asia Literary Review

Mesmerizing stories... magnificent language.

Betty Peh-Ti Wei, PhD, author, Old Shanghai

The authors writing is masterful.

Nicholas von Sternberg, cinematographer

Unforgettable... a unique point of view.

Hugues Martin, writer, shanghailander.net

Absorbingan amazing family history.

Nelly Fung, author, Beneath the Banyan Tree

Engaging characters, richly detailed descriptions and exquisite illustrations.

Debra Lee Baldwin, photojournalist and author

The facts are so dramatic they read like fiction.

Heather Diamond, author, American Aloha

Copyright 2018 Isabel Sun Chao and Claire Chao
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Plum Brook, LLC, Honolulu
rememberingshanghai.com

Edited and designed by Girl Friday Productions
girlfridayproductions.com

Editorial: Diana Rico, Lindsey Alexander, Karen Parkin and Emilie Sandoz-Voyer; additional developmental editing by Gali Kronenberg
Cover and interior design: Paul Barrett

Image Credits: see

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9993938-1-9
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-9993938-0-2
Deluxe paperback ISBN: 978-0-9993938-3-3
e-ISBN: 978-0-9993938-2-6

Third Edition

Printed by Regal Printing Limited, China

Isabel Sun Chao and Claire Chao, Hong Kong

To those who preceded us...

Claire Chao (daughter)

... and those who will follow

Isabel Sun Chao (mother)

Remembering Shanghai is being adapted into a television drama series.

Isabel.

A magnificent illustration of Nanjing Road in the 1930s, with Wing On and Sincere department stores at the left and the right of the street.

The house is solid and dignified, its high gable radiating creamy yellow under a luminous Shanghai sky. Weve been standing here awhile, my daughter and I, arms linked, oblivious to the honking of impatient drivers as we gaze at the home I left behind sixty years ago. I follow the tilt of Claires head to the second floor, where our eyes rest on a russet-framed window. Something isnt right. Despite the buildings freshly painted walls, the glass is caked with grime, as if unwashed for decades.

Dust whirls, stirring memories long forgotten, now reawakened in the whoosh of Shanghai traffic.

The last image of my childhood haunts me: my grandmother rooted like a statue at that window, her unflinching stare following my every move as I prepared to leave. At eighteen, I was going to Hong Kong on my very first holiday. The sunbeams slanted through the lattice fence, bathing the garden in that mellow morning light that softened the edges of everything before it grew unbearably hot. The servants were lined up outside the front door to watch my father send me off. He clasped my shoulders with familiar affection, but his expression was solemn as he surveyed me through round spectacles. Be careful, Third Daughter. Well all be thinking of you.

Feeling glamorous and grown-up, I clutched my new pink valise and climbed onto the weathered seat of the pedicab that had ferried me to school every morning. We rode past the garage with the big American Buick parked insideidle all these years since wed had no gas to run it, yet still gleaming like an onyx sculpture in a museum.

The familiar rhythm of the drivers pedaling usually put me to sleep, but there was no chance of a nap this morning. Id never been apart from my family or close friends before, and soon I would be boarding a train for the first time, to a destination that some claimed was even more exciting than Shanghai.

I kept peering back, inhaling the sweet traces of night-blooming jasmine. The house became smaller and smaller, my grandmother standing stock-still at her bedroom window. Somehow I knew she would not move for a long time: not when Id turned off our little lane, not even after the pedicab picked up speed on the wide avenues of the International Settlement.

I wondered why she was so fixated on my departure, when I was going to be away only a few weeks. My mind skipped to a more amusing thought. I must find some special candies for her in Hong Kong; thered been a shortage of nice things in Shanghai.

Claire interrupts my reverie. Does the house look very different from what you remember?

Everything looks so much smaller... somehow sad.

Mom, I know this is not easy for you. We dont have to go inside if you dont want to.

I pull my cardigan tightly around me. Its okay. Weve come this far.

My daughter is right. I havent been at all keen to return to my childhood home. Claire is far more eager to look at things head on and dig into our familys colorful past. Its true, ours is a family of socialites, scholars and scoundrels. Ive no doubt that despite the chaos of the Japanese occupation, a civil war and the Communist revolution, my determined daughter will somehow piece together our family story.