Shanghai Girls

Currently, I am reading "Shanghai Girls" for my culture/ethnic book assignment. This is the story of two sisters, Pearl Chin and May and how their lives drastically change living in Shanghai in 1937 while they are encountering “wars” with the Japanese and bombings. One day they are rich, beautiful and carefree Chinese women who live with a servant and many maids. To their family, money wasn’t a problem. Both daughters worked for a painter named Z.G. who painted portraits that they posed for. Then, everything changes when they get into great debt. Their father owes money to the Green Gang, a fair amount that he can’t pay back. In return, he has to sell his daughters to Old Man Louie in America to be wives to his two sons Sam and Vernon. The two young daughters are forced into an arranged marriage for their family, and meet them in China before they are on their way to America. They take a long journey to Los Angeles to live with their new families. Along the way, they go through a lot. Their mom dies because of attacks by soldiers, and as far as they know, their father was most likely killed too. On their long journey, they encounter soldiers and a long time at sea on their way to America. While on the ship, they are questioned by many different people about their families and new husbands to make sure this isn’t an arranged marriage. May discovers she is pregnant on the ship but not with her new husbands child, so May and Pearl have to trick everybody on the ship that Pearl is the one having the baby girl. Once of the ship, they meet their new families and have to begin to adjust to the major changes of this new American lifestyle. They have to leave a lot of their old Chinese culture behind, and learn to fit in with a new family, and new culture.