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Reviews
Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution by Helen Zia
blindbandit's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
alyshareads's review against another edition
5.0
This is one of the first times I've listened to an audiobook for a whole book but I really loved this book. It follows different Chinese people through WW2 and the Communist takeover. I did not know a lot about what had happened in China and the changing power dynamics and constant fear and difficulty that so many Chinese people went through. I was dying to know what would happen in each of the stories and thought the book had a good mix of sharing the historical context and forming a narrative.
jnsteng's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.75
oleksandr's review against another edition
3.0
This is non-fic about people, who lived in Shanghai in the 1930s-40s and witnessed first hand the Japanese occupation, Chinese nationalists and communists. I read is as a part of monthly reading for March 2020 at Non Fiction Book Club group.
The book starts in 1949 with an overview about plight of 1 to 1.5 mln Shanghainese (of 6 mln city), who run from incoming communists. Most of them are rich and middle-class families, not more usual poor refugees, whom we often see in other stories.
The book then backtracks and starts in the mid-1930s by introducing all four main characters of different background. Each part of the book is for a selected time period and tells these four uncommented (except by Shanghai itself) stories. This kind of narration is not very well suited because only you ‘get into the shoes’ of one person, you’re transferred to a completely different set of people.
The persons are:
- Ho, a boy, born on a farm in 1924, a son of landlord. His family runs to the city from Japanese. He is a bright one in the family and therefore destined for paid education, first in China and then in the US.
- Benny, a boy, born in 1928 in a family of compradors (local agents for western businesses). As a student, his father fought for recognition of Chinese people rights, but ended up a high level police official under Japanese occupation.
- Bing, a girl, born in 1929 in the family of Chinese nationalist father and progressive mother. Father worked underground during the war and a girl grew up without him. They had to run to Taiwan with other nationalists
- Annuo, a girl, born in 1935 in a poor family who sell her to a childless woman for this ought to help with fecundity. She is then transferred to another family, with excessively strict mother and socialite elder sister
There are a lot of interesting facts about the daily life.
The book starts in 1949 with an overview about plight of 1 to 1.5 mln Shanghainese (of 6 mln city), who run from incoming communists. Most of them are rich and middle-class families, not more usual poor refugees, whom we often see in other stories.
The book then backtracks and starts in the mid-1930s by introducing all four main characters of different background. Each part of the book is for a selected time period and tells these four uncommented (except by Shanghai itself) stories. This kind of narration is not very well suited because only you ‘get into the shoes’ of one person, you’re transferred to a completely different set of people.
The persons are:
- Ho, a boy, born on a farm in 1924, a son of landlord. His family runs to the city from Japanese. He is a bright one in the family and therefore destined for paid education, first in China and then in the US.
- Benny, a boy, born in 1928 in a family of compradors (local agents for western businesses). As a student, his father fought for recognition of Chinese people rights, but ended up a high level police official under Japanese occupation.
- Bing, a girl, born in 1929 in the family of Chinese nationalist father and progressive mother. Father worked underground during the war and a girl grew up without him. They had to run to Taiwan with other nationalists
- Annuo, a girl, born in 1935 in a poor family who sell her to a childless woman for this ought to help with fecundity. She is then transferred to another family, with excessively strict mother and socialite elder sister
There are a lot of interesting facts about the daily life.