Daughters of Shanghai
Abstract
Daughters of Shanghai is an historical fiction novel set in China between 1937 and 2014. It is centered around resilient Lucy Lau who struggles to survive war, natural disaster, betrayal, and grief while raising four generations of daughters. She believes that honor comes before duty, and family before all. She waits for the day that one daughter will understand an inheritance she’s kept secret for seventy-five years, a Ming tea set that’s worth more than money. It’s a family heirloom that for three hundred years has been passed down from mother to daughter. After the communists won the civil war, it became a bourgeois relic and a crime to own. Its motif depicts a snowy scene, the Tao plum tree, Confucian bamboo, and Buddhist evergreen—the three friends of winter, China’s three religions. All of her history painted on porcelain whose strength and beauty has never been surpassed. Lucy keeps the tea set safe as a symbol that her family and their nation will endure even the harshest conditions. From the Japanese invasion, World War II, the Chinese Civil War, the rise of Mao, the Cultural Revolution, the revival of capitalism, and new communism under Xi Jinping, Lucy Lau’s story is the story of modern China through the eyes of an ordinary citizen.
Table of Contents
Abstract -- Critical introduction
Degree
M.F.A. (Master of Fine Arts)