46 pages • 1 hour read
Lisa SeeShanghai Girls
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapters 21-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “Destiny”
Part 3, Chapter 21 Summary: “Forever Beautiful”
The family has settled into their new home by the summer of 1952. During this time, Old Man Louie grows increasingly forgetful and is no longer the domineering patriarch he once was. Vern is still alive, though he must stay in bed, and Pearl has taken on the chore of tending to him. Joy is in high school, living up to her parents’ academic expectations and behaving like a proper, obedient daughter.
Upon returning home one day, the sisters are shocked to find Old Man Louie reading a copy of China Reconstructs, a Chinese Communist magazine. He is most interested in the cover art, which displays two girls who look exactly like Pearl and May. Pearl realizes that the artist is Z.G. She concludes that he still lives in Shanghai and still loves her all these years later. A week later, the family learns that Old Man Louie has developed lung cancer, and he only has months to live. When he dies, everyone follows the traditional Chinese funeral customs to give him a good send-off into the afterlife.
Part 3, Chapter 22 Summary: “Inch of Gold”
The summer after Joy graduates from high school in 1956, she shows signs of rebelling against her traditional upbringing. She will soon leave to attend the University of Chicago and insists she should be given more freedom to socialize with her friends. To distract her, May proposes hiring Joy as a movie extra to earn some pocket money for her trip.
Once Joy goes away to college, she writes to say that she joined an organization called the Chinese Students Democratic Christian Association. Pearl is pleased since she, herself, has converted to Christianity. Later letters are more concerning. Joy becomes involved with a pre-med student who has romanticized Chinese Communism and convinced her that they should return to the homeland to support the revolution. Joy even gets a passport for this purpose. Pearl is alarmed because the American government has become increasingly watchful of Chinese activities in this country.
Part 3, Chapter 23 Summary: “Dominoes”
When Joy returns for the summer, she seems rebellious and modern. Her praise of Chairman Mao alarms her parents even more. Pearl cautions, “In your school haven’t they taught you about the domino theory? One country falls to Communism, then another, and another. These lo fan are scared. When they’re scared, they do bad things to people like us” (276). Joy is unaware that her parents are unauthorized immigrants, so she shrugs off the warning. She mocks their frugal ways and their fear of the government.
Although Joy remains oblivious to changes in the neighborhood, Pearl notices FBI agents questioning the uncles. If someone admits to being a paper son, he is promised citizenship so long as he informs the FBI about other paper sons in Chinatown. Inevitably, Pearl and Sam are taken in for questioning. They stick to their stories despite multiple interrogations. Finally, an agent comes to their home to see if they have any copies of China Reconstructs, but they’ve already burned the magazines ahead of time. The agent says that Joy is involved in a Communist group at her university, and he threatens Sam and Pearl with deportation. After the agent leaves, Sam is so unnerved that he hangs himself. By doing so, the FBI has no case to prove against him or his family.
Part 3, Chapter 24 Summary: “The Boundless Human Ocean”
In the aftermath of her husband’s suicide, Pearl is consumed by grief and rage. Weeks later, May tries to coax her out of the house. As the sisters converse, May lets slip that she tipped off the FBI about Sam. Since paper sons who confess are given citizenship, she thought that this might solve the family’s dilemma once and for all. Pearl is furious at her sister, and they begin to argue viciously about past grudges going back to their childhood.
Pearl accuses May of being reckless and selfish, while May says that Pearl has always been a coward who was afraid to move forward. As their argument escalates, May also admits that Joy’s father is Z.G. He was in love with May even though Pearl had a crush on him. The sisters don’t realize that Joy has returned home and has overheard most of their argument. She is shocked to learn all her family’s secrets at once.
Part 3, Chapter 25 Summary: “When Our Hair Is White”
After the argument, Pearl retreats to her room. The next morning, May rouses her with the news that Joy has left a goodbye note and packed her things. She intends to fly back to China to find her biological father in Shanghai. May and Pearl spring into action to figure out a game plan. Pearl will fly to Hong Kong and travel by land the rest of the way. Vern gives her all the money he has saved over the years, enough to cover her trip. May will stay behind to run the family business and care for Vern. As the siblings part in the airport, Pearl thinks, “Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life” (309). Pearl then goes off in search of her daughter, confident that she will find her own destiny along the way.
Part 3, Chapters 21-25 Analysis
All of the book’s major themes are revisited one last time in the final segment. The initial focus falls on The Bond of Sisterhood when Old Man Louie displays a Communist magazine with cover art featuring Pearl and May. This visual image brings the narrative full circle to the sisters’ posing sessions for Z.G. The cover-girl motif also reminds them of their bond as sisters and offers nostalgia for the life they left in Shanghai. Old Man Louie has grown increasingly sentimental about his homeland as he ages. He uses the images in the magazine to remind him of his beloved China.
After living in America for nearly two decades, Pearl can finally see her own Cultural Identity Crisis, even if her father-in-law can’t. Both of them have romanticized their past. Pearl says:
In these moments, I regret the years of homesickness and loneliness I’ve felt for Shanghai: the way I turned it into so many golden-hued remembrances of people, places, and food [...]. I berate myself: [...] How could I not have sucked in all the sweetness instead of pining for memories that were only ashes and dust? (285).
Pearl’s newfound appreciation for her adopted country is also tested in this segment when she finds her family Trapped by Circumstance again. The political climate in America has shifted to paranoia over Russian and Chinese Communism. Joy does little to alleviate her parents’ anxiety as she spouts rhetoric about supporting the revolution. To a lesser degree, Joy’s behavior echoes the cultural identity crisis of her parents. They wanted her to assimilate as an American citizen, but they also wanted her to obey as a Chinese daughter: “We raised our children to be Americans, but what we wanted were proper Chinese sons and daughters” (264).
Joy’s involvement in a Communist student group at college draws the scrutiny of the FBI. Pearl’s worst fears are realized when her family’s unauthorized immigration status is about to be exposed. Vern was born in America, and May is Vern’s wife, so their status is safe, unlike Sam and Pearl’s. Sam’s suicide curtails any further investigation into the matter, but his death precipitates an even bigger crisis and leads to the book’s final return to The Bond of Sisterhood.
May’s well-intended meddling led to Sam’s death, which understandably unleashes her sister’s fury. Once again, their argument dredges up every past grievance and wrong, including May’s admission that Z.G. is Joy’s father. Joy overhears this confession and makes the impulsive decision to flee to China to find her biological father. The petty bickering between Pearl and May falls away in the face of this crisis. As they always have, they unite to deal with the problem. During their final conversations, Pearl has an epiphany that fuses the themes of cultural identity and sisterhood. She realizes that America, not China, is her home, and she depends on May to maintain that home until she returns.
Since the story will continue in a sequel, the novel ends by emphasizing one last time that Pearl and May will always have each other. Pearl says, “My sister is the one person who truly knows me, as I know her. The last thing May says to me is ‘When our hair is white, we’ll still have our sister love’” (309).
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