Speaking of Shanghai, you might find this interesting. Is it true about the gold and the banks? ;)
The Girls of Paris, China
Author Lisa See talks to Sandra McElwaine about her turbulent historical novel, Shanghai Girls, the Paris of Asia pre-WWII, arranged marriages, and the terror in 1940s Los Angeles.
Pearl and May, your main characters, had what sounds like a very glamorous lifestyle.
Yes, I think for them it was, but that wasn't everyone's experience. You had the White Russians who had escaped out of Russia seeking refuge. You had Jews already leaving Germany, the first wave—things were not going to go well in Germany, and that's where they went, to Shanghai. So there was this great power, great desperation, extraordinary poverty—and extraordinary wealth. I didn't use this in the book, but they used to have people who would check the bank's basements. There was so much money and Shanghai is built on sort of silty soil, so they had to keep adjusting the gold to keep the buildings from tipping. That's how much gold they had, it could actually cause these buildings to tilt one way or the other.
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