Tales from Old Shanghai 01

I haven't written the fighting into the story, its incidental to Chuntao and Martin's story, but the Battle of Shanghai was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of WW2 that was fought between the Chinese and Japanese forces. Between August and November 1937, the poorly equipped Chinese Army fought a doggedly one-sided fight against the overwhelming might of the Japanese Army, Navy and Airforce, buying time for the Chinese government to move vital industries to the interior. Out of 700,000 Chinese soldiers who fought, approximately 190,000 died and 83,000 were seriously wounded. While this fighting took place, Chuntao would have been as safe as anyone could be in her school in the International Settlement so I wrote it in as background rather than something she experienced directly.

Those qualifiers made, my main sources for background material and also for some inspiration have been :

"Shanghai -- The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City" by Stella Dong

"Shanghai -- Crucible of Modern China" by Betty Peh-T'i Wei

"In Search of Old Shanghai" by Pan Ling

"Shanghai - Collision Point of Cultures 1918-1939" by Harriet Sergeant

"Love in a Fallen City" by Eileen Chang (fiction)

"Lust Caution" by Eileen Chang (fiction)

"Sin City" by Ralph Shaw (autobiographical, and I love this book, it was actually what gave me the idea that sparked off this story)

"Peach Blossom Pavilion" by Mingmei Yip (fiction) -- I wrote most of the story before I read this, but the idea for the old lady remembering her past and the painting and telling her story came from here.

"All the Flowers in Shanghai," by Duncan Jepson (fiction) -- set in 1930's Shanghai, this was a really enjoyable look at the life of a young woman in Shanghai in the time I was writing my story in.

"Nora's Performance in China (1914-2010): Inspiration, Communities and Political Theatre" by Xiaofei Chen (it's a thesis on the popularity of Ibsen's "The Doll's House" in China in the first half of the twentieth century) and omg, I just had to write that in, especially as Jiang Qing acted in the play in Shanghai in the period I set this story in).

"Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922-1943" edited by Yingjin Zhang

"Courtesans and Streetwalkers: The Changing Discourses on Shanghai Prostitution, 1890-1949" by Gail Hershatter

"Love is a Many-Splendoured Thing," by Han Su-yin (Fictionalized autobiography). Han Suyin was a Eurasian doctor whose father was a Belgian-educated Chinese engineer while her mother was Flemish. Set in 1950, this really helped me visualize some of the challenges faced by an Englishman and a Chinese girl in this period, altho even in this post-WW2 years, inter-racial relationships were not quite as frowned on as they were pre-WW2, when social and racial stratification was rather more rigid.

"Performing Nation: Gender Politics in Literature, Theater, and the Visual Arts of China and Japan, 1880-1940" Edited by Doris Croissant, Catherine Vance Yeh, Joshua S. Mostow (this had a great chapter on the Chinese Modeng (Modern) Girls of the 1920's and 1930's -- but the online price is ridiculous)

And finally, "The Love Pagoda," (portions of the "Chin P'ing Mei", written in the second half of the sixteenth century and first printed in Soochow in 1610, it's been in print ever since). It's not exactly Tolstoy, I'm telling you, but the author definitely had talent and imagination and it just goes to show, we Chinese have been writing great erotica for literally centuries. I have a great literary tradition on my side if anyone asks why a Chinese girl is writing this sort of story! It's in my genes, I tell you! That's my story, anyhow. The copy I have is from 1965, picked up in a used book store and it's quite the read. The passage I quote early on in this story is one among many...

I also watched a couple of movies from or of this period, more just to get the images and some visual background in my mind than anything else. You might find these interesting. I did.

"Lust, Caution," directed by Ang Lee, set in Hong Kong in 1938 and in Shanghai in 1942, when it was occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army. Some hot sex scenes too. I loved this movie myself.

"Shanghai Triad", directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Gong Li. The film is set in the criminal underworld of 1930s Shanghai. Beautiful movie.

"Flowers of Shanghai", set in the 1880's, about courtesans and their wealthy patrons. Sloooooow and arty and very Chinese.

"Purple Butterfly," directed by Lou Ye and starring Zhang Ziyi and Li Bingbing. It's a period piece evoking the bustling, dense and increasingly dangerous Shanghai of the '30s. Mixed reviews but I liked it.

"Shanghai", directed by Mikael Håfström, starring John Cusack, Chow Yun-fat and Gong Li. Thriller set in Shanghai in 1941. Loved this one, but then I like anything with Chow Yun-fat or Gong Li. Good thriller.

"Snow Flower and the Secret Fan", set in the 19th century, a very evocative look at what it was like to be a woman in China at that time. Not an action movie. If you like arty films, yep, go for it. Action, it ain't. Not much use as a source but this was the old China that Chuntao was escaping from.

"Empire of the Sun", tells the story of the young son of a wealthy British family in Shanghai who becomes a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp.

For me, this story was a labor of love. I've always wanted to write a story set in Shanghai. I've never been there and while I'm part Chinese, it's Vietnamese-Chinese. Nevertheless, that vision of the old Shanghai from the 1930's really captures my imagination. I hope in this story I've recreated at least a little something of that city of the past and its people in your minds. It's nowhere near as historically accurate as it should be and the whole girl's school thing is almost totally fictitious, before anyone asks (as far as I know, anyhow). I researched and wrote this over four weeks, and my fingers were just flying because I've been writing a second short story for Literotica and two novels for my publisher at the same time but hey, I wanted to get it done and it's a short hot erotic story, not a masterpiece of modern historical chicklit fiction. LOL.

I did write this for the 2019 Literotica Valentine's Day competition though, so do give it a vote if you think it's worth it and thank you so much for reading this and all my other stories as well as this long comment at the end. It's every single one of you whose here on Literotica reading, voting and commenting on my stories that keeps me motivated and writing here and who have motivated me to keep working to improve my story-telling and get myself published. Yes, shameless plug coming up.

As well as about 50 (now 51 with "Never Ending Love") of my stories here on Literotica, (and one -- "And the Snow Fell" -- written as Unity Mitford) you can find one of my novel's -- "Mistaken Identity" - on Amazon, as well as a Science Fantasy short story -- "Blood Sacrifice", in "Sex and Sorcery 4" - and there'll be more coming out on Amazon over 2019 -- two more novels, the sequels to "Mistaken Identity" -- ("Shanghai Candy" and "The Final Night") - as well as an erotic science fiction novel and a full length novel version of "Blood Sacrifice" and likely a few more after that, as well as more short stories from me coming out on Literotica through 2019. So do follow me here on LIT and if you want to follow me on Facebook, I'm there too.

And once again, thank you every single one of you for helping me along the way just by being here and reading this, and a huge thank you to Laurel and Manu for giving us all Literotica ..... Chloe.