 Helen made me care about the people in this book and I wanted to know more about them their future and their families and That gets us right into this that you interviewed more than a hundred people For this how did you finally decide to focus on these four? Oh boy well first can I just say thank you to the San Francisco Public Library and all of you for coming out here tonight on such a beautiful evening and to sherry who for Being such a dear friend and and being willing to do this with me and also to the 1990 Institute and Corey Yang for for organizing this event. So thanks to all of you and and You know for an author, especially when you do spend 12 years working on at home You never know how it's going to come out how it's going to be received and so it's just so amazing to to see all of you and and to Feel like I've touched people like sherry and and a number of dear friends and readers here And as sherry pointed out, I actually started this book I Had it on my mind for more than 12 years It was something I had thought about for a long time because what I wrote about was And a forgotten exodus a story that I had heard from the time that I was a child and The more I wanted to know about it the the more I found out that there was nothing There is not a single book in the English language Not a single dissertation or a master's thesis about this particular exodus in English in Chinese there are about three books all in Taiwan about the exodus to Taiwan so my wanting to know about it was something that There was nothing for me to find just tidbits and that's why I undertook Interviewing people and actually I interviewed more than a hundred Survivors of this I call them survivors people who live through this exodus and I know some of you are here this evening this is a World War two generation and I interviewed well over a hundred other people experts professors folks who specialize in China before World War two World War two after World War two and Shanghai in particular which you see Berkeley Actually is quite noted for its Shanghai scholars, but these four in particular their stories were so compelling That it that it was just stunning and and such rich detail. I mean so out of the hundred You narrowed it down to four Was there a reason? There is a reason I have to say that telling a the story of more than hundred people is very difficult to do even more than More than four people. It's really hard for a reader to track those stories But there's a reason that I undertook this and if you'll bear with me I did want to to share a personal piece of why I ended up doing this book because I'm in ABC and for the Chinese Americans in the room You'll know that means I'm an American born Chinese when I was a child In growing born and raised in New Jersey by the way anybody else here from New Jersey. Oh My brother Hoyt. He's also first you count and he's also not ashamed to admit that he's from New Jersey the rest of you I know you're out here, but but our father said to my mother when she was When we were in diapers, he said don't speak Chinese to the children Why because that was the height of the McCarthy period. It was a time that my father knew that Chinese were Being looked at as potential spies as a fifth column in the US And so he thought that as children we would be discriminated against if we spoke Chinese now as an adult I know that that wasn't going to happen and I regret that he had said that to my mother But I never thought that I was the right person to do this research Even though I felt like there was a story that needed to be told because I don't speak Chinese I don't read Chinese and I you know in my mind. I really thought this should be done by somebody who is not only fluent in Mandarin also fluent in Shanghainese and Fluent in old Shanghainese which was spoken in the 1930s and 1940s and who could read both simplified and traditional Chinese Texts, but there was an even better reason why you were the most qualified well to write this book So so if you don't if you'll bear with me, I'm going to read a short passage, which is why I took this up and One of the four characters that sherry mentions All of the four began I start in 1937 when they were children and so this is a story of one of the characters who was at six years old in 1936 and She was about to go on a trip with her father And was very excited about doing that this six-year-old who was only known as a little sister at the time Baba her father Baba announced that he would take little sister on a train ride to Suzhou 60 miles away toward Shanghai She remembered every moment of that journey for she had been giddy that Baba had chosen her Not one of her brothers. She sat on her father's lap Her eyes glued to the window mesmerized by the neat rice fields and towns just like hers Sweeping by in a blur When they arrived in Suzhou, she saw men and women dressed in fine silk fabrics and even in foreign outfits Unlike her mother and father who wore roughly woven traditional dress Big posters showed pretty ladies with curly black hair wearing tight cheap house Promoting cigarettes mosquito coils and rat poison When they reached the station Baba flagged down the driver of a wooden moon wheeled cart After a twisty bumpy ride over archstone bridges and canals lined by weeping willows They finally came to a stop at a small store Inside her father spoke to the shopkeepers in a low voice while she stood waiting by the door Looking out at the parade of vendors and hawkers on the street Soon Baba called for her and told her to stand still by him the shopkeepers looked into her mouth and Squeezed her thin arms when they were finished poking and prodding her one of them took her hand and led her to another room As she turned to look for her father. She saw his back as he headed out the door Baba Baba she had shouted after him. He didn't turn around Baba come back. She cried. How could he leave without her? the stranger gently pushed her into a small dark storeroom and locked the door Alone and terrified of what might lurk in the darkness at first she could only whimper Then she steeled herself and called for her father as hard as she could until she grew horse and couldn't shout anymore Exhausted she sobbed herself to sleep When the little girl awakened on the musty Excuse me on the musty dirt floor. She thought she had had a terrible nightmare But when she tried to open the door it wouldn't budge She could see the glare of daylight around the cracks Once again, she screamed for her father Baba never came And so I heard this story About 15 16 years ago, and it was told to me by my mother and she was the little girl And she was already well into her 70s, and she had never told anyone I had never heard this before I had grown up wondering about What life was like in China because in New Jersey people would always say go back where you came from and when I said New Jersey I'm here They meant China, so I would ask my mother What was life like for you as a little girl growing up in China and my mother always said That was wartime a bad memory and that was all she would ever say So I never knew anything until this moment when I was having dinner with my mother actually in Rossmore and Walnut Creek and that childhood mantra just sort of popped into my mouth when I was You know just trying to make conversation with my mom and I said gee mom too bad You can't tell me about your childhood when you were a little girl in China You know something that an adult child would stupidly say and she looked at me that evening And she said all right you want to know I'll tell you and So this was the first story she told me and I was in total shock I hadn't never known this and of course even as adults, you know from the time where children we have a family narrative a story that our parents tell us about You know our story our families our history that they hope will make us stronger people and That's why they don't tell us stories like these and and so What happened after? She finally released and told you this story Was it part of a healing process for her and and and you and Hoyt and the other siblings Must have been oh we were in total we couldn't believe it I mean my mother when she told me the story it first said I'll tell you but you can't tell anybody else And I said oh okay mom and isn't a book now right right now. It's now. It's in the book By the end of the story and this was just the beginning. I mean you can imagine she had been given away just as the invasion by Japan and the full-blown World War two is going to begin and And so just Her life her very circuitous Life from then on I mean she began to tell me and so and I began to ask lots of questions But by the end of this evening I said is It all right if I tell my siblings your other children and she paused to think about it and she said yeah, okay so I got on the phone that night and and and Called every one of my siblings, you know, there were six of us so and we were all in a state of shock We had no idea when I told my sister she started crying You know just knowing that this had been my mother's life and her early beginnings but what was so shocking was that she had kept the story a secret all her life and it wasn't until she was in her 1970s and I imagine that if I had not just blurted that question out that night she might never have told me because What happened was after a few years went by and I mean every time I saw my mother after that I would just be asking her another question another question tell me more and then what happened and what did you say to this person and Why do you think this happened and why are you telling this now and she would say My father gave me away because I was a girl number one and And When I said to her mom your memory is so good like what another smart thing to say she said I Was six years old. I remember every detail because that was the worst day of my life and so she was very clear with all of these details and her memory was remarkable but as I heard the Details I was like you would remember everyone here would remember these things that happened to them Well, as she told them I could feel she grew lighter. I mean I told my siblings. So then they would ask her questions I have two nephews here Rory and Mitchell and when they would ask their grandmother questions She was so happy actually to be telling her Grandchildren these stories who did reports about their grandmother and you could feel that every time she told it was Kind of a release of that Shame that she held because there was so so much stigma, especially of that generation of having been abandoned Of then being adopted later and all of those things Then when did you decide to tell her you were going to write a book about this? Well Not long after that. I mean I did ask my mother I mean, you know she knew I was asking her a lot of questions and by then I had already written two books probably guess knowing you and and she it was I could feel Liberating for her to be able to tell these stories stories that she had locked away for so long and never told anybody and she had so much knowledge about the time and the history and what was going on in China and Shanghai and So at some point at some point, I guess You know being the daughter who was also the writer and the journalist. I I really wanted to know more I wanted to know the context of what had happened to my mother was how how unique was this for her But what was also going on with other children of that time and other people in that time in Shanghai because as I said there was really nothing for me to look up about it nothing to read and so I Began to do to find people I mean that was that was a challenge in itself because you know there aren't any lists to go for and I Just began asking everybody. I knew do you know anybody who might have come from this time period in China who left as part of this exodus who might have Lived in Shanghai or passed through Shanghai or have some knowledge of this time What's so fascinating though is that the details are so specific in each of the stories for ho for Benny for and while I mean I can understand the trauma and and a child remembering that but I mean there There are really some horrifying specific details watching watching war and seeing bodies in the street I think that was Benny's story Every every everybody who was a child in Shanghai saw bodies Even your mother's story is she was racing to get to the ship to escape in that last ship That's right that someone in a penny cab almost hit her Did people remember all every single little detail that's in here? I mean seriously it is rich with detail once you read or if you have read you will understand This was such a tumultuous time in China It was a time of you know world war occupation by a terrible cruel invader Enemy for eight years eight long years. I mean China fought World War two largely alone and For longer than any other country and so the children the young people Well, not just the young people, but the people I was able to interview were young people at that time the generation of their parents had already passed away and but those were times that nobody would forget and so Literally everybody I interviewed had the most incredible heartbreaking but inspiring stories of things that they had witnessed and Truly every everyone growing up as a child in most of China at in those years grew up seeing dead bodies knowing people who had been killed or bayoneted or Terrible things and the children in Shanghai. There were so many beggars on the street that if a cold snap happened the next day there would be people who didn't make it and These kids would be told if you see a dead body on the street on your way to school Look the other way or walk the other way and so everybody all of these more than hundred people Had stories about that and you know much more than that but Then why the other three? What what brought you to finally say here? These are the ones whose stories will be immortalized in this book so Everybody had stories, but some had more than others. Some had amazing memories about The trajectory of their lives and so as I began to think about a book describing this this exodus Really, you know, we're talking about It's you know the 1949 revolution the liberation or the takeover of Shanghai However, you look at it and of China But really that's the story of modern China and so I actually start the book in 1937 and if I had had my way with my editor, which I would have started it in 1911 and 1912 Which was the fall of the Qing dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China and But that was too much history for my editor a researcher Yeah, and and so I was looking for people I actually for the four people that I I did use I know their stories. I know their parents stories and I would have Started with their parents, but because that would have been a 800 page book We started in 1937 instead the the beginning of the Sino-Japan second Sino-Japanese war and World War II that Was the basis that led the collapse of the Republic of China was what led To the revolution that was why this exodus took place, but so I needed People who could carry, you know, tell me enough of their story that would carry me through now That we're talking about ten years there and then I also Didn't want to just stop there I wanted to talk about what happened to them because this was a an exodus and a diaspora people ended up going places and what happened to them when they left and so So that narrowed down the field quite a bit because not everybody had stories that could really carry me through there and And then also, you know the average age of the people I interviewed at the time that I was interviewing them was probably very late 70s or early 80s and that would have made them around 20 In their young 20s at the time of the revolution I interviewed people who were younger than that, but they had childhood memories and so that would be different you know the experience of a ten-year-old is different from the memory and the Reflections of an adult and I wish that the Somebody researchers had begun interviewing 20 30 years earlier than that But so so these four were people who Had incredible memories. I mean they had all of those details They could they could draw me a picture of the diagram of where they lived as a child and then the success of places They could tell me in great detail what happened to them and give me their emotional content, too I mean that's part of it. You know you're living through war. You're seeing terrible things Benny one of one of the four his father was a collaborator with the Japanese He was with the losing side his family and so you can imagine in Shanghai They lived that you know the they were part of the elite of Shanghai Society. They had every caviar age scotch, you know cigars Porcelains everything that could be looted from you know the Nationalists who fled they had and of course we know how that war ended and His father was on the losing side Benny's family ends up getting booted out his father ends up in prison and I at some point have to ask Benny What was it like visiting your father in prison a traitor to you know your country and And Benny well, he didn't tell me on my first visit with him He didn't tell me on my second third or fourth interview with him It was probably my fifth year of interviewing him and and that was another thing. They had to be patient with me They had to tolerate, you know and being be willing to share these things, but he told me I said, you know at some point. How did you feel about your father and he said he was my father? I loved my father, but I hated him too. I hated him for what he chose that destroyed our family and also was so harmful to China and so these were people who had those reflections I wanted to also have a range of people's experiences so So I had two boys and two girls because of course gender and living through war and revolution and fleeing is different from a you know a Female point of view and a male point of view that you know They all went through incredible hardship, but it's still a different perspective and different things happen to them I want you you brought up an interesting point that you talked about how Benny had lived with caviar and the life of of wealth and Privilege do you think or did it cross your mind as you were writing this book that you might receive criticism because you're profiling the stories of people who Who are in were considered or portrayed as an elite class of people and why would anyone care as part of history? I think there was even something that you said yourself in one passage about The young girls who left for Hong Kong to escape that they were there as pampered Shanghai princesses That's some some work right, but did you feel that there might be well? So of the four I really wanted to get a diversity of backgrounds to in terms of wealth and privilege So Benny was the privileged one his family My mother was an abandoned girl. She had nothing and the other two were somewhere in between Anwa whose family whose father was a nationalist Official he was a fighter for the Chinese resistance against Japan. He ended up They had almost no money when she was growing up too because they were always on the run hiding from the Japanese as well as that the Chinese collaborators like Benny's father and Ho was a family on the run from the countryside his family owned land They were a landlord family, but when they were in Shanghai, they also were part of the you know the people living under siege So it was a range and I really tried to find out How many people we were talking about because here you know this was an exodus at a time of revolution So it's not like there were a lot of records Shanghai was a city of six million people and so you know at that time It was only fewer the population was only less than New York City at the time and and of world cities It was one of the metropolises of the world It was it was an international city ranking with New York London Paris and Berlin and Shanghai and if you were an intellectual an adventurer You know a bon vivant of the world somebody like Albert Einstein or Charlie Chaplin or George Bernard Shaw You went to Shanghai if you wanted to know something about Asia It was the Paris of the Orient and so it had an extreme of wealth But it also had great poverty. I mean the vast majority of people in Shanghai were incredibly poor. It was also the the Industrial, you know city of China So there was a large working class to people who worked in the factories And so I tried to get a gauge of that but there was probably about 25 percent of the population of Shanghai Which would be about a million and a half people were either middle-class, you know teachers Entrepreneurs writers journalists so they weren't wealthy at the end, you know of that 25 percent the bulk were middle-class and there was a You know a thin layer of wealthy people But so I wanted to have a range and I did not want them to be you know the the Stereotypical way that people think about Shanghai people those rich Shanghai knees which is almost what the way people look at Shanghai people today Well part of the tragedy of this story too is that once the exodus occurred when they landed in strange places Different places with new cultures new languages new cities that they faced discrimination Because they were outsiders which I think you make the point then assimilation then into this new country is difficult for all immigrants they suddenly They're they're a lot in life no matter what it was changed again drastically and they were starting from the bottom Completely, I mean this is the thing about exodus exile refugees today we have a global refugee crisis, you know and and the The migrants who come to the border You know Walking a thousand miles with their babies in arms, you know are painted as though These are the lowest of the low the criminals who are coming to infect America. Well, you know what that was the way these Shanghai Exiles were viewed as well, you know and the whole thing about history is that migrants and refugees and immigrants at any time in any place are generally not welcome and The idea that they're all the lowest of the low the dregs of society Well, one of the things of my book is to is to track just how difficult the decision was how agonizing it was for Every one of these individuals families every one of the hundred plus people I interviewed this was not Like let's travel, you know in a fishing boat and maybe die along the way with our babies And let's just go and do it and then walk to Disneyland that some people today say right It wasn't like that at all and for the migrants today or anytime. It's a debate. It's a long-involved Discussion should we leave should we stay if we stay what will happen to us if we leave what will happen to us If we leave where will we go? What will we do? How will we make a living if we only have enough money for four tickets and our family our extended family has dozens of people who goes and having to make that decision Was something that every one of the people I talked to had to decide Some of them they took their children and they said they sent them to four different countries We're talking earlier about that other people have had that experience to four different countries Why because one of them might survive and that's the same thing today at the southern border people don't go and carry their babies a thousand miles Unless they think if they stay their children will not survive childhood if they leave they might not either But they might have a chance and that's the chance that these Shanghai You know these were many of them were middle-class. They had careers. They had jobs. They had shops. They had Law practices some of them were presidents of universities others were Foot soldiers with the losing side and they all realized or feared that they would not survive And that their families would not and that's what drove them to to leave your book is Categorized as history of China, but it really sounds like you're saying that this could be a Lesson for us in modern day that you could be writing about Refugees from Syria or from Central America in this book. They could be the same characters What is what is the takeaway that you wanted people to look at here? Well, there are a few things one is that You know what if we don't learn from history We are doomed to repeat it and we are going through a time of crisis that actually, you know this period of time mid-century 20th century was one of the most tumultuous periods of modern day and You know there were refugees not only from China, but also all over, you know from all over the world and And since then, you know, this could have been there are there are books, you know Like the last helicopter out of Saigon or the last raft, you know Which there is no last raft now. They're still fleeing across the Mediterranean The last boat to leave You know Nazi Germany with with Jewish Holocaust, you know a people fleeing the Holocaust I mean the experience of people fleeing a Terrible You know a Terrible nightmare is similar in so many ways And so I tell the story through four people and their families And I hope that there will be a connection a human connection because we really are talking about well What would you do, you know if this was your family and we're here in San Francisco or the Bay Area And we have a life what would it take to make us get up and run with only What we could carry and not too much money because you weren't allowed to take that or people would stop you or what if the currency had no value and And all of those things what would it take for every one of us to do that? Well, so I try to show this issue for you know On a human level for every one of the people in my book so that you know, we might ask what what would we do and and from there Maybe to make a connection to the other people fleeing other other dangers today Is this the first book that's been written here in America in English on This chapter in history in China This is the only book in English anywhere not just in the US. Yeah Why has that been is it suppression from the Chinese government? Well, it's really the reluctance of as you said the people who survived all this to talk and to relive those memories I think it's a combination of many things first that People who survive terrible terrible times. They're not so anxious to share that right away and certainly not with their children I mean it is the experience for example of Holocaust survivors or or Families that experienced the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War two that it might skip a generation before People are willing to talk about it. I mean my mother was in her 70s before I think she felt strong enough that she could actually Say and face possible judgment by other people She had no idea how I was gonna react by telling me or other people how they would react and and I think that's true for Any anybody who experiences such trauma and I actually think that The World War two generation really, you know, we should look at them and say, you know That was a generation that was the all Experiencing PTSD now we have a name for it, but you know Is it any wonder then I mean his now I think looking at the 1950s and you know, we say oh the 1950s We're such a a sort of quiet assimilationist kind of time for Everybody everybody just want to you know go to the suburbs if you can and just enjoy, you know hot dogs and Chevrolet and Baseball well, they had lived through a terrible time every one of them has bad memories of that And so one reason I think it took a long time is because people weren't so willing to just talk about this Right away of the hundreds of people I interviewed many of them were telling me a stranger What had happened to them for the first time ever and I would be listening to these stories and I'd say at some point that's Incredible do your children they're grown children. Do they know does your family know that this had happened and many times I like your mother exactly like my mother and many times some of them would just say No, I don't think they're so interested and I would say no, I think they'd be very interesting I hope you tell your children and I think it would have been that might have been my mother's reaction had I not asked her and and I think that's one lesson of this whole thing is You know if you got a response like my mother gave me keep asking, you know at some point They might be ready to tell the story, but so that was one thing another is that This is a pretty big exodus I mean, we don't know exactly how many people came from Shanghai But I'm guessing it was in the hundreds of thousands or even if you count those who passed through Shanghai as well In the millions if you look at the people who fled China overall, it was definitely in the many millions and So when I spoke to somebody in Hong Kong and I was telling them, you know, this is what I'm researching his reaction was like, oh The people who fled Shanghai with the revolution That's such a common story now Come comment because Hong Kong was one of the easiest places to get to relatively speaking The border was wide open up until 1949 Anybody who was Chinese could pass through Hong Kong without question after 1949 the British colonial government started imposing Ways of stopping people but up until that so a lot of people fled and and they could swim You know many swam across, you know to get to Hong Kong even if the British colonial government stopped them And so for people in Hong Kong and also Taiwan, it was like really what what's the big deal about this? Everybody knows people who had fled so that was another thing I mean in a way It was such a common story that people didn't think it needed to be recorded and then another thing I'll just say this is you talked about the Shanghai people You know some of you here, how many of you have a Shanghai background? Can I see oh a number of hands? Well, you'll know that people from Shanghai have a certain reputation Among Chinese and Chinese Americans, right? It's like. Oh those Shanghai knees those arrogant big mouth show off Shanghai people And yes, and so I think there's a little bit of a you know Bias, you know toward Shanghai people like why should you tell their stories? They're perfectly capable of telling their own stories whether you want to hear it or not And so I think that was a reaction and and so, you know we're here in San Francisco with one of the oldest and most notable China towns in America and you know, of course, this was the guandong run the people from southern China You know from Hong Kong and and southern China who who first? you know settled made homes Carved out paved the way for other Chinese who followed and so among the The Cantonese people the guandong run they definitely have you know a very different culture than the Shanghai people and so when I interviewed people from Hong Kong about the Shanghai knees one of the things they would say is I like oh those Shanghai knees they take credit for everything and And and I'd ask them to explain a little more and they'd say well You know the thing is this a Shanghai person with one dollar acts as though they have a hundred dollars a guandong run a Hong Kong or with a hundred dollars acts like they have one dollar and so right there very very different attitude and So so when I wrote about the people who fled to Hong Kong There was such a culture clash and and also the Shanghai knees who ended up in China towns like San Francisco In in the United States there was also you know major culture clashes And there were marriages that came out of that too, but you know a lot of let's say a lot of sparks as well I have one other question, but Because the library is gonna close and we want time for people to say hello to you and to sign your books Um, how about a couple of questions? Do we have any otherwise? We could go on forever. Yeah Maureen There's a there's a mic coming your way. Hi, I'm Maureen I'm just wondering how did you decide what to leave out you referred to starting earlier your editor said no But but what else I don't mean people but subjects topics part of the journey. How did you choose? Well Maureen, thank you Maureen is a very dear friend and a noted journalist and she is writing a book herself a family story about Related to Shanghai and this time of as well So that's part of the painful part for writer right you can't make it a thousand page book and so Some of it is how you structure the story You know, I knew I wanted to start it at a certain point So finding the common points for the character So one reason I started it on August 13th 1937 was that was the day the Battle of Shanghai began And it began the next day with the bombing of the international settlement and the Bund How many of you have been to Shanghai and are familiar with the very famous Bund right the Waterfront buildings that look like they're a postcard from Europe and not from Shanghai. So this is a this was a common experience all of them And for those of you who have been to Shanghai the peace hotel and right there bombs Hit the top of the peace hotel then the Fairmont Hotel today and many many people died and by the racetrack Which is now people's park another series of bombs fell and 2,000 people died with that and so it was a watershed part point and so Part of it was just figuring out how to tell the story that would also bring in as many of the Individual stories that you know that could kind of carry the the story and I have Files and files of things like you know cut missing, you know You know the the cutting room floor just stories of people there were so many great stories And and one of my biggest regrets is that there were I Couldn't have everybody's stories in there and I tried but that was that was really part Deciding what the story arc was going to be and what fit in it and what didn't and it was hard. It was very hard Another question Did you find as the author that you needed to kind of fill in the blanks to keep the narrative moving? So Filling in the blanks was there were two parts to this book one was the individual stories of the of the the four main I call them characters, but they're real people The four main characters, but I also had a lot of I guess I would say cameos You know anecdotes from a lot of other people that helped move it forward But the other part that kept the story going was the history itself And so the filling in the blank I would say is describing what you know We all know December 7th Pearl Harbor Day as Americans, you know That stands out what that what happened in Honolulu, but in Asia across the international dateline It was December 8th. There were a multiple bombings that took place Throughout Asia including Hong Kong Shanghai, you know, many other cities Singapore that took place, you know, almost at the same time and so Being able to make those connections was really, you know The history was in many ways the glue that that you know between the two of them. There was no lack of ways I didn't feel that I had to be creative to fill in the blank because the Challenge was having too much to fill and and how to keep it compact so that it wouldn't bog down the readers. I Actually, may I may I just ask one other question just as a follow-up You mentioned you were in Hong Kong, and I know that you also recently went since the book was published to Shanghai and Beijing. Is your book even being sold there? And what was the reaction from people when you showed up? So kicked out obviously. No, I was a little worried Because You know the book's title is the last boat out of Shanghai the epic story of the Chinese who fled Mao's revolution Now when we came up with this title almost two years ago now You know US-China relations were in a different place than they are today and it really just to me was a description I think that was a little naive of me because Mao's revolution in China they perceive that as an American way of being you know criticizing China Mao's revolution You know that bad Mao well, you know I if they read my book they'll they'll know that you know This was actually much more of a criticism of the Guomandang the nationalists than of the the communists, but in any case I Did a book tour starting here in San Francisco went around to different studies in the in the different cities in the US But the book is about China so there were some book festivals literary festivals one was in Shanghai one in in Beijing and I thought well, I have to take it to China and so I got invited to you know Do book talks in Beijing? Shanghai and also Hong Kong and Then I found out that the Chinese government was not going to allow my book to be distributed in China which of course Creates a little problem right it's like oh I'm gonna get there and talk about my book and people aren't even gonna be able to Get it well weirdly and so I'll just let me just say that Leah my my spouse right here who was yeah, can you stand up Leah? Okay, she's frowning but But authors don't write books by themselves. They really need you know the support and Knowing that they have a home to go to you know after 12 years and things like that But so Leah and I went to to China with Creatively with more luggage than we normally would take let me just put it that way And because officially it was not a supposed to be and we weren't sure whether you know we get stopped at the immigration and customs, but we weren't and Anyway Two bookstores one in Beijing and one in Shanghai actually carried and sold the book They too Had creative means of getting it Anybody who has access to Amazon or some other online bookseller can get the e-book in China They haven't blocked that and they're perfectly capable of blocking it And so so the book was getting distributed and it and it still is but that was the reception and In Shanghai which was the place where the cultural revolution was the harshest I guess or Some might disagree with that but in any case in Shanghai They were the most nervous about my talking about this book And so one of the places they actually advertised it, but they changed the title to For young Shanghai people leave and go to America and so that became the title and You know other people said We'd like you to come and talk but could you talk about your first book about Asian-American dreams and not this book? So there's a little nervousness. I mean, it's a it's an anxious time in America But it's also an anxious time in places like China too and the the openness that once existed You can really feel is getting much narrower. And so that was true for my book and mine's not the only one May we conclude by having you just give us a quick list of some of the children of the Shanghai Immigrants because that's in your book, but I think it's a fascinating list. Oh So I took a stab at just Almost a random list of who I could think of but Amy Tan Maya Lin David Henry Huang Elaine Chao Who by the way sent me who is it? Secretary of transportation who sent me a note saying, you know that her family was part of this Shanghai diaspora and That's wonderful because I hope she can carry on the message where she is to say that You know what not all migrants are bad and Exiles and refugees should be welcomed that the way her family was I Steven Chu who was a secretary of energy under Barack Obama and a Nobel Prize winner a number of Nobelist scientists engineers financiers Philanthropists the list goes on and on and and that was just kind of a random list that I put together Chancellor Chang Lin Chen of UC Berkeley and You know so the thing about it is of this forgotten exodus and I guess I want to say that's another one of the takeaways from I Hope that comes out of this book It's not that they were the children of Shanghai exiles in particular why they were so notable Cory Yang For example as a child of this exodus and a number of other people here But it's not that it's the Shanghai connection or even the Chinese connection Which sometimes with this whole model minority thing people think oh, it's because they're Asian They're so such high achievers. No, it's because and study after study shows it's because they are the children of immigrants migrants and refugees who see what Sacrifices were made on behalf of you know, what they're what their parents went through so that they could have a safe harbor and so You know, whether it's Colin Powell or you know, Edwidge dandy kit or any number of other Carlos Santana, you know of of children of migrants from anywhere in the world That's where the achieve Achievement gene or pressure or whatever we call it comes from and so so we have a lot of Shanghai Achievers, you know people we can point to who are contributing to this American democracy But that's because they were given the opportunity to be here and to be able to raise their families Thank you, Helen Thanks to all of you. Thank you so much And I'm happy to say that Helen will be available at the table outside to sign your books Answer any questions and to thank you herself for coming But we are so happy that you all are able to join us tonight and thank you Helen and Sherry for being here Well, thanks to all of you. Thank you Sherry and thank you for and thank you library So and thank you all I am gonna be sitting out there You know if you brought books or you bought bought books either way I'm happy to sign them and and continue the conversation out there. So thank you so much