A Novel About 5 Malaysian Chinese, Set in Contemporary Shanghai

choi

Julia Lovell, Shanghai Express; A  novel captures the glamour and grit of a city that draws rich and poor in search of wealth and the dream of self-reinvention. Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 98060259039422.html
(book review on Tash Aw, Five Star Billionaire. Spiegel & Grau, 2013)

Quote: “But up to now, the best-known stories of Shanghai have concentrated on either Chinese or Western experiences of the city. In "Five Star Billionaire," the Taiwanese-born, Malaysian writer Tash Aw chooses a refreshingly novel perspective: the contemporary migration of Malaysians, rich and poor, in search of the "Shanghai dream" of self-reinvention and wealth. For hundreds of years, most travelers between mainland China and Southeast Asia moved in the opposite direction, as millions of Chinese fled to Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia in search of economic opportunities generated by European imperialism. The recent rise of coastal China has, at least in part, reversed this dynamic. Through five distinct Malaysian-Chinese voices, Mr. Aw wonderfully expresses the grit and cosmopolitan glamour of Shanghai today.

Note:
(1) Tash Aw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tash_Aw
(full name is AW Ta-Shi 歐 大旭; Born [in 1971] in Taipei, Taiwan, to Malaysian parents, he grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia before moving to England to study law at Jesus College, Cambridge and at the University of Warwick and then moved to London to write)
(2) Spiegel & Grau
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegel_%26_Grau
(a publishing imprint of Random House founded by Celina Spiegel and Julie Grau [in 2008])

(3) "The 'Neoperceptionist' writers (Mu Shiying and Liu Na'ou, for example) captured the manic rhythms of the metropolis with tales of flaneurs, emancipated modern girls and streams of consciousness.
(a) Neoperceptionist School:  "The term Shinkankaku 新 感覚-ha 派 (Neoperceptionist School) was coined by author CHIBA Kameo 千葉 亀雄 (1878–1935) to describe a literary movement of the 1920s and 1930s centered among rising novelists who published in the literary journal Bungei jidai 文芸 時代 (Literary Times). Trademarks of the neoperceptionsts include the rejection of traditional I-Novel realism, an emphasis on creating an intellectual reality grounded in modes of perception (hearing, sight, taste, etc.), and a subjective approach to understanding modern consciousness, sensation, and circumstance. The school’s popularity rivaled that of the contemporary proletarian literature movement. Authors prominently involved in the movement include YOKOMITSU Riichi  横光 利一 [1898-1947], KAWABATA Yasunari 川端 康成, NAKAGAWA Yoichi 中河 与一 (1897–1994), and KATAOKA Teppei 片岡 鉄兵 (1894–1944).  See also MODERNISM."
J Scott Miller, Historical dictionary of modern Japanese literature and theater. Scarecrow Press, 2009.
http://japan_literature.enacadem ... ERCEPTIONIST_SCHOOL

* Ja.wikipedia.org calls 新感覚派 as "戦前の日本文学の一流派."  
(b) MU Shiying  穆 時英
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_Shiying
(1912-1940; "Mu Shiying was seen as a Japanese collaborator and was assassinated by a Nationalist assassin in 1940. However according to Prof David Der-Wang of Harvard University, Mu's family later came forward with evidence of his underground Marxist work, and his role as a Nationalist double-agent")

* That is
王 德威 David Der-wei WANG. 中央研究院 中國文哲研究所 Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, undated.
http://www.litphil.sinica.edu.tw ... id-Der-wei-Wang.htm
(c) LIU Na'ou  劉 吶鷗
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8A%89%E5%90%B6%E9%B7%97
(1905-1940; 本名劉燦波，台灣台南縣柳營鄉人; 曾就讀於上海震旦大學; 曾任汪精衛政府機關報紙《國民新聞》之國民新聞社長一職; 35歲時在上海被槍殺)

(4) "Around the same time, the city [Shanghai] was a magnet for Western literary celebrities—G.B. Shaw, Noël Coward, W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood all passed through.
(a) GB Shaw is George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), who was born in Dublin, Ireland and died in England.

* Welcoming the English Writer George Bernard Shaw in Shanghai, February 17th, 1933. MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), 2011.
http://www.moma.org/interactives ... february-17th-1933/

GB Shaw is the one with a long white beard in the left upper corner of the photo.
(b) Noël Coward
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No%C3%ABl_Coward
(1899-1973; an English playwright)
(c) WH Auden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Auden
(Wystan Hugh Auden; 1907-1973; born in England, later an American citizen)
(d) Christopher Isherwood
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Isherwood
(1904-1986; a British novelist)

(5) Young women writers nicknamed the "Shanghai babes," such as Mian Mian and Zhou Weihui, penned journeys of self-discovery through wild excesses of sex, alcohol, drugs and lip gloss.
(a) Mian Mian 棉棉 (1970- )
(b) ZHOU Weihui  周 卫慧
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Weihui
(1973- ; Her novel Shanghai Baby 上海宝贝 (1999) was banned in China)

(6) “a blind date robs her blind”

blind (adv): “used as an intensive <was robbed blind>”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blind
(7) “The young Justin [Lim] encounters Gary's ill-destined mother at a seedy Malaysian karaoke bar”

ill-destined = ill-fated
(8) “Walter Chao gives a master class in how to bribe a local planning official.”

master class (n; First Known Use 1952):
“a seminar for advanced music students conducted by a master musician”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/master%20class