All Things Considered, May 26, 2009
In Shanghai Girls, a new novel by Lisa See, sisters May and Pearl Chin glide around Shanghai in rickshaws wearing gorgeous, tightfitting silk dresses. It's 1937, just before the Japanese invaded China during World War II, and their lives are about to be upended. May and Pearl are what are known as "beautiful girls" — models for artists who use their images on posters and calendars to sell cigarettes, soap and baby milk. One of those romanticized ads was an impetus for See's novel, about two girls who move from China to the United States before the start of World War II.
