Wayson Choy

"Three weeks before his fifty-seventh birthday, novelist Wayson Choy received a mysterious phone message during his publicity tour for The Jade Peony. When he called the number, an older woman's voice answered, telling him that she had just seen his mother on the streetcar. Wayson politely informed her that his mother had died two decades earlier. "No, no, not your mother," the voice insisted; "your real mother."". "The woman on the phone was right: He had, in fact, been adopted. So, three weeks before his fifty-seventh birthday, Wayson Choy became an orphan.". "This astonishing revelation inspires the beautifully wrought, sensitively told Paper Shadows, the story of a Chinatown past, lost and found. From his early experiences with the ghosts of old Chinatown to his discovery later in life of closely guarded family secrets that crossed the ocean from mainland China to Gold Mountain, this multilayered portrait of a child's world reveals uncanny similarities between the colorful secrets that enrich Wayson Choy's award-winning The Jade Peony and the subsequently discovered secrets of his own life."--BOOK JACKET.

Chinatwon, Vancouver, of the early 194Os provides the backdrop for this fresh, uplifting, award-winning first novel, told through the reminiscences of the three young children of an immigrant Chinese family. Jook-Liang is the "useless girl" of the family, who dreams of becoming Shirley Temple and escaping the rigid, old ways of China. Jung-Sum is the adopted middle son who triumphs over loss and prejudice through boxing, and soon finds himself grappling with a bewildering sexual attraction. Lastly, Sekky - the sickly youngest child - surprises the entire family by teaching them how to mourn, and how to go on living. Finally, there are the secrets and magic of two respected elders: Old Wong, "The Monkey King," whose past returns to threaten his present and Poh-Poh, or Grandmother, who is the heart and pillar of the family. Side by side, her three grandchildren survive hardships and heartbreaks with grit and humor, discovering a new land without forgetting their common ground.

Would she be a wife or a handicap? Wealth and social standing meant little to Glynis. Her aim in life was domestic: a husband and a quiet home, somewhere away from it all. But Steven Grant-Tally didn't fit into this image. He was handsome, clever, rich, highly successful, and he moved in glittering social circles entirely alien to her. He had everything and he needed a glamour girl for his career. With his egotism and his ambition to climb the ladder of fame, Steven was the reverse of all Glynis's simple ideals. That was what worried Glynis about her fiance. She loved him despite the differences in their backgrounds, but she didn't move in his expensive, luxurious world, and she didn't approve of the hectic glamour of his social life. Could shy and retiring Glynis, with her hand-made clothing and simple ideals, be a match for the other woman in his life...? All she wanted to be was his wife. They were in love, but could love bind them together? Could their marriage survive on love alone when there was such an insuperable barrier between them?

Jook-Liang droomt ervan actrice te worden en te ontsnappen aan de strenge regels van het Chinese familieleven. Haar geadopteerde broer Jung-Sum probeert zijn problemen met zijn seksualiteit en zijn traumatische jeugd in China te overwinnen door te gaan boksen. De tweede broer Kiam-Kim komt maar zijdelings in het verhaal voor. De derde broer Sekky raakt geobsedeerd door oorlogsspelletjes en leert een verschrikkelijke les wanneer zijn oppas verliefd wordt op een Japanse man. De pioenroos beschrijft de herinneringen van de drie jongste kinderen uit een Chinees immigrantengezin in de jaren dertig en veertig in Chinatown, Vancouver. Op prachtige wijze vertellen zij over het Canadese leven, over de verschrikkingen van de oorlog in hun geboorteland en over de zoektocht naar hun identiteit. Drie kinderen groeien in de jaren dertig in Canada op in een familie van Chinese migranten en ervaren hoe het is om te leven tussen twee culturen.

An exploration of the importance of family, which for Choy is constituted not through blood but through love. He provides a quiet manifesto for embracing life, and seeing how lucky we are for each day that comes.