Prologue 008

PART ONE: The Drums of War 031

Chapter 1: Benny, 9 years old
Chapter 2, Ho, 13 years old
Chapter 3 Bing, 8 years old
Chapter 4 Annuo, 2 years old

PART TWO The Siege 131

Chapter 5 Benny, 11 years old
Chapter 6 Bing, 10 years old
Chapter 7: Annuo, 6 years old
Chapter 8 Benny, 14 years old
Chapter 9 Bing, 13 years old
Chapter 10: Annuo, 8 years old
Chapter 11 Benny, 16 years old
Chapter 12, Ho, 21 years old
Chapter 13 Bing, 16 years old
Chapter 14, Ho, 24 years old

PART THREE Escape 291

Chapter 15: Benny, 20 years old
Chapter 16: Annuo, 13 years old
Chapter 17 Bing, 19 years old
Chapter 18, Ho, 23 years old
Chapter 19 Benny, 21 years old

PART FOUR The Long Shadow of War 397

Chapter 20, age 25
Chapter 21: Annuo, 14 years old
Chapter 22 Bing, 20 years old
Chapter 23: Doreen and Benny, ages 19 and 21
Chapter 24: Annuo, 15 years old
Chapter 25, Ho, 26 years old
Chapter 26 Bing, 21 years old
Chapter 27 Benny, 23 years old
Chapter 28 Doreen, 20 years old
Chapter 29 Annabel Annuo, 22 years old
Chapter 30 Benny, 29 years old

Epilogue 584

Stories of people at a crossroads in history
[The last boat leaving Shanghai]

Just before the Communists captured Shanghai in the spring of 1949, the capitalists and middle class made up about a quarter of the city's population.
About a million people feared losing everything under communist rule.

There is no clear data on how many Shanghai residents fled.
However, there are records of those who accepted these political refugees.
The population of Hong Kong, another popular destination for refugees, doubled during this period.
Large numbers of Chinese refugees also appeared in Southeast Asia, North America, and Latin America.
It brings to mind the White Russians fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution, the Jews escaping Hitler's Berlin, and the fall of Saigon.


The human toll of this exodus remains a mystery.
Records are not public and research in this area is lacking.
In that sense, Helen Jia's [The Last Boat Out of Shanghai] attempts to fill the gap in memory through the lives of four people attempting to escape that madness.

Helen Zia's book is based on interviews with people who escaped the city.
This is a moving chronicle of the extraordinary ordeals faced by four ordinary Chinese people.

When she left Shanghai, Bing was a young woman abandoned by her father.
Benny, a graduate of St. John's University, falls into the abyss overnight when his father, a police officer, is arrested as a war criminal.
Ann grew up as the daughter of a Kuomintang official, but now has to live a rough life on the streets.
And finally, Ho, from a middle-class family in a nearby city, left Shanghai to escape an uncertain future.

The trajectories of these four people's lives, moving chronologically from 1937, when Japan invaded Shanghai, to the 1950s after the founding of the People's Republic of China, run parallel to each other in the distorted time and space of war-torn China.
Like the four sides of a mahjong table or a game of bridge, they interact with each other, their words intertwining and resonating, emotions seeping from one story page to another.

Helen Jia tells the intimate stories of people whose lives were upended by the Japanese invasion and occupation of China in 1937, the civil war, and the Communist takeover in 1949.
The author chose four children from different social backgrounds.
Poor person (Annuo), rich person (Benny), adopted child (Bing), honor student (Ho).
Thus, we follow the historical moments that shaped modern Chinese history through these people from various perspectives.
These four people have different circumstances, but they all face hardships in the same city.
Perhaps it represents the thousands of people who wandered around Shanghai in the mid-20th century.


The author interviewed hundreds of people for this book, and through the lives of four people, he portrays the suffering and trials experienced by the people of Shanghai during the war between 1937 and 1949.
The author also explains the complexities of Shanghai, the 'Pearl of the Orient'.
Wealthy British and Sikh traffic cops, stateless Jews and Russians who fled their homeland, the vast majority of poor Chinese and a small number of middle-class English-speaking Chinese, and a very small number of wealthy Chinese.


Helen Zia's story is a heartfelt story.
One of the four was her mother.