White Bauhinia in Hong Kong

Author: Yu Qing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-03-01
Features: The charm of unconventional women and the flavor of life, filled with the romance of golden years. The days spent in that unique city with Fan Liuyuan in Hong Kong. This book is a sequel to Eileen Chang's famous novel "Love in a Fallen City." Eileen Chang's novel "Love in a Fallen City" tells the love story between Bai Liusu, a daughter of a declining aristocratic family, and Fan Liuyuan, the son of a Chinese-foreign merchant, as they marry amidst the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and the city's perilous situation. The engagement announcement was published in the newspaper, and after several twists and turns, Bai Liusu became Fan Liuyuan's legitimate wife. Fan Liuyuan no longer played around with her and saved his witty remarks to tell other women. Yu Qing's "Bai Liusu in Hong Kong" continues this storyline. It's somewhat like a sequel to "Dream of the Red Chamber," each with its own writing style. Of course, the portrayal of Bai Liusu isn't limited to this interpretation. In "Bai Liusu in Hong Kong," Fan Liuyuan falls in love with a female waiter at the Shanghai International Hotel and divorces Bai Liusu. Shortly after moving to England, he is abandoned by this Shanghai lady. He married twice in England—once with a former colleague from the same school and once with Angela, a British girl with African ancestry. After both marriages failed, he harbored his longing for Bai Liusu and spent his later life in solitude and depression as a librarian in a school library.
Abandoned, Bai Liusu, with a little savings and some property left by Fan Liuyuan, with the help of Qi Zhiyuan, invested in stocks and real estate, growing from small to large and accidentally getting rich. Her third husband was this much younger Qi Zhiyuan. After Qi Zhiyuan's death, Bai Liusu, who lived to be over eighty, still resided in the Mid-Level Road area but enjoyed taking her maid, Xiao Xiang, to Youmaidi to eat radish cakes and listen to Cantonese opera. She remained a wealthy and ordinary Shanghai woman with a face like a white glutinous rice dumpling, living a prosperous and simple life. Yu Qing fully utilized her imagination, extending the love story set beneath the gray walls of Shallow Water Bay in Hong Kong by decades. The fate of Fan Liuyuan and Bai Liusu also seems to align with the development of their characters' destinies. Therefore, readers can no longer help but sigh and reflect on the protagonists of the novel.