On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan.
In his address on December 7, Roosevelt called the day one of “infamy,” a date that would live forever in disgrace. He announced that the United States had been suddenly and deliberately attacked by Japan. Before the attack, Japan had even continued inviting the Americans to negotiations to throw them off guard. Finally, Roosevelt asked Congress to declare that, from the moment Japan launched its attack on Sunday, December 7, a state of war had existed between the United States and Japan.
On December 8, Congress passed the declaration of war. The Pacific War erupted.
Qin Siyu was surprised that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. He was not surprised, however, that the United States had entered the war.
America had already been deeply involved in it in practice.
Once Britain was the only European power still holding out, the United States decided to help. If Germany controlled the Atlantic, America would be in considerable danger too. Selling and lending weapons, developing industries, expanding its military: step by step, the country had become deeply entangled. In February 1941, Mussolini and Roosevelt closed each other’s embassies. Roosevelt froze German and Italian assets in the United States, detained their vessels and those under their control, signed an agreement to “protect Greenland from aggression,” established weather stations there and removed German ones, and dispatched warships to escort vessels carrying supplies leased to Britain.
Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June. In July, the United States stationed forces in Iceland’s capital, which Roosevelt described as having been done “at Iceland’s invitation.” Greenland and Iceland lay between America and Britain along the Atlantic routes, so Germany viewed this as practically an unofficial announcement that the Americans had joined the war.
In August, Roosevelt and Churchill met on Downing Street and issued the Atlantic Charter.
Elio’s Notes: The historical chronology differs from the novel here: Roosevelt delivered the “Day of Infamy” address on December 8, 1941, not December 7, and Roosevelt and Churchill met aboard ships in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, not at Downing Street, for the August 1941 Atlantic Charter. The narrative’s wording and sequence have been preserved. Sources: U.S. National Archives, FDR Presidential Library.
On September 4, American and German forces clashed in the Atlantic and exchanged fire, though neither side scored a hit.
The situation escalated on October 15. German forces attacked a British convoy, and the British asked for help. American warships went to the rescue. Germany fired torpedoes, killing eleven Americans. Though neither side had declared war, in practice they were already fighting.
On the other front, Japan had failed to defeat China by 1940, yet its resources were already running short. Meanwhile, France and the Netherlands had been defeated and could no longer attend to their colonies. Japan saw an “opportunity” and began advancing into Southeast Asia, hoping to cut China’s supply lines while seizing the resources needed for war, such as rubber and oil.
In September 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, bringing the three countries into close alignment. That same month Japan occupied northern Vietnam. France was indeed powerless to intervene, but Britain and America’s attitudes toward Japan shifted. Relations between China and the United States grew closer, and America finally imposed a genuine steel embargo on Japan.
In July 1941, Japan began moving into southern Vietnam. The American reaction was fierce. Japan was expanding and occupying Western colonies, including American holdings. This was no longer merely about “blockading China.”
In July and August, the United States froze Japanese assets and placed a complete embargo on oil. The Netherlands also froze Japanese funds in the Dutch East Indies.
Japan chose to keep advancing southward, seizing resources by going directly after the oil in the Dutch East Indies.
America did not want to fight on two fronts. The president considered Hitler the more urgent threat. His strategy was to fight Germany while continuing to negotiate with Japan. Secretary of State Hull and others took an uncompromising position, demanding Japan withdraw from China and all of Indochina and abandon the Tripartite Pact. Japan would never agree.
On October 16, the even more radical Hideki Tojo became prime minister and formed a cabinet.
On November 26, Hull presented the Japanese with a document that clearly sided with China and demanded Japan’s withdrawal from China. The Japanese considered its terms “too harsh.” Negotiations had, in effect, collapsed.
A few days later, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Perhaps it hoped to destroy the fleet and gain the advantage; perhaps it wanted to intimidate America and seize the initiative in negotiations.
In fact, there had been scattered warnings before the attack. But Americans had always been arrogant, and practically no one believed Japan would really do such a thing.
On December 8, Japan invoked the Tripartite Pact and asked Germany to declare war on the United States. Between the treaty and Roosevelt’s provocations, Hitler was furious. He declared war on America on December 11, and America declared war on Germany that same day. The two-front war had ultimately proved unavoidable.
A week before Pearl Harbor, at Thanksgiving, Qin Siyu had once again taken to the streets with his fellow students to raise money and collect supplies for China’s war of resistance against Japan.
Taishan had fallen that year. Japan subsequently occupied Hong Kong and severed the routes connecting China and America, and Chinese people in Chinatown could no longer send money to their families back home.
Countless families whose livelihoods depended on relatives working in “Gold Mountain” lost their support overnight. Some wives of men working in Chinatown had no choice but to sell their jewelry or property, while others were even forced into prostitution or had to give away their children.
Because Taishan was an important transportation hub, it had fallen twice within six short months: captured, liberated, then captured again.
Blood had run in rivers through Taishan, but people in Chinatown could not even find out whether their families were safe.
The Second Battle of Changsha had been lost the previous month. Changsha had fallen, even though China’s troops had far outnumbered the Japanese. They had defended Changsha, only to lose it later, and everyone was heartbroken. The earlier Battle of Zaoyi had also ended in defeat, with Yichang captured and Zhang Zizhong killed.
Elio’s Notes: The novel compresses several events. Hong Kong fell on December 25, 1941, after that year’s Thanksgiving, and although Japanese troops entered Changsha briefly during the Second Battle, they withdrew in early October. The depiction of Changsha as simply lost by Thanksgiving does not reflect the full outcome. The original story chronology is retained. Sources: Hong Kong Government Records Service, Hunan Provincial Research Institute.
It was said that a counteroffensive would take place in December to retake Changsha. So they seized the Thanksgiving holiday to hold another event, raising funds while publicizing the resistance against Japan.
Qin Siyu participated, as did Lin Suyu, who had graduated and returned to San Francisco.
They walked along Grant Avenue, waving flags and holding up placards.
Some carried donation boxes to collect contributions. Others sold handicrafts made by Chinatown girls, such as badges. The CCBA also ran sales points for the wartime bonds being issued by China’s Nationalist government.
As always, the fundraising event featured all kinds of performances.
A giant dragon danced down the street.
For the fundraiser, Chinatown residents had made a dragon dozens of meters long.
Whenever the procession reached an important place or somewhere crowded, the young women stepped forward. All wore qipao and had flowers of various colors fastened in their black hair. Soft and graceful, they smiled at the locals and asked for their support.
Lin Suyu always stood in the middle, where she could attract the most attention.
Now she wore a red flower in her hair. Several girls sang Chinese songs, played Chinese music, and performed Chinese dances.
Suyu’s voice rang out clearly as she sang “Jasmine Flower.” Qin Siyu carried a flower basket into the crowd to collect donations.
Lin Suyu had also studied Cantonese opera. After singing “Jasmine Flower,” she picked up a gaohu and began to play.
Each time she raised her eyes while drawing the bow across the gaohu and looked out at the crowds on either side, first one, then the other, applause erupted, along with the same hooting and teasing that always came.
More dollars appeared, held aloft or thrown into the air, and Qin Siyu collected them one by one.
Nearby, several more girls began to dance.
In qipao, their movements were restrained. At times they stepped forward together, at times tilted their upper bodies to one side, at times raised their arms in unison, at times kicked a foot out low, their hems fluttering for an instant. At times—
Every time, the crowd burst into cheers, and dollar bills came flying.
Always the same.
Always the same.
Among every kind of performance, the greatest sums were always raised when the girls in qipao put themselves on display. Sometimes they could collect a great many dollars in only a few minutes.
Lin Suyu did not mind.
But every time Qin Siyu saw her, saw all of them doing this, he felt so terribly sad.
From 1931 to 1941, a full ten years had passed. Yet here, the most effective way to raise money remained the display of “Oriental beauty.”
The girls of Chinatown wore qipao and presented themselves, singing Chinese songs and performing Chinese dances. The “Oriental girls” were invariably the event’s climax, its central attraction.
Year after year, Lin Suyu and the others had taken to the streets countless times with flowers in their black hair, qipao, and high heels, beautiful, delicate, and graceful, to raise American dollars for their faraway homeland engulfed in war, to increase its military funds and fight the Japanese.
Because so many people here had not come to see anything of China. They had come only to look at Oriental women.
Before every event, Lin Suyu would even wash her hair and make herself look pretty.
Finally, Lin Suyu sang “Songstress of the Wandering World” at the top of her voice. A song from a 1937 film, it had become famous in the last couple of years, and many people had heard of it. Dressed in her qipao, she gestured as she sang: “…The young girl is thread, and her lover the needle; stitched together, they will never part. Love, oh love, my darling, stitched together, never to part!”
When she finished, there was another rain of banknotes. Countless bills were tossed into the air.
So much money had been thrown out that Qin Siyu went along with his basket, bending down to pick the notes up, one after another.
One, and another, and another…
Behind him, Lin Suyu was calling out her thanks in English: “Thank you! Thank you for your support!”
One white man was extraordinarily leering. As he tossed out a dollar bill, he shouted, “Here! Sweetheart! This is for pretty little thing like you! Pretty girls ought to be paid!”
He was shouting “sweetheart,” “this is for a pretty little thing like you,” “pretty girls ought to be paid”—
The dollar landed beside Qin Siyu’s feet.
Though Lin Suyu had such a fiery temper, she never talked back to remarks like these and never interrupted.
At a time like this, what use was dignity?
Qin Siyu’s hand stopped for a moment. Then he picked up the money.
But he felt so humiliated.
As he bent to retrieve it, a tear fell with a soft plop onto the dollar bill.
That night, after he returned home, he sat on the windowsill and looked outside. Thinking of Suyu and that bastard of a white man, he lost control, and tears spilled from his eyes again.
Aston sat opposite him, looking anxiously at his face. “Seany, what’s wrong? Can you tell me?”
Qin Siyu shook his head. He did not particularly want to discuss what had happened to Lin Suyu.
He always tried not to burden Aston with his bad feelings. But today he simply could not bear the weight of them. He threw himself against Aston’s broad, solid chest and sobbed uncontrollably.
He thought of Taishan, of Changsha, of everything that had happened since 1937, then since 1931, even since 1840. It had been almost exactly a hundred years now. He could not hold back.
“China is so weak now, Kingsley…” His tears soaked the front of Aston’s shirt. Overwhelmed with sorrow, Qin Siyu sounded like a helpless child as he said, “She’s too weak…”
Author’s Note:
This is real history… At fundraisers, the grand finale was always the “Oriental girls” in qipao, and they raised the most money. I read about it many years ago, and it made me so sad Q_Q. I may have exaggerated it a little for the purposes of the novel.