Isabel’s father was the son of a man who embezzled his own father’s riches before reforming his ways and teaching his son to appreciate education.
She grew up in Shanghai during the 1930s and 40s and her godfather had dealings with legendary underworld leaders like Pockmarked Huang and Du Yuesheng. Isabel Sun was the third daughter (out of six children) of Diedie (Sun Bosheng) and Muma (Fei Baoshu). Mother and daughter, Isabel Sun Chao and Claire Chao, have recently penned Remembering Shanghai: A Memoir of Socialites, Scholars and Scoundrels, a family narrative that spans the late Qing dynasty (turn of the 20th century) until just after the Cultural Revolution (post-1976), with the bulk of the story taking place during Shanghai’s heyday in the 1930s and 40s. Because 70 to 80 years has passed since then, fewer and fewer people are around to share stories from that era. The Paris of the East, Queen of the Orient, and the City that Never Sleeps are just a few of its monikers from the 1920s until late 1940s. If there is a place and time in China that appeals to English readers more others, it’s pre-1949 Shanghai.
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