When Wang He Di leaves the small village he grew up in, to find work in the streets of glamourous and dangerous Shanghai, the first thing that catches his eye is the beautiful Shen Yue, a young woman also trying to make her fortunes in the "Paris of...
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1963
He Li sits on the sill of the big bay window, smoking a cigarette and looking down at the people walking on the streets, a picturesque scene with the sun setting in the background. She is thinking about her big journey tomorrow... she's going back to Hong Kong after three years away from home. Her lover Jean-Marc walks over to her, offering her a glass of red wine.
"Merci." She thanks him.
He kisses her forehead as she takes a sip of the Shiraz, its silky smooth taste lubricating her parched throat.
"What are you thinking of Cherie?" Asks Jean-Marc, settling down on the chaise lounge in the corner nearest to her.
He Li shrugs and says,
"I don't know, just about going back to Asia after so long. Life in Paris is very different and I guess I'm just anxious about how it's going to be seeing my family after so long."
"Why won't you let me come with you Lili? You know how much I want to meet your family and to see where you are from?"
"I already explained to you that it's my sister's wedding."
"Are weddings not the perfect time for significant others to meet the family? We have been together for two and a half years. We are serious no?"
"Of course we are serious, but I don't want to take the spotlight off my sister's big day...and introducing you as my lover will certainly do that."
"I don't understand this Lili, you are not a child anymore...you are twenty-six years old! You can do whatever you want. Why are you so afraid of them? Or is it that you are ashamed of me?"
He looks at her with crestfallen green eyes, his long chestnut hair in style with the Bohemian lifestyle they subscribe to. Their Rive Gauche apartment, her singing job and his career as a working artist, is everything she has ever dreamed her life to be, when she started reading novels about far flung places in her bedroom in Hong Kong. She first came to Paris on tour with a review that was made famous at the Hong Kong Hotel. All she ever wanted to be was a singer and she had to fight her parent's ambitions for her future, in order to become one. She didn't want to get married early like Yuèqín or even go to university after high school.
He Li was never as good at the whole school thing so it didn't appeal to her to keep it up for another four years. She just wanted to perform, so she would spend all her time sneaking off to clubs or attending shows at the hotel and learning all the latest popular songs. Eventually her mother allowed her to audition for one of the musical acts and she blew everyone away with her talent. It seemed cruel to keep her from her dreams and so when the show got the opportunity to tour Europe, she jumped at the chance to see the world. She was only supposed to stay for six months, with Paris as her last stop, but she met and fell in love with Jean-Marc, a young French man who has been rebelling against his upper crust upbringing since he was sixteen. He helped her sort out her papers with the help of his parents' government contacts, and she has been living there ever since. She was estranged from her parents for the first year of leaving and not returning home. But Xiao Xing helped push for a reconciliation between them and now He Li will be seeing her whole family in two days' time and she extremely nervous about how it will all go.
